Leonardo, the mystery of the Imola plant: he anticipated the future

There’s a new mystery concerning Leonardo da Vincione of the most brilliant and enigmatic minds in history: this time it’s over under the magnifying glass “The Imola map“, a drawing by the Genius which represents one of the greatest examples of cartographic techniques.

The mystery of the Imola plant by Leonardo Da Vinci

“The Imola map” is at the center of the 63rd Reading Vinciana, an annual event as part of the Leonardo celebrations in the city of Vinci, in the province of Florence. In 1502 Cesare Borgia entrusted Leonardo with the task of inspecting the defenses of the Rocca Sforzesca as a military engineer: the Genius drew a detailed and faithful aerial map of Imola.

On the occasion of Vincian readingit will be possible to try to discover how Leonardo managed to reproduce the plan of the Romagna city so faithfully: Andrea Cantile, professor of historical cartography for landscapes, will have the task of answering the many questions regarding “The Plan of Imola”.

For years, many have been wondering what Leonardo’s knowledge was that allowed him to create a topographical masterpiece of such magnificence. Others, however, would like to know why the plant was inserted into a circumference with 64 rays. It also needs to be clarified how Genoa managed to design such a detailed card with the technologies of the time, effectively anticipating the techniques of future.

The history of Leonardo da Vinci’s map

As mentioned, it was Cesare Borgia who commissioned Leonardo da Vinci to create a map of Imola for military reasons. The Engineers reached the Romagna city in the autumn of 1502, when it was a military camp. The Rocca Sforzesca had had to deal with various modernization works that began after the handover to the Sforza of Imola, a city that boasts some of the masterpieces of the FAI Places of the Heart.

With the conquest that took place by Cesare Borgiathe fortress had suffered significant structural damage: Leonardo also took care of planning a structural reconstruction work of the Imola fortress which, however, was never carried out.

Before focusing on the RockHowever, Leonardo carried out a perspective and semantic analysis of the entire territory of Imola: the result was a map that is surprising for the accuracy of its reproduction. “The plan of Imola” represents one of the oldest examples of a city plan created with an innovative cartographic technique and “perfectly scaled to reality”.

Martin Kempin “Leonardo da Vinci: the admirable operations of nature and man” defined the map of Imola as “a very famous drawing, the most splendid example of the Renaissance revolution in cartographic techniques that has come down to us”.

Leonardo da Vinci’s work is part of the collections of the English royals and is currently kept inside the residence of the British Royal House in Windsor. A digital reproduction of “The Plant of Imola” is visible on the Royal Collection Trust website.

The mysteries linked to the many works of Leonardo da Vinci continue to hold sway even today: just think that in October 2023, for example, analyzes revealed a new secret about the Mona Lisa. A rare chemical compound, la., was discovered in the famous painting plumbonacrite which contains carbon, hydrogen, lead and oxygen.