Leonardo da Vinci did not publish very many of his writings. He is best known for his notebooks, full of his recordings, observations, and ideas about a vast array of subjects. These, however, really only became public after his death. In short, he is not associated with any literary movement. In almost every other aspect of his life, however, he was part of, indeed perhaps the greatest contributor to, the Italian Renaissance.

A later generation of scholars would identify the "Renaissance man" as one who was accomplished in a wide variety of fields. Da Vinci, as a painter, architect, sculptor, engineer, and scientist, embodies this ideal. While he is most famous for paintings like the "Mona Lisa" and "The Last Supper," during his time da Vinci was perhaps best known (and profited more from) his work as an engineer. He was a visionary in developing military equipment including innovative siege towers, a giant crossbow, and a device that resembled a modern tank. More practically, he designed defensive works to be constructed around several Italian city-states. He was employed in this capacity by leading political families, including the Medici, the Sforzas, and the Borgias. Later, he worked for the King of France.

These same families employed him as a painter and a sculptor, and in his desire to produce more accurate representations of the human form, he studied anatomy and physiology, producing some of the most accurate diagrams of the human body created to that point. He was also fascinated by natural phenomena, dabbling productively in what we would today call zoology and botany.

In short, though he did not produce many written works, da Vinci was among the most productive of all philosophers and artists associated with the Italian Renaissance.