Museo della Scienza e Tecnologia: Leonardo's Machines, a Submarine and 50,000 Square Metres

The largest science and technology museum in Italy, inside a sixteenth-century monastery, holding the world's biggest collection of models built from Leonardo da Vinci's drawings – and, in the courtyard, a real submarine. From Taylor's Love Solferino B&B it is a short metro ride, and it is the best rainy-day destination in Milan.

Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci, Milan. Photo: Pietrodn, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5.

Getting There from Our B&B

By metro: from Moscova (M2 green line), 300 metres from the B&B, take the M2 to Sant'Ambrogio – the museum is 300 metres from the exit. Door to door: around 20 minutes.

On foot: approximately 2.2 km, about 27 minutes, through Brera and past the Castello.

A Monastery Full of Machines

The museum opened in 1953, on the five-hundredth anniversary of Leonardo's birth, in the former Olivetan monastery of San Vittore al Corpo. The buildings had been badly damaged by the 1943 bombing and were restored to house it.

The founding idea was that Italy needed a place where industrial and scientific heritage was treated as culture rather than as machinery. Seventy years later it holds more than 16,000 objects across 50,000 square metres.

What to See

• The Leonardo Gallery – the largest collection anywhere of models built from his codices: flying machines, water screws, gears, textile machinery. Recently rebuilt with the original drawings shown alongside.
• Submarine Enrico Toti – a full Italian navy submarine from 1967, brought across Milan by night in 2005 in an operation the city still talks about. You can go inside on a timed tour.
• The rail pavilion – steam locomotives and historic carriages in a dedicated hall.
• Air and sea – aircraft, and the bridge of the transatlantic liner Conte Biancamano, walkable.
• The i.labs – hands-on workshops for children and adults, on robotics, energy, food chemistry.
• The cloisters – the monastery courtyards, a calm counterpoint to the machinery.

Practical Information

• Opening hours: Tuesday to Friday roughly 09:30 to 17:00; weekends 09:30 to 18:30. Closed Mondays.
• Admission: around 10 euro, reduced for children.
• Submarine tour: separate ticket and timed slot, around 8 euro extra. Book it as soon as you arrive – slots sell out, and the interior is narrow and steep.
• Time needed: at least three hours. With children, a whole day.
• Best for: families, and anyone caught in Milanese rain.

Combine It With

Basilica di Sant'Ambrogio is 300 metres away and Santa Maria delle Grazie, with Leonardo's Last Supper, is a ten-minute walk. Seeing the Last Supper and then the machines built from his notebooks makes a coherent Leonardo day.

Why Staying in Brera Makes the Difference

Taylor's Love Solferino B&B is at Via Solferino 56 in Zone 1, the historic centre, between Brera, Moscova and Corso Garibaldi. A museum this large is better split over two visits than forced into one – which is only practical if you are staying twenty minutes away.

For travellers who prefer a short stay apartment in Milan centre to a hotel, the B&B offers free self check-in with a smart lock. Porta Garibaldi FS, 700 metres away, connects directly to Malpensa Airport with the Malpensa Express.