Throughout the late 1400s, Leonardo da Vinci often visited Sforza Castle, nestled in what is now the heart of modern-day Milan, as a member of Duke Ludovico Sforza’s court. While there, da Vinci not only worked on a painting commissioned by the duke, but produced several sketches depicting the castle’s layout and its intricate passage systems. Now, centuries later, researchers believe they have finally unearthed the castle’s hidden tunnels, drawn by da Vinci back in 1495.
Sforza Castle has long been known to house underground passageways, one of which runs along the perimeter of the castle’s moat and is even accessible to tourists. Based on da Vinci’s sketches, however, researchers suspected that the castle may harbor additional tunnels, leading Francesca Biolo, an architectural historian at the Polytechnic University of Milan, to investigate the structure using digital mapping, ground-penetrating, and laser scanning techniques. To her surprise, she discovered another secret tunnel running parallel to the known one, about 3 feet beneath the surface.
“The results were far more significant and intriguing than we had anticipated,” Biolo told Live Science. “We uncovered rooms on a second underground level and an additional passage running parallel to the known one.”
Though built during the mid-1300s, Sforza Castle has undergone countless expansions, modifications, and demolitions, to the point where only one-sixth of the original castle remains today. For many years, these architectural alterations have prevented researchers from confirming the accuracy of da Vinci’s sketches, but Biolo’s findings seem to provide compelling evidence that these new passageways are, indeed, among those illustrated by da Vinci.
“There is a clear connection between the elements depicted in his drawings and the actual structures,” Francesca Fiorani, an art history professor at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, told CNN. That said, Fiorani cautioned that it’s nevertheless “impossible to determine the extent of Leonardo’s direct involvement in the fortress’s construction.”
“This passageway is immortalized in Leonardo’s drawings, and has long been the subject of legends and considerable speculation,” the Polytechnic University of Milan writes in a statement. “But now, thanks to technology, it seems that its existence can be confirmed.”
Following this discovery, Biolo and her research team will explore the castle further, hoping to uncover additional secret tunnels.
Researchers may have proven the existence of a secret passageway beneath Milan’s Sforza Castle, first depicted by da Vinci in a 1495 sketch.
Self-Portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, ca. 1505. (Photo: Museum of the Ancient People of Lucania, via Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
This passageway runs parallel to one that’s already been discovered in Sforza Castle, about three feet below the surface.
Sources: Ground-penetrating radar reveals new secrets under Milan’s Sforza Castle; Mysterious tunnels sketched by Leonardo da Vinci in the late 1400s may have been found; Mysterious tunnels sketched by Leonardo da Vinci in 1495 may finally have been discovered — hidden under a castle in Milan
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