You know how it is – after a hard day at work on a world-famous fresco, all you want is somewhere peaceful to relax with a glass of wine. Thanks to his patron, Duke of Milan Ludovico Sforza, this is just what Leonardo da Vinci enjoyed for several years from 1498.
And today, after work by a family trust and wine geneticists, visitors to his Last Supper in Santa Maria delle Grazie basilica in Milan can then cross the road for a stroll in the genius’s vineyard.
As Leonardo, then 46, was finishing painting the Last Supper, the duke made him a gift of a vineyard measuring 60 x 175 metres, at what is now 65 Corso Magenta. The artist came from a long line of winemakers and he also hoped owning a plot of land would allow him to claim Milanese citizenship. Leonardo was deeply attached to his vineyard: in his will he left it to two of his servants.
The estate passed through various hands, the vineyard forgotten, until in the 1920s its owners asked Leonardo expert Luca Beltrami to research its history. Beltrami located the vineyard from Renaissance documents, and took photographs of vines still growing up ancient wooden pergolas that were most probably made to Leonardo’s design. This turned out to be fortuitous because a fire, then allied bombing in the 1940s, laid waste to the historic plot.
The estate’s present-day owners replanted it as it had been in Leonardo’s time, after DNA testing on the roots of the original vines showed them to be malvasia di candia aromatica, a white grape popular in Renaissance Lombardy. Now the vines are flourishing and the house and grounds are open to accompanied tours (€10pp), and while it will be some years before these vines are producing anything to drink, those visiting on Saturday afternoons can enjoy a typical Milanese aperitivo of wines and nibbles (extra €5, 5.45pm).
Leonardo himself lived about a mile away, but visitors can now also stay in four spacious, light-filled apartments in the restored 16th-century palace, sleeping between four and six from €150 a night.
• Open daily 9am-6pm, vignadileonardo.com
This article was altered on Wednesday 1 March to correct Leonardo Da Vinci’s age at the time of completing the Last Supper
