Leonardo da Vinci never attended a formal school.
One of the interesting facts about Leonardo is that he never attended a formal school, in contrast to other famous Renaissance painters. Although he had some home tutoring on some topics, he was not proficient in Latin, the time's academic language. This didn't stop Leonardo from moving on. Leonardo noted in his diaries that knowledge does not begin with the study of Latin. He asserted that experience is where it all starts and that he is a "disciple of experience."
Da Vinci was raised in a rural area of Tuscany and spent a lot of time outside admiring the natural world. His notebooks show that he was particularly passionate about the characteristics of water and the behavior of raptors. His earliest recollection, according to the artist, was of a dream in which a raptor touched his face and wedged its tail feathers between his lips.
As mentioned above, he was taught the fundamentals of reading, writing, and math, but much of his in-depth education came later in life. For instance, he primarily taught himself Latin, which at the time was the language of academia. He was passionate about advanced mathematics, but the subject didn't enter his life until he was in his 30s and began devoting himself to it.
