Two museums to discover the link between Leonardo da Vinci, Milan, and water
Leonardo’s legacy in Milan consists of an artistic, architectural, and urban heritage of such significance that the city and the master have become almost inseparable, from The Last Supper in Santa Maria delle Grazie and the Codex Atlanticus preserved in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, to the Sala delle Asse in the Sforza Castle, Leonardo’s Vineyard at the Casa degli Atellani, and Milan’s intricate canal system.
It was 1482, and Milan, a city of water, thrived on a vibrant cultural foundation. This was the setting that greeted Leonardo da Vinci, a thirty-year-old Tuscan with an insatiable curiosity about all fields of knowledge and art. He was captivated by water and the infrastructure already in place to control its course for the city’s benefit: the ancient moat of the medieval walls had been transformed into a network of Navigli (canals) with docks, berths, and ports for boats. These waterways brought food, wool, silk, and other essential materials to Milan, including wood, sand, and marble blocks for the construction of the Duomo. Leonardo became fascinated with this natural element, observing and painting it, while applying his insights into hydraulic engineering. He studied the operation of early navigation basins, calculated the flow of water, measured the canal levels, and accurately assessed the distances between them. The Codex Atlanticus preserves Leonardo da Vinci’s design for sluice gates – small underwater doors that could be manually operated to slow the flow of water and prevent boats from being jolted or losing their cargo when floodgates were opened. Today, one of the first locks built using Leonardo’s mechanism still survives in Via San Marco, the Conca dell’Incoronata.
To explore Leonardo’s genius in relation to the water systems of Milan, there are two must-visit museums: the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology, which houses, among other exhibits, two examples of the lock gates designed by Leonardo, and the ’ Centrale dell’Acqua’.
Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology
The museum has borne the name of the genius, Leonardo da Vinci, since its founding in 1953. Since 2019, the New Leonardo Galleries have been established within the museum, forming the largest permanent exhibition in the world dedicated to Leonardo da Vinci. An immersive and evocative journey explores the various fields of research that Leonardo engaged in: from training in Verrocchio’s workshop to the design of weapons, from technical systems to improve work tools to studies on flight, from the observation of the territory and the Lombard waterways to architecture, culminating with an examination of Leonardo’s influence on Renaissance painting and an installation dedicated to the drawings of his later years.
Milan’s Centrale dell’Acqua
One of the oldest drinking water lifting and distribution plants in the city, the Centrale dell’Acqua was founded in 1906 to pump clean water from the depths of the aquifer, drawing from 10 wells at depths between 30 and 60 metres. A chemical-bacteriological analysis carried out the following year revealed the purity and clarity of the water, almost on par with many mountain springs. Decommissioned in 1988, the building underwent a meticulous restoration that restored its sober neo-Romanesque forms to their former glory, making it an interesting example of industrial archaeology. Today, the Centrale is a multifunctional cultural space that educates on the value of water as a resource, its industrial management, and its role in the development of the city. As a gift with the visit is a comic book dedicated to Leonardo da Vinci titled Le cose portate dall’acqua (The things brought by water), created with Comics&Science, the CNR Editions series that experiments with the best Italian comic artists to create new forms of scientific communication. It features an unpublished story written by Giovanni Eccher and illustrated by Giuseppe Palumbo, offering insights into the presence of Leonardo in Milan.
