Leonardo Da Vinci and Rome: the key places to visit

While Leonardo da Vinci is most commonly associated with France, Milan, or his native Tuscany (particularly Florence), few realize that the Renaissance polymath was also a resident of Rome. The Eternal City played host to this genius for a brief but significant period, leaving its mark on both the artist and the urban landscape. Intriguingly, Leonardo’s departure from Rome was partly influenced by accusations of… witchcraft! In this post, we’ll explore the places where the great artist lived and worked during his Roman sojourn, uncovering a lesser-known chapter in the life of this extraordinary figure.

Intrigue and politics: Leonardo’s arrival in Rome

Leonardo da Vinci’s arrival in Rome in 1513 was the result of political upheaval and artistic opportunity. Following the collapse of his patron Giuliano de’ Medici’s regime in Florence, Leonardo found himself without a steady commission. At the same time, the newly elected Pope Leo X, another Medici, was gathering artists and intellectuals in Rome to enhance the Vatican’s prestige. At the age of 61, Leonardo journeyed to the city at the behest of the Pope’s brother, Giuliano de’ Medici, who became his new patron.

This move placed Leonardo in the heart of the Renaissance, surrounded by contemporaries like Raphael and Michelangelo, setting the stage for a fascinating, if sometimes challenging, period in his illustrious career.

Why “challenging”? While Michelangelo and Raphael were creating some of their own masterpieces in the same years, Leonardo struggled to fit into this creative context (perhaps because of his age). What is certain is that all or almost all of the artist’s ideas were rejected, and the period that the master spent in the capital, three years in all, was characterized by scarce production but intense periods of study: in this article we review the places where his presence was certain … along with the most probable ones.

The Vatican Hill and the Belvedere apartments

It is impossible not to start from this place, from the Vatican itself, which was the real court of the pontiffs of the time. There were no museums yet (of course) but the rooms of the papal palaces were already full of archaeological finds, as well as of works created especially for the Pope.

Although it is a fact that Leonardo stayed in the Vatican’s Belvedere apartments throughout his Roman sojourn, his presence here is hard to pin down: Raphael immortalized him in the great fresco of the School of Athens, attributing the face of the Tuscan genius to the Greek philosopher Plato. In the Pinacoteca Vaticana, on the other hand, is the only painting by Leonardo while in the city: it is an unfinished portrait of St. Jerome the Penitent (“St. Jerome in the Wilderness”).

The Santo Spirito in Sassia Hospital

This is no mistake: the hospital, which is still active (it was founded in the year 1200!) and very close to the Via della Conciliazione and the Vatican area, was one of the places where Da Vinci used to study. Even the most oblivious of tourists will be aware of Leonardo’s anatomical sketches, and this was one of the places where Da Vinci used to come for his observations. During his stay in Rome, he would come to study the bodies of the sick and dying, trying to deepen his knowledge of the human body.

It is not possible to visit the hospital proper, whose structure was rebuilt in the 1930s. However, the nearby Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia and the Corsie Sistine of Santo Spirito in Sassia (the latter can be visited on a guided tour, while the church is of course open to the public) were both part of the complex at the time of Leonardo and would have been places he would have encountered on his walks.

Palazzo della Cancelleria

This is where our investigation gets a little “vague”: from a historical point of view, we cannot definitively say that Leonardo spent any time here, but from the same historical point of view, we know that the unmistakable palazzo, so close to Campo de’ Fiori, which is considered the first Renaissance building in Rome, must have been one that the Maestro knew: it had been inaugurated the year before Leonardo arrived in the city. If anything, he passed by it, not least because of its strategic location in relation to the Vatican Hill. Curiously enough, the building now houses an exhibition of machines built according to the visionary designs of the artist-inventor.

Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls

Another place linked to Leonardo’s presence in the city is the monumental basilica on Via Ostiense, which the Tuscan painter studied and sketched on several occasions. The appearance of the building was very different from that of today: the basilica as we know it was rebuilt after a disastrous fire in 1823 that occurred during roofing work.

A bitter farewell to the Eternal City

You could almost say that Leonardo fled Rome: he was accused of witchcraft exactly because of his interest in anatomy and surgical procedures – the hospital of Santo Spirito in Sassia became impossible to visit, and with Leo X dead, certain protections were no longer in place. In addition, age began to take its toll: so Da Vinci decided to make a change of scenery. He headed for France, which had always “courted” him: and the rest, like they say, is history….