page_title: Leonardo da Vinci
section_title: Old age, 1516–1519
hierarchical_section_title: Leonardo da Vinci / Life / Old age, 1516–1519
caption_attribution_description: Clos Lucé, Leonardo Da Vinci's house, where he died. Amboise, France.
context_page_description: Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian man who lived in the time of the Renaissance. He is famous for his paintings, but he was also a scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician, and a writer.
  Leonardo wanted to know everything about nature. He wanted to know how everything worked. He was very good at studying, designing and making all sorts of interesting things.
  Many people think that Leonardo was one of the greatest painters of all time. Other people think that he was the most talented person ever to have lived. The art historian Helen Gardner said that no-one has ever been quite like him because he was interested in so many things that he seems to have had the mind of a giant, and yet what he was like as a person is still a mystery.
  Leonardo was born at Vinci which is a small town near Florence, Italy. He was trained to be an artist by the sculptor and painter Verrocchio. He spent most of his life working for rich Italian noblemen. In his last years, he lived in a beautiful home given to him by the King of France.
  Two of his pictures are among the best-known paintings in the world: the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.
context_section_description: In 1516, Francis I invited Leonardo to go to France with him. He gave Leonardo a beautiful house called Clos Lucé (sometimes called "Cloux"). It is near the king's palace, Chateau Amboise. Leonardo spent the last three years of his life at Clos Lucé, with his faithful friend and apprentice, Count Melzi. The king gave Leonardo a pension of 10,000 scudi. One of the last paintings that Leonardo did was a picture of John the Baptist. His model was Salai, with his beautiful long curling hair.
  When Leonardo was dying, he asked for a priest to come, so that he could make his confession and receive Holy Communion.
  Leonardo died at Clos Lucé, on May 2, 1519. King Francis had become a close friend. Vasari says that the King held Leonardo's head in his arms as he died. In his will, he asked that sixty beggars should follow his casket in procession. He was buried in the Chapel of the Chateau Amboise.
  Leonardo had never married and had no children of his own. In his will, he left his money, his books and most of his paintings to Count Melzi. Leonardo also remembered his other pupil Salai and his servant Battista di Vilussis, who each received half of Leonardo's vineyards near Milan. Leonardo's left to his serving woman a black cloak with a fur edge. Salai was the owner of Leonardo's most famous oil painting, the Mona Lisa. He still owned it a few years later when he died, after fighting in a duel.
  King Francis said: "There had never been another man born in the world who knew as much as Leonardo, not so much about painting, sculpture and architecture, as that he was a very great philosopher."
caption: Clos Lucé in France, where Leonardo lived from 1516 to 1519
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