History

Lodovico Sforza — Lodovico il Moro — reshaped Milan between 1480 and 1499 as a humanist capital, bringing Leonardo from Florence in 1482 as court engineer and artist. Leonardo lived and worked in Milan for eighteen years, lodging in various properties near the Sforza court. In 1498, Lodovico granted him the use of an apartment in the Atellani complex and a 16-pertica vineyard (approximately 8,650 square metres) in the adjacent garden. Leonardo included both properties in his will of 1519, confirming they were in his possession at the time of his death in France.

The vineyard fell into disuse during the subsequent centuries as the garden was divided and built over. In 2015, during restoration of the building’s foundations, archaeologists uncovered what appeared to be the original root system from the sixteenth-century vines. Researchers from the University of Milan, Fondazione Politecnico, and Eataly applied DNA analysis to the surviving roots and identified the variety as Malvasia Lunga, a cultivar historically grown in the Sforza vineyards. The vineyard was replanted in 2015 with certified Malvasia Lunga vines from the University of Milan experimental vineyard.

The residential apartments were frescoed in the late fifteenth century; some survive in the piano nobile rooms. A painted lunette attributed to Bernardino Luini — a student of Leonardo — was uncovered during restoration work.