The "Leonardo da Vinci" exhibition organized by the Louvre in the autumn will be one of the major events of the artistic year in Paris. Perhaps the only time you will be able to see so many of the Italian masterpiece's masterpieces in one place. This exhibition is of particular interest to the Louvre, because beyond celebrating the anniversary of Leonardo's death in May 1519, the Louvre is the only museum in the world to possess 5 of the masterpieces painted by the master. For the record, at the invitation of the new King of France, Francis I, Leonardo left Italy for France at the death of his protector, Julien de Médicis. He probably arrived around November 1516 in the residence of Le Clos Lucé, located a few steps from the royal residence of Amboise. In his luggage, there is among other things "The Mona Lisa", transported even on the back of a mule from Milan. It is there that Francis I lodged Leonardo, whom he named "the king's first painter, engineer and architect" and boarded royally. The artist lived there for the last three years of his life, organizing his notes on various scientific and artistic subjects in order to publish treatises and working on his paintings from which he never wanted to separate: "Saint Anne", "The Mona Lisa", "Saint John the Baptist". During this time, the Louvre kept admirable drawings on French-made paper, demonstrating that it was working on a monumental equestrian sculpture, hydraulic projects or the organization of festivities for the sovereign. When the master died, nearly a third of the artist's body of paintings entered the Louvre: the paintings brought to France and purchased by Francis I entered the royal collections, where there was probably already "La Vierge aux rochers" and "La Belle Ferronnière", acquired by Louis XII. In addition to this extraordinary collection, which is the very origin of the Louvre's collections, there is an exceptional collection of twenty-two drawings by Leonardo da Vinci. Leonard painted few paintings, and rarely finished them. This is also the complexity and paradox of this famous artist. This international retrospective thus makes it possible to present the results of the most recent research, combined with the critical reissue of the fundamental documentation, at the same time as the latest scientific studies conducted in the laboratory or during the recent restorations carried out by the Louvre Museum.