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In the footsteps of genius: A travel guide to Leonardo Da Vinci’s Italy

From Florence to Milan and beyond, discover where Renaissance polymath Leonardo Da Vinci developed his incredible mind.

Published: 26 April 2019 17:22 CEST

In the footsteps of genius: A travel guide to Leonardo Da Vinci's Italy

The port of Cesenatico, designed by Leonardo Da Vinci. Photo: DepositPhotos

We might as well get the cliches out of the way: Leonardo Da Vinci was a genius of unparalleled stature. During the course of his life, he created some of the greatest paintings of his (and any other) age, as well as inventing machines and recording anatomical observations that wouldn’t be surpassed for centuries.

However, we often overlook the some of the strange, exciting and even lurid details of his life – a life that we can trace across Italy and beyond.

With the 500th anniversary if his death approaching on May 2nd, what better time to explore the life of one of Italy’s greatest geniuses?

Humble beginnings: Vinci and Anchiano

For one of the most learned and accomplished men of his age, Leonardo’s origins were fairly obscure. Born in Vinci, Tuscany, in 1452 to Caterina, a humble peasant, he was the illegitimate son of a Piero, a notary who spent much of his time in Florence. His childhood was spent between the town and the nearby hamlet of Anchiano, where his mother lived.

In Anchiano, you can visit Leonardo’s childhood home, Casa Natale di Leonardo. A relatively humble stone dwelling, it is now a small museum, featuring exhibits about his early life.

Vinci, birthplace of Leonardo. Photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFP

In Vinci, there are a number of sites related to Leonardo’s life. The church of Santa Croce is where he was said to have been baptized, while the castle overlooking the town is home to the Museo Leonardiano, which houses life-size models of some of his most famous inventions, as well as artefacts from his early years and an explanation of life in the Renaissance town.

Don't miss the contemporary artworks scattered through Vinci that were inspired by the master, from the geometric sculpture in Piazza dei Guidi to a 3D Vitruvian Man in Piazza Guido Masi and a giant horse in Piazza della Libertà.

A rough trade: Florence

In 1466, when Leonardo was 14, he moved to Florence, where his father based himself. Showing an incredible aptitude for drawing, he was apprenticed to the painter and sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio. Leonardo would spend much of his young adulthood there, learning his trade and working on some of his master’s commissions for hours on end.

It wasn’t all hard graft, though. The youthful Leonardo obviously had time for less salubrious activities than working on religious paintings. Aged 23, he was arrested for ‘sodomy’ along with a number of other youths. The charges were eventually dropped, but the incident has led to unceasing debate over his sexuality.

The Adoration of the Magi was restored five years ago. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

Much of the Florence that Leonardo would have known is gone, but some of the masterpieces he either painted or collaborated on can be found in the Uffizi Galleries, such as the Baptism of Christ (1475), the Annunciation (1472) and Adoration of the Magi (1482).

Uffizi Galleries

A golden age: Milan

Believe it or not, Florence wasn’t big enough for Leonardo. He wanted more, and in 1482, he wrote to the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, offering his services as an engineer and artisan. Ludovico accepted his offer, and for the next 17 years worked in Milan for the duke, creating outlandish pageants as well as artworks.

When Leonardo wasn’t at his employer’s command, he had time to complete a number of commissions. Perhaps his most famous is, of course, The Last Supper, a fresco painted on a wall of the Santa Maria delle Grazie convent. (You can also visit the small vineyard across the road where Da Vinci would retire to tend to his grapes.) He also painted The Madonna of the Rocks for the church of San Francesco Grande, although that painting now hangs in the National Gallery in London.

Leonardo's vineyard in Milan, today a museum. Photo: DepositPhotos

Other traces of Leonardo can still be found throughout Milan. The Castello Sforzesco has a number of Leonardo’s frescoes and paintings, and the giant equestrian statue in the Piazzale dello Sport is based on designs he made over a number of years.

For those who want to see reconstructions of some of the machines he conceptualized during this period of his life, the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci is part of Italy’s Science and Technology Museum dedicated to his inventions.

Leonardo's horse in the Milan hippodrome. Photo: Damien Meyer/AFP

You can also find some of his inventions in situ, such as the wooden locks that made Milan's canal network possible (see a dry one at the end of Via San Marco), and Leonardo's Ferry, a type of boat that relies only on manpower and currents, and an example of which today sails on the River Adda north-east of Milan.

Santa Maria delle Grazie (entry to The Last Supper by reservation only)
Museo Vigna di Leonardo
Castello Sforzesco
Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci
Conca dell’Incoronata canal lock
Leonardo's Ferry
Leonardo 500 (information about special events this year throughout the Lombardy region)

Wandering star: Venice, Cesena, Rome and elsewhere

Following the invasion of the French in 1499, Leonardo fled the city and over the following years, hired himself out to feuding powers. During this time he assisted powers such as the Borgias and the Doges of Venice in planning defences and creating maps of their regions – his keen mind was very much in demand.

Some of the projects he completed include the canal port in Cesenatico, a 'little Venice' on the coast of Emilia-Romagna, as well as one of the world's earliest surviving examples of an ichnographic map (one that shows buildings' ground plans), depicting the town of Imola near Bologna.

Da Vinci's map of Imola is today part of the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle in the UK.

It was also at this time that Leonardo was to accept the commission that would forever be associated with his name. In 1503, he started work on a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a prosperous Florentine nobleman. With her enigmatic smile, the Mona Lisa has become perhaps the most famous painting in the world and today hangs in the Louvre, Paris – but you can admire (from afar) her family's impressive manor, the Villa Antinori, in the hills outside Florence.

Da Vinci's final residence in Italy was in Rome, where he spent time alongside Raphael and Michelangelo at the Vatican. Only one of his paintings hangs in the Vatican Museums today: the unfinished St Jerome in the Wilderness (1480), which is on special display free of charge until June 22nd 2019 as part of the anniversary celebrations.

Sunset: Amboise, France

As Leonardo drew towards the end of his life, leaving a truly staggering number of paintings, drawings, frescoes and notebooks in his wake, he gained the attention of the French king, Francis I. He invited Leonardo (and the Mona Lisa with him) to come to the Chateau d’Amboise south-west of Paris, where he joined a number of other painters and sculptors in decorating the place.

Da Vinci's final resting place: the Chateau d'Amboise in France. Photo: Ludovic Marin/AFP

Such was the esteem in which Leonardo was held that he was given the use of the nearby Chateau du Clos Lucé. There he spent the last three years of his life, continuously observing and recording his impressions, until he died on May 2nd 1519.

It is believed that remains buried at the chateau's Chapel de St-Hubert are those of Leonardo – definitive DNA tests will be complete later this year. Regardless, thousands of tourists turn up each year to pay their respects to a man who embodied the titanic changes taking place throughout the Renaissance.

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Ice to AC: Nine of the most common American misconceptions about Italy

It’s no secret that Americans love to visit Italy; the Washington Post predicted in December that the country would be Americans’ top foreign tourist destination for 2023, and the volume of US visitors who’ve arrived in Italy since then appears to have borne this out.

But while many Americans have a deep knowledge of – and love for – Italian culture, there are some surprisingly enduring myths about Italy that can be found in the USA specifically.

Some come close to the truth, while others fall wide of the mark.

There is no ice in Europe/Italian restaurants charge for ice

Fiction – Americans love ice, beverages are routinely served with it and refrigerators in the US often have some type of ice dispenser attached to the door.

But in Italy, ice is simply less prioritised. While ice in your drink will usually not cost you extra, you might need to specifically request it. Soft drinks in Italy are usually served without ice, so if you want your beverage iced, you need to request the drink con ghiaccio – with ice.

A classic Italian spritz should always come with ice. Photo by Tomasz Rynkiewicz on Unsplash

Italian homes don’t have dryers

Fact (mostly) – Tumble dryers do exist in Italy, but they’re rare. A survey published by Italy’s national statistics office (Istat) in 2014 found that just 3.3 percent of Italian households had one, whereas 96.2 percent had a washing machine and 39.3 percent a dishwasher.

Those washing lines strung with laundry hanging above the heads of passers by aren’t there just to create a quaint backdrop for photos – people make wide use of the abundant sun to air dry their clothes and sheets.

That does not mean that Italians in cities don’t occasionally use clothes dryers though if they’re in a rush; some might take items to a nearby laundromat.

McDonald’s is healthier in Italy

Fact (sort of) – McDonald’s uses different ingredients based on the country, and the Big Mac in Italy is (slightly) healthier than the one sold in the United States. It is slightly less calorific, with 509 kCal in contrast to the American Big Mac’s 540 kCal per 100g.

The Italian Big Mac also has less salt and fat, but it does not compare to the world’s healthiest Big Mac (found in Israel).

McDonald’s in Italy also uses EU-sourced ingredients, and the EU restricts the usage of additives and growth hormones. For example Azodicarbonamide which is used to bleach flour, is banned in the EU, but not in the United States, where McDonald’s was still using it as of 2016.

It is true, however, that you can buy beer in McDonald’s in Italy.

McDonald’s burgers are marginally healthy in Italy compared to the US. Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Italians drive small cars

Fiction (increasingly) – Think of Italian cars, and you might picture a classic Fiat 500 puttering around picturesque cobbled streets – but that’s all changing.

2021 was a historic year for the Italian automotive industry: the sale of SUVs surpassed those of medium-sized sedans for the first time, claiming 48 percent of the market share compared to the sedan’s 45 percent.

That may not match the US, where SUVs and pick-up trucks currently account for around 73 percent of vehicles sold, but it’s a huge increase from 2012, when SUVs made up just 17 percent of vehicle sales in Italy.

There are no free public toilets

Fact (mostly) – You will occasionally find an Italian town or city that offers some free public toilets. For the most part though, you’ll have to pay, including in train stations – and even paid public toilets are few and fair between.

Instead, you’re better off heading to one of the many caffe-bars found all over the country and paying for a euro for a bottle of water or a coffee so you can use their facilities – if you ask nicely, you might even be allowed to go for free.

Metro stations, supermarkets and grocery stores tend to not have any toilets at all, and neither will most clothing stores. One place you will find plenty of free public bathrooms, though, is a motorway service station.

Something that strikes many visitors to Italy as odd is the lack of seats on public toilets. Exactly why this is the case is debated, but there’s a general consensus that the phenomenon has rapidly accelerated in the past couple of decades.

A street sign at an antiques fair in Turin. Free toilets in Italy are few and far between. Photo by rashid khreiss on Unsplash

Italy doesn’t have air conditioning

Fact (sort of) – There’s not no air conditioning in Italy – in fact data from Italy’s national statistics office showed that one in two Italian households had AC in 2021.

It’s far less popular than in the US, though, where 90 percent of households have air conditioning. There’s still not much of a culture of AC in Italy, where many believe it will give you a colpo d’aria leading to at best a sore neck and at worst pneumonia – so even households that have a unit tend to use it sparingly.

If your hotel or Airbnb doesn’t specifically mention AC, you can assume it doesn’t have it.

Coca-Cola tastes different in Italy

Fact – While Coke is available almost everywhere in the world, the actual ingredients in Coca-Cola are different in some countries, which could lead some Coke connoisseurs to notice a difference in taste between the products in the US and those in the EU.

The biggest difference is the regular Coke – in the US this uses high fructose corn syrup while in Europe cane sugar is used to sweeten the product, resulting in a significant difference in taste.

You’re much more likely in Italy to come across Coca Zero, the zero-sugar version of Coca-Cola, than Coca-Coca Light, the European version of Diet Coke, which has always been hard to find and which some online sources say Italy stopped distributing altogether in 2022.

Coke in the US: different to its European counterparts. Photo by Cody Engel on Unsplash

You don’t need to tip

Fact – It’s not necessary to tip after a restaurant meal in Italy. However, this is a matter of personal choice and you are free to do so (tipping certainly won’t cause upset).

Diners do often leave some change after a particularly enjoyable meal. In terms of how much to give, some people round up a bill to include a tip, while others give what spare change they have.

Some people may also opt to tip other professionals as well, such as taxi drivers and cleaners, but again – this is optional and typically not a large quantity. In some apartment buildings, residents may give a Christmas card with money inside to the portiere (doorman) as a kind of annual tip.

All cars are stick shift

Mostly fact – In the United States, stick shift vehicles are becoming a thing of the past, but in Italy they are still very much being bought and driven.

As of 2018, around 20 percent of new cars sold in Italy were automatic – which is much higher than the less-than-one percent sold in the 1980s, but still a lot less than the US’s figure of 96 percent.

That said, around 70 percent of SUVs sold in Italy use automatic transition, so with the popularity of these larger vehicles on the rise, you can expect to see more automatics on Italian roads in the future.

What do you think? Have you noticed any other common beliefs or misconceptions about Italy in the US, or elsewhere? We’d love to hear from you in the comments section below.

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