Mysterious tunnels sketched by Leonardo da Vinci in the late 1400s may have been found

AccuWeather ^ | March 3, 2025 | Taylor Nicioli, CNN

[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.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

San Fran and the Peninsula were great places in the 70s. I moved there in ‘73, but was on the road 95% of my time for five years before settling down. The towns on the Peninsula were great middle class areas after WW II until the 70s, then the great wealth machines of HP, Apple, Cisco, 3Com, AMD, Intel, Applied Materials got going. But the wealth they created was nothing compared to what was to come — the mature Apple, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and now, of course, nVidia.

It’s common to see a young couple barely 30 with a couple of babies and toddlers buying 1950 vintage ranch houses for $4 million, tearing them down, and spending another $5 million on a gorgeous new home.

It really is other-worldly.

But the natural beauty has not changed.

[SunkenCiv]

:^) Back then when I would travel I’d always buy a city map (those big white covered ones that would cover the whole table, by The City Map Company; no one would want that any longer), visit a grocery store at least once, and for fun look at the real estate listings. Even in 1988 I was shocked at the listings for SF, both the for sales and the rentals.

A woman who used to live in the GR area, former neighbor of one of my besties, was like her a divorcee and I met her but once. She was getting ready to move home to the Bay area. She’d come into an inheritance (her father was some big hotellier in SF) and bought a kinda plain looking building and had it remodeled within an inch of its life. The rich? They really are different. :^)