After seeing Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" at the Santa Maria della Grazie church on the edge of Milan's centre, I walked a short walk away to visit the Science and Technology Museum (named in honor of Leonard da Vinci). The museum includes a large tribute to the artist, and the museum is named after him because it signifies the strong relationship between art, science and technology. The exhibit for Leonardo da Vinci is on the top floor and contains models built from illustrations of his inventions, and some of these have been used or used in part since. There are descriptions next to each model to define what it does. Also included are books and other items from the past in relation to the artist. You can read more about this exhibit later, but first is a photograph of the entrance to the museum.
The museum had three cars and discussed the power of Italian design and cars with one car on show being built in 1955 for the 24-hour Le-Mans race. The car 'Bisiluro', translates to "two torpedos" based on the car's shape. Unfortunately, a Jaguar pushed the car off the tracks after the first two hours, and the car was then donated to the museum. Alfa Romeo was another car on display, and this car has its roots in Milan.
Next on display is a sculpture that was known as 'The Little Lady of Milan', and it was made in 1933. In World War 2, it was put on storage and then taken out after the way to be put on display. It fell and had its arm broke and was later moved to the city centre. It suffered another fall there and broke into 85 pieces, all of which had to be reconstructed.
Adjoining this area is a reconstructed clockmaker's room, which was brought to the museum. The clockmaker was Bertolla and he worked on clocks from 1702 to 1789 with the knowledge passed to sons and grandsons. Pocket watches and pendulum clocks were a speciality.
Another area showed computers and the enigma codebreaker machine. I had one of these Apple computers growing up, so to see it in a museum was odd.
The below photographs are a few of the displays from Leonardo da Vinci's sketches, including the glider. Another one was the loom, which was built and used.
The printing press was already invented, but Leonardo studied it and designed a more automatic mechanical approach. Other items he had ideas for were propelled boats, automatic saws, swing bridges, and inventions for logistics and military uses.
After this was a model of the Parthenon in Rome.
Next were rooms that discussed and showed the history of telephones, television, audio/radio, and electricity. These areas have seen a lot of change in the past 20 years. These exhibits were near the space exhibit, which contained items sent to space and this little Italian flag, gifted from President Nixon to Italy after a moon trip in 1972. It also included a little moonrock, which I couldn't photograph well.
After this area of the exhibition, the next area was to go down a floor and then back into another part of the building through an internal courtyard.
And I discovered one area of the museum that had some artifacts and areas in the floor to look down. I believe this was the necropolis as the museum itself is outside the old city walls (or would have been, but the walls do not exist anymore), and the Romans always had the necropolis just outside the city walls.
Metal-working and a replica forge and room with steam machinery were looked at. There was also an exhibit on recycling, plastics, different types of metal, and atoms.
Outside is a submarine that can be looked around at an additional cost and additional exhibits at other buildings, including an exhibit of locomotives and then another building with ships and planes.
I met a friend in the locomotive building! Hello black kitty.
Overall, I spent close to three hours at Milan's Science and Technology Museum. Have you ever visited?
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