Museo Leonardiano

Vinci’s Museo Leonardiano is devoted to Leonardo da Vinci’s work as an engineer. Housed in the medieval Castello dei Conti Guidi and the Palazzina Uzielli, it presents reconstructions of machines based on his drawings.

Why it matters

The museum opened on 15 April 1953 in the castle, which the Municipality of Vinci had received in 1919. Its founding collection came from IBM, which sponsored reconstructions of Leonardo’s mechanisms for exhibitions in the early 1950s. In 1986 the museum expanded through the fortress, and in 2004 the route extended into the Palazzina Uzielli. The models themselves document changing approaches to reconstructing Leonardo’s designs.

What to notice

The Palazzina Uzielli contains sections on mechanics, construction machinery, textiles, clocks and anatomy, including interactive reconstructions and anatomy models designed by Paola Salvi and made at the Brera Academy in Milan. In the castle, displays cover war machines, bridges, flight studies and hydraulic devices. A tower video room presents the geometric solids from Luca Pacioli’s De Divina Proportione. Model plaques identify a flying machine and aerial screw made by the aeronautical school of Guidonia in 1938, a jointed wing made by IBM Italia in 1983, and a counterweighted swivel crane made by the University of Florence in 1987. Since 2021, collaborations with the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa have added digital and virtual-reality stations.

Context and history

The castle’s donation to the municipality in 1919 preceded restoration work in 1939–1942 and the museum’s opening in 1953. Its IBM models had been shown in New York in 1951, in an exhibition supported by the company and featuring the craftsman Roberto Guatelli. Luigi Boldetti donated additional models between 1963 and 1980. Later developments included the Leonardo and Anatomy section in 2016, the loan of the Uffizi’s Landscape 8P in 2019, and renovation of the war-machines hall in 2023. A separate section on Via Roma presents full-scale reproductions of Leonardo’s paintings.