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Posted on 05/03/2025 9:21:08 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
...scientists have uncovered a hidden feature underneath a medieval castle in Milan, Italy, that researchers once could only speculate about based on a sketch of Leonardo's from around 1495 and references in other historical sources — underground passageways that were likely intended for soldiers to use in the event that the castle's defenses had been breached.
The discovery, which the Politecnico di Milano announced in January, came about through a series of surveys that aimed to digitize the 15th century Sforza Castle's underground structures through nondestructive methods such as ground-penetrating radar and laser scanning...
Biolo and her team originally intended to digitize the area underneath the Ghirlanda, a protective outer wall of the castle. It features a well-known underground passageway that runs along the perimeter of the castle's moat and is accessible to tourists. But to the researchers' surprise, their survey revealed a second secret tunnel that experts had only hypothesized about for years.
The second tunnel runs parallel to the first one, about 1 meter (3 feet) beneath the surface. It is believed that soldiers would have used the concealed route to defend and reclaim the Ghirlanda against enemy forces, Biolo said...
The researchers also uncovered other tunnels — almost all made of brick with a barrel vault, or curved ceiling — including one that heads in the direction of the Basilica of Santa Maria delle Grazie, the resting place of the wife of Duke Ludovico Sforza. Also known as Ludovico il Moro, Sforza was the duke of Milan from 1494 to 1498...
The castle once spanned an area about six times the size of what stands today — the footprint of the building that is currently visible above ground is around 40,000 square meters (430,560 square feet), she added.
(Excerpt) Read more at accuweather.com ...
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The other GGG topics added since the previous digest ping, alpha:
Digest topic list is up top.
Tunnels for soldiers — to flee? or for new soldiers to come to the aid of the castle?
The Sforza was featured prominently in the series “The Borgias.”
Maybe some of those tunnels were where the better qualities of Prosecco sparkling wines or perhaps even the Brunello di Montalcino Reds were stored.
My son and I toured the California Science Center in Los Angeles in May last year. They have had an outstanding Leonardo da Vinci exhibit which, unfortunately, closed January 5 this year. There are still lots of web pages about the exhibit up.
Horrifically bad was the IMAX movie "Cities of the Future 3D." It was nothing but progressivism and climate crap on steroids. It was as far from the grandeur and brilliance of da Vinci as you could get.
Or perhaps even the cask of amontillado?
CC
Tunnels for pizza...defending a castle is hungry work...
I like it but it’s too much to clean.
The knights of Malta and the Knights Templar were masters of tunneling. They were both around from the eleventh century until the Templars were disbanded in 1314. The Knights of Malta still exist as a social order and not a military order.
Da Vinci must have known them.
EC
I don’t think the narrator mentioned the Grand Rapids horse, but there was a photo of him in the montage. The GR horse is the twin of the one in Milan.
When the statue was first installed, there was a pedestal along the west side of the path leading out to it, and the proof of concept version of the statue was on there. It was later sent to one of the other US sites, which in fact do get mentioned. Clearly some left winger was involved in the video’s production.
Meijer Gardens was the passion project of the late Fred Meijer (Meijer stores are a large regional multi-state chain that began as a single store in Greenville MI), and at some point his son told him about a documentary regarding the decades of toil trying to make da Vinci’s Sforza horse and erect it in Milan.
FM looked into it, help fund it (basically, he funded much of the project), and one condition was, one twin goes as a gift to Milan, the other one comes to GR. I’ve been thinking about visiting it again, haven’t been up to it in years. It looks large in the distance, but it tends to trick perception during the approach, which takes longer than it seemed like it should.
https://www.meijergardens.org/sculpture/the-american-horse/
https://www.historygrandrapids.org/photo/359/the-da-vinci-horse-at-meijer-g
16 second short:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuZO5mCPkcE
1999 CNN Segment on ‘The American Horse’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1AZQlLiHEQ
It'll be interesting to see how many more are down there. Probably served as storage for weapons and powder and such, along with being transit routes. I don't think the Sforza dynasty lasted all that long, but was living large while it did.
Thanks. I’ve never been to GR. Sounds like a good detour some day. We tend to stay in the west and aren’t getting east much anymore.
Now, I be looking that up, as I take another sip of Sangria, with it’s fruity bouquet.
:^) Definitely qualifies as a detour no matter where one is headed. That’s in part a consequence of living on a peninsula. :^)
“part a consequence of living on a peninsula”
LOL. True on our San Francisco Peninsula as well...except we have four bridges for quick escape! And it’s a HUGE peninsula, so big you could live and die there without ever leaving and still have plenty of unexplored parts to tramp around in.
mark
:^) I spent a week or so tramping around SF back in the late 1980s, already kinda dumpy, lots of homeless, panhandling, trash and doo-doo along the sidewalks. And cold. Whoa. One of the residents told me the reason so many walk around with a sweater over their arm is that they need the warmth until about 10 am when the fog burns off. ;^) But the money has moved south from there thanks to HP, Apple, etc.
When the quake happened in ‘89 (during the World Series, if memory serves) it was cool to see the people on the street interviews and buildings and damage etc from the area, I think along Market? I’d walked all along in there. Stayed in what used to be the Richelieu Hotel on Van Ness.
Hayward used to be the place for regular folks to live back when BART worked well, I had a friend from here in The Boonies who tried his hand as a bicycle courier in the downtown of SF and lived in Hayward. Seemed to have it made.
Someone broke into his car and took some irreplaceable stuff, and that was enough for him. We were all so young back then.
OTOH, my last work super (I’ve retired) spent some years in her first marriage living in Hayward, must have been the 1970s into the ‘80s, and hated every minute of it. :^)
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