Leonardo da Vinci

A high hall with a slatted wooden ceiling and a band of windows, in warm low sun. Wooden machines stand on low plinths: lock gates, the aerial screw with its spiral sail, a water screw and a rolling mill. A still from the museum's film. The machines are reconstructions built in code. — A walk through the wingFrom the film: The mechanism hall.

A dark panelled room with one hanging lamp. Under the lamp an open book lies on a long table, and a chair stands in front of it. A still from the museum's film. — A walk through the wingFrom the film: The mechanism hall.

Lived: 1452 to 1519
The wing shows: Clos Lucé in Amboise, 10 October 1517

A walk of 17 stops past about 75 works you can step up to: 25 pictures close to their real size, 15 machines, 29 anatomy sheets and his notebooks.

Enter the museum

Free entry, no account. What this museum is

In this wing

The wing shows Clos Lucé in Amboise on 10 October 1517: his last house, on one day of his life. The day is documented: Antonio de Beatis wrote it down in his diary. He was secretary to Cardinal Luigi d'Aragona, who came to visit that day. The hour is our choice. Beside the house stand the museum's own rooms for his pictures, his machines, his notebooks and his anatomy sheets.

You go from stop to stop through a film, made with the museum's own software. At most stops you can step up to the works. The pictures of rooms on this page are stills from that film.

The picture room

A long wall in dark blue hung with framed reproductions of paintings under spotlights, the nearest two The Baptism of Christ and the Annunciation. Wooden benches stand in front of the wall. A still from the museum's film. — The wall of picturesReproductions: in front The Baptism of Christ, by Verrocchio and Leonardo, then the Annunciation, both in the Uffizi.The pictures on the wall are reproductions, each with its source and licence on its label in the wing. Italian Codice dei beni culturali, art. 108 comma 3-bis: exemption for non-profit study, research and promotion of knowledge of the cultural heritage. Where the originals are

A screenshot of the wing: the Lady with an Ermine on a black ground, a young woman in a red and blue dress holding a white ermine. At the painting's lower left a bar marked ten centimetres. — Lady with an Ermine, up closeReproduction: the painting as the wing shows it when you step up. The bar at the lower left shows ten centimetres on the painting. The lettering at the top left is a later inscription on the panel itself.Held by the Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie, Czartoryski Museum, Kraków. Public domain work. Reproduction from Wikimedia Commons.

His pictures hang on one wall, more than 34 metres long, roughly in the order he made them, each close to its real size. The Mona Lisa hangs among them.

The mechanism hall

The flywheel up close: a wooden spindle on a cross of beams with struts, four arms at the top with stone balls at their ends, and a small crank. Behind it the gun with three rows of barrels, its spoked wheel in front. On the left the ball bearing on a dark plinth. A still from the museum's film. — In the mechanism hallReconstructions: the flywheel up close, behind it the gun with three rows of barrels, the ball bearing on the left.

Nine machines stand here, built in code after his sheets: the aerial screw, lock gates, a water screw, a rolling mill, a drilling machine, a flywheel, a ball bearing, a gun with three rows of barrels, and the camera obscura in its own dark bay. Each can be set in motion and seen up close, with the sheet it comes from. Two of the kinds, the lock gates and the water screw, were in use before his time.

The long gallery

A dark panelled wall with a lit case of framed drawings in four rows, a chest of flat drawers below it and one more framed drawing apart on the right. A still from the museum's film. — The wall of anatomy sheetsReproductions: his sheets in four rows in a lit case, a chest of drawers below them. The room is built in code.Leonardo's sheets, held by the Royal Collection, Windsor. Public domain works, in reproductions from Wikimedia Commons.

A screenshot of the wing's reading table: the page of the printed facsimile at the close view, a sheet in sepia with the drawing of the aerial screw and lines of mirror writing, lit on the dark table. — A page of his notebook, up closeReproduction: the reading table's close view of the page with the aerial screw, from the printed facsimile of 1883. Every page of the book turns this way.Paris manuscript B, folio 83 verso, held by the Bibliothèque de l'Institut de France, Paris, Ms 2173. Shown in the facsimile by Charles Ravaisson-Mollien, Les manuscrits de Léonard de Vinci, vol. II, Paris 1883. Public domain.

The gallery holds the reading table, a wall of his anatomy sheets and the dates of his life, cut into the floor. Each of the three is a stop of the walk.

The court

A reproduction of the Last Supper fills a pale wall in a court: a row of figures at a long table in a painted room. A still from the museum's film. — The Last Supper in the courtReproduction: the original is a wall painting in the dining hall of the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. The wall in the court is built in code.Public domain work. Reproduction from Wikimedia Commons. Italian Codice dei beni culturali, art. 108 comma 3-bis: exemption for non-profit study, research and promotion of knowledge of the cultural heritage.

Outside, a wall carries the Last Supper. Beside it stand the parachute, the revolving crane and a wind gauge. The court is the museum's own design, not a place from his life.

The house

A lion of wood and metal with gears showing in its flank stands on red floor tiles by a lattice window, in afternoon sun. At the right the end of a bench and a table. A still from the museum's film. The room is a reconstruction built in code. — The great hallReconstruction: the hall in afternoon sun, with the mechanical lion by the window.
Old accounts tell of a lion Leonardo made for a King of France. It walked a few steps, stopped and opened its chest full of lilies.
From its label in the museum

His last house, Clos Lucé in Amboise, is rebuilt in code from plans and photographs. You enter one room only, the great hall: on its table two instruments after his sheets, by the wall the mechanical lion. The chapel, the study window and the north room you see from outside.

What the wing holds

Here is what the wing holds, in the order of the walk: every picture, machine, page and sheet you can step up to.

The paintings: Every work, its holder, its size
The machines: Fifteen, built in code
The notebooks: A table, and pages to turn
The body: Anatomy and a glass heart
His life: Dates cut into the floor
The house and the grave: What is his and what is not

The paintings

24 works hang here: 22 paintings and two drawings. One portrait, Ginevra de' Benci, hangs twice: its front and its painted back.

The Mona Lisa is less than a metre tall. Most are his own work or work he had a hand in. One is a copy by other hands, and the last is from his workshop.

They are reproductions, each with its holder and its size in the list. A word after a size, such as disputed or workshop, says who is thought to have made the work. It is not one of the museum's four grades. A predella is a small panel from the foot of an altarpiece.

The Baptism of ChristGallerie degli Uffizi, Florence177 × 151 cm
AnnunciationGallerie degli Uffizi, Florence98 × 217 cm
Ginevra de' BenciNational Gallery of Art, Washington38.1 × 37 cm
Ginevra de' Benci the painted backNational Gallery of Art, Washington38.1 × 37 cm
Madonna of the CarnationBayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek, Munich62 × 48.5 cm
Benois MadonnaState Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg49.5 × 33 cm
Saint Jerome in the WildernessPinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican City103 × 75 cm
Adoration of the MagiGallerie degli Uffizi, Florence240 × 244 cm
Annunciation, predella panelMusée du Louvre, Paris16 × 60 cm Disputed
Virgin of the Rocks, Louvre versionMusée du Louvre, Paris199.5 × 122 cm
Portrait of a MusicianVeneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan44.7 × 32 cm Disputed
Lady with an ErmineMuzeum Narodowe w Krakowie, Muzeum Książąt Czartoryskich, Kraków54.8 × 40.3 cm
La Belle FerronnièreMusée du Louvre, Paris63 × 45 cm
Madonna LittaState Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg42 × 33 cm Disputed
The Burlington House CartoonNational Gallery, London141.5 × 104.6 cm
Madonna of the Yarnwinder, Buccleuch versionBuccleuch collection, on loan to National Galleries of Scotland48.3 × 36.9 cm Qualified attribution
Madonna of the Yarnwinder, Lansdowne versionKenneth C. Griffin Collection, on loan to The Metropolitan Museum of Art49.5 × 37.1 cm Qualified attribution
The Fight for the Standard, after the Battle of AnghiariMusée du Louvre, Paris45.3 × 63.6 cm Later copy
Mona LisaMusée du Louvre, Paris79.4 × 53.4 cm
Virgin of the Rocks, London versionNational Gallery, London189.5 × 120 cm Qualified attribution
The Virgin and Child with Saint AnneMusée du Louvre, Paris168 × 113 cm
Salvator MundiPrivate collection, present location unconfirmed65.7 × 45.7 cm Disputed
Saint John the BaptistMusée du Louvre, Paris72.9 × 56.3 cm
La ScapigliataGalleria Nazionale di Parma, Complesso della Pilotta, Parma24.7 × 21 cm Qualified attribution
Bacchus, formerly Saint John the BaptistMusée du Louvre, Paris177 × 115 cm Workshop

Sizes are height by width.

The Last Supper

It is a wall painting, so it is not in the picture room. It fills a wall in the court: 8.8 by 4.6 metres, as large as the original in Milan.

Original: Museo del Cenacolo Vinciano, Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan

The machines

The museum builds fifteen machines in code: fourteen after his sheets and the lion after old accounts. Fourteen of them move. Only the parachute stands still.

No record is known of the aerial screw being built in his lifetime.

A codex is a bound book of handwritten leaves. 656r means leaf 656, front. A v means the back, so 83v is the back of leaf 83.

One stop, up close

Here it is the aerial screw.

The sheet asks whether a turning surface can bite into air the way a screw bites into wood.
From its label in the museum

A model of the aerial screw, split by a line of red chalk. On the left it is drawn in red chalk lines, on the right it is built in wood and linen, in low sun, with its shadow on the wall behind. — The aerial screwReconstruction: after Leonardo's sheet. A separate model from the one in the museum.Built in code for this page

The stop

He wanted to fly

His age: about 30

The line

In Milan he drew machines like these. He wanted to fly. Nobody wrote down that he ever did.

The drawer

His offer to Milan’s ruler, Ludovico Sforza, survives as a draft. Nobody knows if it was sent. He drew this screw later, about 1487 to 1489. The sheet gives one size: eight braccia, about 4.7 metres, rim to middle. To lift itself it needs at least nineteen kilowatts, we estimate. Four top cyclists make about two for an hour.

The record

Reconstructed from Ms B f. 83v. No lifetime flight is documented. The holder identifies this sheet as Ms 2173, f. 83v. Leonardo da Vinci drew a screw-shaped surface. His note names linen sealed with starch, cane supports and an iron wire rim.

The source

Manuscript B, folio 83 verso, that is leaf 83, the back. The holder's number: Ms 2173. About 1487 to 1489.

The title and the three texts are the museum's own words.

On the sheet: A spiral surface on a mast, with a frame and a round base. One size: eight braccia, an old measure, rim to centre.
Our choice: How steep the spiral is, the timber and its joints, the bearing, the drive and the speed.
Where the sheet is: Bibliothèque de l'Institut de France, Paris.
What it does: It turns five times a minute, as in the museum, and stays on the ground.

In the mechanism hall

Aerial screwafter Manuscript B 83v
Lock gatesafter Codex Atlanticus 656r, detail a
Flywheelafter Codex Madrid I 114r
Camera obscuraafter Paris Manuscript D 8r
Water screwafter Codex Atlanticus 6r
Rolling millafter Manuscript I 48v
Drilling machineafter Codex Atlanticus 108r
Ball bearingafter Codex Madrid I 20v
Gun with three rows of barrelsafter Codex Atlanticus 157r

In the court

Parachuteafter Codex Atlanticus 1058v It stands still.
Revolving craneafter Manuscript B 49r
Wind gaugeafter Codex Atlanticus 675r

In the house

Pendulum inclinometerafter Codex Atlanticus 1058r
Proportional compassafter Codex Forster I 4r
Mechanical lionFrom old accounts. No sheet of it is known.

The notebooks

An open book on a wooden table under warm light. The left page is printed text, the right page shows a notebook page with a drawing. A still from the museum's film. The pages are from a printed copy of 1883. — The book on the tableReproduction: open at the page with the aerial screwCharles Ravaisson-Mollien, Les manuscrits de Léonard de Vinci, vol. II, Paris 1883. Public domain by age. The notebooks are held by the Bibliothèque de l'Institut de France in Paris.

On the reading table lies a printed copy of 1883 of two of his notebooks. You can turn all its 438 pages, and 188 of them show the notebooks' own sides, in his mirror writing from right to left.

17 topics gather 207 pages from his notebooks. A shelf holds seven more books of his notes to turn, 1,158 sides in all.

A side is one face of a leaf.

The topicspages

Flight18
Machines15
The parts of machines14
War and weapons13
Water in motion10
Rivers and water machines15
Churches and domes11
Cities and fortresses11
Light and the eye14
Advice to painters10
Faces and bodies14
Horses and the great horse10
Plants and animals8
The earth and the sky11
Geometry and patterns9
His words16
Letters and his life8

The shelfsides

Codex Madrid I The book of machines368
Codex Madrid II Fortresses, maps and geometry316
Codex on the Flight of Birds The flight of birds36
Codex Trivulzianus Learning words94
Paris Manuscript A Perspective15
Codex Atlanticus, excerpts The largest collection44
Codex Arundel Notes from forty years285

The body

A glass vessel with a narrow waist stands on black. Fine gold grains drift inside it and gather in a pale band at the waist. A still from the museum's film of its own model. — The glass model of the heart valveReconstruction: the museum's own model, built from his notes. A still from its film.

A drawing in a pale mat and a thin wooden frame hangs alone on a dark wall: a page of small sketches of the heart and lines of mirror writing. A still from the museum's film. — The aortic valveReproduction: his sheet on the valve, in its frame. The wall behind it is built in code.Royal Collection, RCIN 919082. Public domain work. Reproduction from Wikimedia Commons.

On a wall of the long gallery hang 29 of his anatomy sheets, reproductions of originals in the Royal Collection at Windsor.

One sheet hangs apart: the heart valve. He drew the flow curling behind its flaps, and the curls help shut the valve, as he wrote. At its stop a film of about 30 seconds shows that in the museum's own glass model, built from his notes.

The sheets, by title

The bones of the foot
The bones and muscles of the shoulder
The throat, and the muscles of the leg
The superficial anatomy of the shoulder and neck
The bones of the arm and leg
The muscles of the arm, and the veins of the arm and trunk
The muscles of the leg, and the intercostal muscles
The vertebral column
The bones and muscles of the leg
The bones, muscles and tendons of the hand
The muscles and tendons of the sole of the foot
The bones of the foot, and the shoulder
The skeleton
The muscles of the shoulder and arm, and the bones of the foot
The muscles of the leg
The muscles of the upper spine
The tendons of the lower leg and foot
The muscles and tendons of the lower leg and foot
The veins of the face, and a torso
Notes on the senses and the nervous system
The heart compared to a seed
The uterus of a gravid cow
The skull sectioned
The cranium sectioned
The anatomy of the neck
The fetus, and the muscles attached to the pelvis
The fetus in the womb
Studies of the nerves and muscles, the heart, and optics
The aortic valve

His life

The timeline of his life holds 56 dates. Twelve of them are cut into the floor of the long gallery, and a date in the floor opens the timeline there.

It is told in seven parts and names seven people around him, from his teacher to the king of France.

The parts

Vinci and Florence, 1452 to 1481
Milan, 1482 to 1499
Venice, Florence and the Romagna, 1500 to 1506
Milan again, 1506 to 1513
Rome, 1513 to 1516
Amboise, 1516 to 1519
After 1519, what was left

The people

Andrea del Verrocchio
Ludovico Sforza
Salaì
Melzi
Cesare Borgia
Charles d’Amboise
Francis I

The house and the grave

A tall brick house with stone corners and a steep gable, seen across a paved terrace in low sun, trees in autumn leaves at its sides. In front of it a small stand on a post. A still from the museum's film. The house is a reconstruction built in code. — Clos Lucé, seen from outsideReconstruction: the house from its north gable, across the terrace. On the small stand in front of it lies one of his sheets, a reproduction too small to read here.A deluge. Leonardo da Vinci. Public domain work. Reproduction from Wikimedia Commons. Held by the Royal Collection, Windsor, RCIN 912380.

Room by room: what the sources give, and where the wing made a choice.

The great hall: Rebuilt from plans and photographs. The fireplace dates from about 1500.
The furniture in the hall: The table, the bench, the chest, the chair, the stools and the candlesticks are not his own. A house like this had such things at the time.
The small chapel: Seen from outside. Tradition dates it to 1492. That is not confirmed. Its wall paintings may be by his pupils. That too is not settled.
The study's window: Seen from outside. The wing places the visit of 10 October 1517 behind this window. That is our guess: the diary names no room. Under it you can open one of his sheets. It shows a deluge.
The north room: Seen from outside. The museum in the real house places his room here. That is a proposal, not a record.
The grave court: The museum's own court, not his grave: a pale slab with his name. He asked for a grave in the castle church. It was pulled down. Nobody is sure where he rests, so the stop is named Presumed.

The wing in numbers

Stops: 17
Works: about 75
Pictures: 25
Machines: 15
Anatomy sheets: 29
Notebook pages: 207; Gathered by topic on the reading table.
Pages to turn: 438; All of them in the book on the reading table.
Sides on the shelf: 1,158; In the books of his notes on the shelf beside the table.
Dates of his life: 56

Where the originals are

In the order the walk meets them:

Gallerie degli Uffizi Florence
National Gallery of Art Washington
Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek Munich
State Hermitage Museum Saint Petersburg
Pinacoteca Vaticana Vatican City
Musée du Louvre Paris
Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana Milan
Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie, Muzeum Książąt Czartoryskich Kraków
National Gallery London
Buccleuch collection on loan to National Galleries of Scotland
Kenneth C. Griffin Collection on loan to The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Private collection present location unconfirmed
Galleria Nazionale di Parma, Complesso della Pilotta Parma
Bibliothèque de l'Institut de France Paris
Biblioteca Nacional de España Madrid
Biblioteca Reale Turin
Biblioteca Trivulziana, Castello Sforzesco Milan
British Library London
Royal Collection Windsor
Museo del Cenacolo Vinciano, Santa Maria delle Grazie Milan
Victoria and Albert Museum, National Art Library London
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris Paris

The museum names these museums, libraries and collections because they hold the originals, and for no other reason. It is independent of every one of them.

A deep blue night sky full of stars, with the dark crowns of trees at its lower edge. — Looking upBuilt in code: the stars of that evening over Clos Lucé, the end of the walk

The wing ends under the stars

At the last stop, the grave court, it gets dark and you look up. The stars stand as they stood over Clos Lucé at nine in the evening of 10 October 1517. They are worked out star by star from a star catalogue, for the day the diary gives and the hour we chose. The sunset shows a usual October evening, not that one, and the shooting star is the museum's own.

A walled court in low sun, a young tree in autumn leaves. On the paving a pale slab with the name Leonardo da Vinci, behind it a board on two posts with a small block and its long shadow, and a small stone with a year. At the left a painting in a dark frame. A still from the museum's film. — The grave courtBuilt in code: the museum's own court: the slab with his name, a board with the low sun of the day he died at a minute we chose, the stone with the year of the dig. At the left a painting by Ingres.Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, François Ier reçoit les derniers soupirs de Léonard de Vinci, 1818. Petit Palais, musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris. Image: CC0 Paris Musées.

Enter the museum

Free entry, no account.

After the walk

You have seen the wing, or you are about to. Here is where to read on.

Leonardo da Vinci's inventionsWhat Leonardo da Vinci drew, what was ever built and what was older than he was.
Where the originals areEvery museum, library and collection that keeps an original shown in this wing.
What this museum isWhat is shown, how the words are made and who runs the museum.