A forgotten story links Leonardo da Vinci to the city of Milan: the story of a vineyard. The vineyard that in 1498 Ludovico il Moro, Duke of Milan, gave to Leonardo and that Leonardo in the years to come defended and maintained at all costs; the vineyard around which run legends involving Leonardo, his works, his followers; the vineyard that is reborn today, finally, respecting the original rows and the original vine.
Leonardo da Vinci’s vineyard was located in the middle of the fields, at the end of the present garden of the Casa degli Atellani, in the area that then belonged to the large vineyard of San Vittore. The Atellani were a family of Sforza courtesans to whom the Moro, years before, had donated two houses. Ludovico il Moro had a double dream, for this corner of the city: to make the Basilica of Santa Maria delle Grazie the mausoleum of his family, the Sforza; to build a residential quarter where he could settle his most faithful men – like the Atellani, like Leonardo. The Atellani’s house is one of the rare remaining traces of this Renaissance dream.
Preserving its magic, during the 20th century the house was transformed by architect Piero Portaluppi, the greatest protagonist of Milanese architecture. On the occasion of Expo 2015 the Portaluppi Foundation and the owners of the house decided to replant Leonardo da Vinci’s vineyard and to open the Atellani’s house and garden to the public.
