Leonardo da Vinci was described by his early biographers as a man with great personal appeal, kindness, and generosity. Michael White, in Leonardo: The First Scientist, says it is likely that the trial simply made Leonardo cautious and defensive about his personal relationships and sexuality, but did not dissuade him from intimate relationships with men: "there is little doubt that Leonardo remained a practising homosexual".

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Leonardo was exposed to both theoretical training and a wide range of technical skills, [38] including drafting, chemistry, metallurgy, metal working, plaster casting, leather working, mechanics, and woodwork, as well as the artistic skills of drawing, painting, sculpting, and modelling. In January 1478, Leonardo received an independent commission to paint an altarpiece for the Chapel of Saint Bernard in the Palazzo Vecchio, [47] an indication of his independence from Verrocchio's studio.Fragmentary wax statuette in a private collection in London, formerly in the Sangiorgi Collection in Rome; said to have come from the Melzi estate at Vaprio d'Adda. The painting is characterised by the pose of the figure with the head turned at a very different angle to the torso, unusual at a date when many portraits were still rigidly in profile. In Venice, Leonardo was employed as a military architect and engineer, devising methods to defend the city from naval attack.

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In both Annunciations, Leonardo used a formal arrangement, like two well-known pictures by Fra Angelico of the same subject, of the Virgin Mary sitting or kneeling to the right of the picture, approached from the left by an angel in profile, with a rich flowing garment, raised wings and bearing a lily. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were even feasible during his lifetime, as the modern scientific approaches to metallurgy and engineering were only in their infancy during the Renaissance. In 1507 Francesco Melzi joined his household as an apprentice, and remained with him until his death. Leonardo left Florence and travelled to Milan carrying a gift from Lorenzo to the regent ruler, Ludovico Sforza. His relationship with Michelangelo (23 years his junior) was always tense and ambivalent, as the two had such contrasting characters.He had a close, long-lasting friendship with Isabella d'Este, a renowned patroness of the arts, whose portrait he drew while on a journey that took him through Mantua.