Milan
Italy
Renaissance powerhouse where Leonardo painted The Last Supper. A center of art, commerce, and innovation from the age of the Sforzas to the modern era.
Associated figures
Virgil
Rome's greatest poet and author of the Aeneid, the national epic that told the mythic origins of Rome through the wanderings of the Trojan hero Aeneas. His poetry shaped Latin literature for centuries and remained central to Western education well into the modern era.
Augustine of Hippo
The most influential theologian in Western Christianity, whose Confessions invented the autobiography and whose City of God reimagined the relationship between faith and civilization. A former Manichaean and self-described sinner, Augustine's dramatic conversion story shaped Christian thought for fifteen centuries.
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci was the quintessential Renaissance polymath - painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, anatomist, and scientist. Creator of the "Mona Lisa" and "The Last Supper," he filled thousands of notebook pages with visionary designs for flying machines, anatomical studies, and engineering projects centuries ahead of their time.