STUDIES OF HORSES DRAWN BY LEONARDO DA VINCI CIRCA 1490,
WHEN HE WAS PLANNING “IL GRAN CAVALLO.” COLLECTION OF THE ROYAL
LIBRARY, WINDSOR CASTLE, WINDSOR, ENGLAND
PRINT COLLECTOR/ALBUMLEONARDO’S
LAST MASTERPIECE
CENTURIES IN THE MAKINGA
t the request of Ludovico Sforza, the fu-
ture Duke of Milan, in 1482 Leonardo da
Vinci began working on a sculpture that
would be the largest equestrian statue in
the world. Leonardo made a clay model that stood
24 feet high and planned to cast it in bronze. In 1499,
however, war engulfed Milan, and the clay horse was
destroyed. Leonardo’s drawings and plans survived,
but the artist died before “Il Gran Cavallo” could be
built. Roughly five hundred years later, inspired by
a 1977 National Geographic article, “The Horse That
Never Was,” American art patron Charles C. Dent
made it his life’s work to erect the statue. Following
Dent’s death in 1994, sculptor Nina Akamu carried
out Leonardo’s plans and in 1999 completed a full-
size bronze sculpture of the horse (left), which now
stands in Milan, Italy. Five replicas of this version are
also on display in museums worldwide.