Claude Monet (b. Nov. 14, 1840, Paris, Fr.--d. Dec. 5, 1926, Giverny) French painter, initiator, leader, and unswerving advocate of the Impressionist style. He is regarded as the archetypal Impressionist in that his devotion to the ideals of the movement was unwavering throughout his long career, and it is fitting that one of his pictures--Impression: Sunrise (Musée Marmottan, Paris; 1872)--gave the group his name.

Michelangelo (full name: Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni) was born at Caprese, a village in Florentine territory, where his father, named Ludovico Buonarroti Simoni was the resident magistrate. A few weeks after Michelangelo's birth the family returned to Florence, and, in 1488, after overcoming parental opposition he was formally apprenticed to Domenico Ghirlandaio for a term of three years.

Leonardo da Vinci was a Florentine artist, one of the great masters of the High Renaissance, who was also celebrated as a painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist. His profound love of knowledge and research was the keynote of both his artistic and scientific endeavors. His innovations in the field of painting influenced the course of Italian art for more than a century after his death, and his scientific studies particularly in the fields of anatomy, optics, and hydraulics anticipated many of the developments of modern science.