Leonardo didn't have a surname in the modern sense. He was an illegitimate son of Piero Fruosino and a peasant named Caterina. His full name was 'Lionardo di ser Piero da Vinci' meaning 'son of Piero from Vinci' - the Tuscan village in which he was born.

Leonardo was a rival of Michelangelo , whose muscled figures he said looked like "bags of walnuts or bunches of radishes". When Leonardo took a place on the committee to decide where to place Michelangelo's masterpiece David, he criticised the poor quality of the marble.

It's not who you think it is though. Leonardo liked to base his figures on real people, and spent a long time wandering the streets looking for a criminal to model for Judas. When his patron complained that he was wasting time, Leonardo said he would base Judas on his patron.

While he's Florence's most famous son, he spent a fair amount of time in the nearby city of Milan, putting his accurate drawing and measuring skills to work as a military engineer and geographer for Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan.

Leonardo wrote many of his most famous texts backwards. This so-called 'mirror writing' has intrigued art historians for years. Was he left handed and trying to avoid smudging his ink? Or was it to stop prying eyes stealing his ideas?

In his later years, he lived here, in the Cortile del Belvedere of the Vatican City, alongside Raphael and his old rival Michelangelo. Leonardo was given an allowance and free reign over his studies, but he became frustrated as he failed to make a great impression on the Pope.