Regard for Leonardo’s work has, if you will excuse the pun, seen a renaissance in 2011. The National Gallery’s major exhibition of works from collections outside Italy has seen an unprecedented response from the public. It seems only right, then, that we run a tour for 2012 which focuses on his most important works within Italy.

Florence was the cradle of the Renaissance and home to an unrivalled quantity of first-rate, locally-produced works of art. At the age of fourteen, Leonardo moved here to become an apprentice to Verrocchio, in whose studio his technical training began. The tour begins here to explore areas of the city in which the artist lived and worked, as well as seeing important works by Verrocchio in the Bargello and by Leonardo in the Uffizi.

To the west of Florence is Vinci, Leonardo’s childhood town in the Tuscan countryside, a charming place with a fine museum displaying many of his designs for machines and tools. The remote hamlet of Anchiano in which he was born is also visited.

In the fifteenth century Milan was capital of the most powerful territory in Italy and, when Leonardo was employed there, probably the largest city in Europe. It is here that he received some of his most important commissions, notably The Last Supper for the wall of the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie. Two nights are spent in Milan, with two visits to The Last Supper and also to the Pinacoteca Brera, one of the world’s great galleries, for a study of works influenced by Leonardo. An exploration of sites around the city where the artist left his mark completes the tour.

Read the itinerary