Leonardo da Vinci

The greatest mind of the Renaissance — painter, inventor, anatomist, engineer — was also, by every honest reading of history, a man who loved men. Leonardo da Vinci reminds us that LGBTQ+ people have always been here, shaping the very foundations of art and science.

The man behind the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper needs little introduction as an artist. But Leonardo was so much more: he sketched flying machines centuries before flight, studied human anatomy with unmatched precision, and filled thousands of notebook pages with ideas the world wouldn't catch up to for hundreds of years.

A Life Among Men

Leonardo never married and left no record of romantic relationships with women. In 1476, as a young man in Florence, he was anonymously charged with sodomy — a serious crime at the time; the case was eventually dismissed. Throughout his life he surrounded himself with close male companions, most notably his longtime pupils and intimates Salai and Francesco Melzi, the latter of whom remained at his side until his death.

Historians have long understood Leonardo's relationships with men as central to his life. While the language and labels of today didn't exist in the 15th century, his story belongs firmly within the long, often-erased history of queer people.

An Unmatched Legacy

• Painter of the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, among the most famous works ever made
• Visionary inventor, engineer, and anatomist centuries ahead of his time
• A defining genius of the Italian Renaissance
• Part of the long, often-hidden history of LGBTQ+ people in art and science

Five centuries later, Leonardo remains a symbol of human curiosity at its most boundless. Celebrating him during Pride is a reminder that brilliance has always come in every form — and that the people who changed the world were not all who history's tidy version pretended they were.