Tunnel Sketched by Leonardo da Vinci Finally Found?
- Yewon Choi
- 5 hours ago
- 2 min read
The mysterious tunnels sketched by Leonardo da Vinci may have finally been discovered.
The Italian polymath, Leonardo da Vinci, is well-known all across the globe. Many know him as the painter of the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. Although he was an excellent painter, art and science were not the only things he had a knack for. He was also an expert in military structures and defensive systems, and he is believed to have sketched a tunnel underneath an Italian castle that has remained a mystery for centuries. However, scientists may have finally discovered this underground passageway after years of continuous searching.
A team at the Polytechnic University of Milan uncovered secret tunnels beneath Sforza Castle, which could very possibly be linked to the sketch by Leonardo da Vinci. The team discovered this after a series of surveys that were conducted to digitize the 15th-century Sforza Castle’s underground structures through various methods, such as using ground-penetrating radar and laser scanning. According to CNN, these surveys ran from 2021 to 2023 and began as a doctoral thesis for Francesca Biolo, who is now an architect and research fellow in the Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Milan. Biolo said to CNN, “Our findings serve as yet another reminder of how deeply embedded history is within our cities. Only through awareness of this fact, combined with a thorough understanding of history and architecture, can we truly appreciate the importance of preserving and enhancing our cultural and architectural heritage.”
Leonardo da Vinci spent time at the castle during the late 1400s as one of the members of the court of Duke Ludovico Sforza. The duke ordered the Italian polymath to make a painting, and during this time, da Vinci created drawings of defensive structures that seemed to appear extremely similar to the layout of the Sforza Castle. The tunnels are believed to have been intended “for soldiers to secure a quick evacuation if the castle’s defenses were breached.”
Furthermore, researchers discovered a second secret tunnel that experts had only hypothesized about for years. The second tunnel runs parallel to the first one, and the researchers also uncovered other tunnels that are almost all made of bricks with a barrel vault, or curved ceiling.
Although the Sforza Castle went through demolitions and restorations during the Napoleonic wars and at the end of the 19th century, researchers have found secret tunnels, one potentially sketched by Leonardo da Vinci himself. Who knows how many other mysterious secrets of da Vinci there are left to figure out?