Leonardo da Vinci was born in a small Italian town in 1452.
Most people know him as the painter of the Mona Lisa, but art was only part of his life.
He filled thousands of pages with drawings of machines, birds and the human body.
He designed a kind of helicopter four hundred years before the first one flew.
He often wrote backwards, so his notes must be read in a mirror.
Strangely, he finished very few of his paintings, because new ideas kept interrupting him.
He spent his last years in France, where he died in 1519.
Five hundred years later, his curiosity still amazes us.
Words in this story
- be
- is / am / are / was
- bear
- be born: to come into the world
- small
- little; not big
- Italian
- from Italy
- town
- a place smaller than a city
- most
- more than all others
- people
- more than one person
- know
- to have information in your head
- painter
- a person who paints
- art
- painting, drawing and sculpture
- only
- no more than; just
- part
- a piece of a whole
- life
- the time you are alive
- fill
- to make full
- page
- one side of paper in a book
- drawing
- a picture made with a pencil
- machine
- a thing with parts that does work
- bird
- an animal with wings and feathers
- human
- a person
- body
- all of a person
- design
- to plan how something will look and work
- kind
- a type
- helicopter
- an aircraft with turning blades on top
- year
- twelve months
- first
- number one in order
- fly
- to move through the air
- often
- many times
- write
- to put words on paper
- backwards
- in the opposite direction
- so
- very; for that reason
- note
- a short written record
- must
- to have to
- read
- to look at words and understand them
- mirror
- glass that shows your image
- strangely
- in a surprising way
- finish
- to end
- very
- really; a lot
- painting
- a picture made with paint
- new
- recently made; not old
- idea
- a thought
- keep
- to continue to have
- interrupt
- to stop someone for a moment
- spend
- to use money or time
- last
- the one before this
- where
- at which place
- die
- to stop living
- later
- after some time
- curiosity
- the wish to know things
- still
- even now
- amaze
- to surprise greatly