“If you are alone you belong entirely to yourself. If you are accompanied by even one companion you belong only half to yourself or even less in proportion to the thoughtlessness of his conduct and if you have more than one companion you will fall more deeply into the same plight.”

Italian polymath of the High Renaissance

Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance, active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. Born Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, he is best known simply as Leonardo. His reputation first rested on painting, but his notebooks made him famous in a broader sense. In them, he set down drawings and notes on subjects ranging from anatomy and astronomy to botany, cartography, painting, and palaeontology. He is widely regarded as a genius who embodied the Renaissance humanist ideal, and his work helped shape European art.