Explorers and artist
Rebecca Cole and Cameron Lockwood
VASCO DA GAMA
Dom Vasco da Gama was a portuguese explorer, and one of the most successful people in the age of discovery and the commander of the first ships to sail directly from Europe to India. He is one of the most famous/ celebrated explorers from that time period, being the first European to reach India by sea. This discovery was very important and lead the way for the Portuguese to create a long-lasting colonial empire in Asia. The first route the Portuguese took would not need to cross the mediterranean also not the Arabian peninsula, and that the whole voyage would be made by sea.
Early life
Vasco da Gama was born 1460 on the southwest coast of Portugal, in a house near the church of Nossa Senhora das Salas. Sines, one of the few seaports on the Alentejo coast, consisted of little more than a cluster of whitewashed, red-tiled cottages, tenanted chiefly by fisherfolk.
1480, Vasco da Gama followed his father (rather than the Sodrés) and joined the order of Santiago, The master of Santiago was Prince John, who would ascend to the throne in 1481 as King John II of Portugal. John II doted on the Order, and the Gamas' prospects rose accordingly.
Synopsis
Born on April 15, 1452, in Vinci, Italy, Leonardo da Vinci was concerned with the laws of science and nature, which greatly informed his work as a painter, sculptor, inventor and draftsmen. His ideas and body of work—which includes "Virgin of the Rocks," "The Last Supper," "Leda and the Swan" and "Mona Lisa"—have influenced countless artists and made da Vinci a leading light of the Italian Renaissance
Biography
Florentine court records show that da Vinci was charged with and acquitted of sodomy at the age of 22, and for two years, his whereabouts went entirely undocumented
Mona Lisa
Da Vinci's most well-known painting, and arguably the most famous painting in the world, the "Mona Lisa," was a privately commissioned work and was completed sometime between 1505 and 1507. Of the painting's wide appeal, James Beck, an art historian at Columbia University, once explained, "It is the inherent spirituality of the human creature that Leonardo was able to ingenuine to the picture that raises the human figure to some kind of majesty."
It's been said that the Mona Lisa had jaundice, that she was a pregnant woman and that she wasn't actually a woman at all, but a man in drag. Based on accounts from an early biographer, however, the "Mona Lisa" is a picture of Lisa Gioconda, the real-life wife of a merchant, but that's far from certain. For da Vinci, the "Mona Lisa" was forever a work in progress, as it was his attempt at perfection. The painting was never delivered to its commissioner; da Vinci kept it with him until the end of his life. Today, the "Mona Lisa" hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, secured behind bulletproof glass, and is regarded as a priceless national treasure.