Lionardo da Vinci, so called from a castle in lower Valdarno, was the natural son of one Pietro, notary to the Florentine republic, and was born in 1452.[130] He was endowed by nature with a genius uncommonly elevated and penetrating, eager after discovery, and diligent in the pursuit; not only in what related to the three arts dependant on design, but in mathematics, in mechanics, in hydrostatics, in music, in poetry, and also in the accomplishments of horsemanship, fencing, and dancing. He was so perfect in all these, that when he performed any one, the beholder was ready to imagine that it must have been his sole study. To such vigour of intellect he joined an elegance of features and of manners, that graced the virtues of his mind. He was affable with strangers, with citizens, with private individuals, and with princes, among whom he long lived on a footing of familiarity and friendship. On this account, says Vasari, it cost him no effort always to behave and to live like a man of high birth. Verrocchio taught him painting; and as we have said, while still a youth, he surpassed his master. He retained traces of his early education through his whole life. Like Verrocchio, he designed more readily than he painted; he assiduously cultivated mathematics; in his design and in his countenances, he prized elegance and vivacity of expression, more than dignity and fulness of contour; he was very careful in drawing his horses, and in representing the skirmishes of soldiers; and was more solicitous to improve the art than to multiply his pictures. He was an excellent statuary, as is demonstrated by his S. Tommaso in Orsanmichele at Florence, and by the horse in the church of S. John and S. Paul at Venice. Vinci not only modelled in a superior manner the three statues cast in bronze by Rustici, for the church of S. John at Florence, and the colossal horse at Milan, but assisted by this art, he gave that perfect relief and roundness, in which painting was then wanting. He likewise imparted to it symmetry, grace, and spirit; and these and his other merits gave him the title of the father of modern painting,[131] though some of his works, as was observed by Mariette, participate, in some degree, in the meanness of the old school.