Description
The Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci is the largest science and technology museum in Italy, in a sixteenth-century monastery on Via San Vittore. You come to see Leonardo, but also a submarine, trains, planes and a rocket.
The museum opened on February 15, 1953, for the 500th anniversary of Leonardo's birth, with a big exhibition of his designs turned into models. The idea was that of the engineer Guido Ucelli, who dreamed of a museum like those of London and Munich.
In 1947 Ucelli obtained the old Olivetan monastery of San Vittore al Corpo, which under Napoleon had become first a military hospital and then a barracks. Among the cloisters you can still see the remains of the enclosure of a Roman imperial mausoleum.
The Leonardo da Vinci Galleries, on the first floor, hold the largest collection in the world of models of machines built from the genius's drawings: the rotating crane, the aerial screw, the ideal city.
Outside is the submarine Enrico Toti, launched in 1967: it was a submarine hunter, the first built in Italy after the war. Since 2005 it has been here, far from any sea, next to the full-size model of the Vega launcher, 30 meters tall.
Also don't miss the pavilions of trains, ships and planes. Among the ships is the rigid-wing catamaran of Luna Rossa.
In the space section there is a piece of the Moon: the museum keeps the one picked up by Apollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan in December 1972, donated to Italy.
The museum also has interactive areas on astronomy, telecommunications, energy and materials, particle physics and food, plus an area designed for the youngest: historic objects beside exhibits to try out.
Over the years the museum has grown to hold about 21,000 objects. In an old refectory of the monks, the Sala del Cenacolo, there is a fresco of the Wedding at Cana by Pietro Gilardi.
The museum opened on February 15, 1953, for the 500th anniversary of Leonardo's birth, with a big exhibition of his designs turned into models. The idea was that of the engineer Guido Ucelli, who dreamed of a museum like those of London and Munich.
In 1947 Ucelli obtained the old Olivetan monastery of San Vittore al Corpo, which under Napoleon had become first a military hospital and then a barracks. Among the cloisters you can still see the remains of the enclosure of a Roman imperial mausoleum.
The Leonardo da Vinci Galleries, on the first floor, hold the largest collection in the world of models of machines built from the genius's drawings: the rotating crane, the aerial screw, the ideal city.
Outside is the submarine Enrico Toti, launched in 1967: it was a submarine hunter, the first built in Italy after the war. Since 2005 it has been here, far from any sea, next to the full-size model of the Vega launcher, 30 meters tall.
Also don't miss the pavilions of trains, ships and planes. Among the ships is the rigid-wing catamaran of Luna Rossa.
In the space section there is a piece of the Moon: the museum keeps the one picked up by Apollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan in December 1972, donated to Italy.
The museum also has interactive areas on astronomy, telecommunications, energy and materials, particle physics and food, plus an area designed for the youngest: historic objects beside exhibits to try out.
Over the years the museum has grown to hold about 21,000 objects. In an old refectory of the monks, the Sala del Cenacolo, there is a fresco of the Wedding at Cana by Pietro Gilardi.