Leonardo da Vinci, a true Renaissance man.

Leonardo da Vinci can be characterized as a Renaissance man through his ability to observe, his attention to detail and his imagination. Da Vinci was one of the few artists that looked at everything around him and question it. He always carried a notebook and drew whatever interesting things he saw. He examined everything closely, and tried to find answers within it. Not many people actually observed their surroundings, they saw, but did not observe. Da Vinci also paid very close attention to detail in the things that he studied, these are clear in his various drawings of anatomical accurate bodies and muscle forms. He noted everything he saw in the things he examined, and in cases like when he was disectiong bodies, even looked at how the insides worked. Da Vinci's observation skills and ability to notice detail helped his imagination hugely.
Leonardo's imagination lead to the creation and design of many of the ideas he had because he had observed every little detail in what had inspired him. The flying machine he had designed and the Vitruvian Man that he had drawn was clear evedence of this. His imagination helped him think of things that others could not, and his various ideas came from his observation of things around him. Leonardo Da Vinci was truly a great Renassiance man, his observational skills, ability to look at all the details and his great imagination lead him to think of things well ahead of his time. I think that if he had been borna few hundred years later he would be very rich indeed, because that was when all of his various ideas became possible.