Between 1500, when he returned for a time to Florence, and 1516, when he left Italy for France, Leonardo's life was unsettled. In 1502-03 and in 1506-13 he was based in Milan, in 1513 he moved to Rome, but the artistic activity of his later years was chiefly centred in Florence in the years 1500-06. From this time dates his portrait of Mona Lisa, his most famous work, which is as well known for its mastery of technical innovations as for the mysteriousness of its legendary smiling subject. In Florence also Leonardo worked out variations on a theme that fascinated him at this time and presented a great challenge to his skill in composing closely knit groups of figures. This was the Virgin and Child with St Anne, known today mainly through a painting in the Louvre, Paris and the incomparably beautiful cartoon in the National Gallery, London.

Leonardo did little artistic work in the last decade of his life, the last paintings from his hand generally being accepted are two pictures of St John (one later converted into a Bacchus), both in the Louvre.

Preview	Picture Data	Info
	Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) c. 1503-5 Oil on panel, 77 x 53 cm Musée du Louvre, Paris
	Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) c. 1503-5 Oil on panel, 77 x 53 cm Musée du Louvre, Paris
	Mona Lisa (detail) 1503-5 Oil on panel Musée du Louvre, Paris
	Mona Lisa (detail) 1503-5 Oil on panel Musée du Louvre, Paris
	Mona Lisa (detail) 1503-5 Oil on panel Musée du Louvre, Paris
	Female head (La Scapigliata) c. 1508 Oil on panel, 27 x 21 cm Galleria Nazionale, Parma
	Madonna and Child with St Anne and the Young St John 1507-08 Charcoal with white chalk heightening on paper, 141,5 x 106 cm National Gallery, London
	Madonna and Child with St Anne and the Young St John (detail) 1507-08 Charcoal with white chalk heightening on paper National Gallery, London
	The Virgin and Child with St Anne c. 1510 Oil on wood, 168 x 130 cm Musée du Louvre, Paris
	The Virgin and Child with St Anne (detail) c. 1510 Oil on wood Musée du Louvre, Paris
	The Virgin and Child with St Anne (detail) c. 1510 Oil on wood, width of detail 40 cm Musée du Louvre, Paris
	St John in the Wilderness (Bacchus) 1510-15 Oil on panel transferred to canvas, 177 x 115 cm Musée du Louvre, Paris
	St John the Baptist 1513-16 Oil on panel, 69 x 57 cm Musée du Louvre, Paris