Leonardo Davinci was an Italian painter, sculptor, architect, and one of three most famous Renaissance artists. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of “unquenchable curiosity” and “feverishly inventive imagination”. Leonardo was renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa is the most famous and most parodied portrait and The Last Supper is the most reproduced religious painting of all time, with their fame approached only by Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam. Leonardo’s drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. Michelangelo was considered the greatest living artist in his lifetime, and ever since then he has been held to be one of the greatest artists of all time. A number of his works in painting, sculpture, and architecture rank among the most famous in existence. His output in every field during his long life was prodigious; when the sheer volume of correspondence, sketches, and reminiscences that survive is also taken into account, he is the best-documented artist of the 16th century.

Two of his best-known works, the Pietà and David, were sculpted before he turned thirty. Michelangelo also created two of the most influential works in fresco in the history of Western art: the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling and The Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.

Michelangelo, with Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael, was one of the three giants of the High Renaissance. Although their names are often cited together, Michelangelo was younger than Leonardo by 23 years, and older than Raphael by eight.

Raphael Sanzio was an Italian Realism painter, and architect of the High Renaissance, and one of three most famous Renaissance artists. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neo-platonic ideal of human grandeur. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period.

Raphael was enormously productive. His best known work is The School of Athens. After his death, the influence of his great rival Michelangelo was more widespread until the 18th and 19th centuries, when Raphael’s more serene and harmonious qualities were again regarded as the highest models. His career falls naturally into three phases and three styles, first described by Giorgio Vasari: his early years in Umbria, then a period of about four years (1504–1508) absorbing the artistic traditions of Florence, followed by his last hectic and triumphant twelve years in Rome, working for two Popes and their close associates.

Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) was an Italian painter of Early Renaissance. Botticelli’s posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century; since then his work has been seen to represent the linear grace of Early Renaissance painting. Among his best known works are The Birth of Venus and Primavera.

Jan van Eyck (1390-1441) was a Flemish painter active in Bruges and is generally considered one of the most significant Northern European painters of the 15th century. It is known from historical record that van Eyck was considered a revolutionary master across northern Europe within his lifetime; his designs and methods were heavily copied and reproduced. Jan van Eyck is traditionally known as the “father of oil painting” because he invented oil painting.