Friday, 7 November 2025, Milano

Leonardo did much of his most important work in Milan. Some of that work is beautifully represented at the National Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo da Vinci (a long name for a big place). But this wide-ranging museum goes deep on so much more, including steel production, information technology, home appliances, waste management, recycling, sailing ships, railroad engines, flying machines, space exploration, and who knows what I’m leaving out.

The exhibits, with excellent explanations in Italian and English, are housed in a few adjacent buildings where one could easily spend more than a day. I’ll give you a sparse and uneven idea of the range of topics.

We started our visit with heavy machinery, like these seriously strong gears:

and a drill-rig swivel:

which was very close to an important product that some of us remember using:

Here are two more objects combining technology and artistic design:

As expected, the museum has lots of information about Leonardo’s explorations in flying machines and his development of military technology. His studies of human anatomy and of animals, especially birds, were important in his designs. Some of his thinking is illustrated by some very nice models. Here are two:

And, for anyone interested in shoulders and hips, an illustration:

All of the above are of course either reproductions or relatively recently-built models. I was excited to see a genuine Leonardo’s-own notebook, which is only about three inches high:

Continuing to an area between the museum’s buildings, the exhibts become a bit bigger. Here’s the first post-WWII submarine built in Italy, which was used to patrol the Mediterranean, on the lookout for Soviet ships:

And here, inside a large building built around the deck of an ocean liner, is the prow of a sailing ship. (Yes, the entire ship, complete with masts and sails, is inside the building.)

I have not done justice to this museum, but the aging brain can absorb only so much.

So I’ll end with another window display, titled “My Ceramic Eggs.”