A refined study of a horse for the equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza created by Leonardo da Vinci in ca. 1490 (F 263 inf. 91) and a detailed project for the realization of a three-dimensional model of a mazzocchio (ca. 1510; Codice Atlantico, f. 710 a-b), alongside a profile portrait of the Maestro, rarely exhibited to the public, created between 1515 and 1518 by Francesco Melzi (F 263 inf. 1 bis): these are the drawings coming from the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, protagonists from November 15, 2024, to February 15, 2025, in THE HORSE, THE MAZZOCCHIO, AND THE FACE OF THE MASTER. 

Milanese drawings by Leonardo da Vinci and Francesco Melzi, a precious dossier exhibition of the Leonardo3 Museum, Museum and Study Center in Piazza della Scala in Milan active since 2004 in the study and scientific dissemination of Leonardo da Vinci's work. Eleven years after its opening, the Museum exhibits for the first time original drawings by Leonardo da Vinci alongside over 200 interactive 3D machines and functional physical reconstructions – almost all never made before – recreated from the analysis of the original manuscripts of the Tuscan Master. 

THE HORSE, THE MAZZOCCHIO, AND THE FACE OF THE MASTER. Milanese drawings by Leonardo da Vinci and Francesco Melzi – curated by the Leonardo3 Study Center under the supervision of Martin Kemp, emeritus professor at Oxford University and scientific consultant of the Museum and Study Center – focuses on a small nucleus of drawings that highlights the close and synergistic bond between da Vinci and the city of Milan: the same bond that is a fundamental part of the Museum's mission.

The exhibition is also an opportunity to focus on the mazzocchio, a very complex perspective projection, whose design composed of 32 octagonal sections is kept in the Codice Atlantico: not a simple exercise on paper, because in the manuscript Leonardo also suggests a method to build a lead version by calculating the number of necessary pieces, a total