View of the Gallery featuring Leonardo's models

One of the main attractions of this great Museum is its display of over one hundred models illustrating the work of Leonardo, foremost engineer and technologist of his era. The models depicting Leonardo's designs are of educational value first and foremost, since they allow the non-specialist public, particularly schoolchildren, to appreciate an interpretation of drawings which in themselves are not always easy to comprehend. Most of the models were constructed for the exhibition of 1952 organised by the National Committee honouring Leonardo in the fifth centenary of his birth (1452). Every Sunday starting from June 18 till Sept. 10 an english speaking guide will be available at the entrance of the Science Museum for free guided tours of the Museum, particularly of the Leonardo section.

Follow this link to see more than a hundred of them



The Interactive Models
The Museum has had a first group of 7 functioning machines constructed to be displayed alongside the static models. Here are the models that are ready to be operated by the visitor:

• Aerial Screw
• Revolving Crane
• Archimede's Screw
• Pulley System
• Weight-lifting Machine
• Device for Testing Beating Wings
• Flying Machine with Manoeuvrable Wing-tips

"Could these machines really have worked?" is the question often asked by visitors yearning to 'touch the world of Leonardo'. Although in Leonardo's case the answer is often no, credit is nonetheless due to the great artist for the many brilliant intuitions which were to be successfully implemented in subsequent centuries; moreover the ideas, accomplishments and theories represented in his designs hold an extraordinary fascination in themselves. On saturday afternoons an english-speaking guide is available.