Leonardo Horse project: a select group of international artists pay a tribute to Leonardo’s Horse, protagonist of the 2019 edition of Milano Design Week.

Milan, February 20th, 2019 – To mark the 500 th #anniversary of Leonardo Da Vinci’s death, the majestic bronze statue of Leonardo’s Horse standing at the Snai San Siro Racecourse will be the protagonist of an important valorisation project. 
Snaitech, the company owning the racecourse, has chosen to celebrate the event by commissioning scale reinterpretations of the sculpture, inviting eminent Italian and international artists to imagine and create #cavallididesign (Design Horses), which will be initially grouped at the Racecourse before being exhibited throughout Milan, a city closely associated with the Tuscan genius. 
The #leonardohorseproject, due to make its debut on April 10th and will end during the month of November, is one of the projects selected for inclusion in the programme set up by the Municipality of Milan to celebrate the 500 th anniversary of Leonardo Da Vinci’s death.
“This project – explains #fabioschiavolin, CEO of #snaitech, has an important and twofold significance: first of all, it sets out to highlight the extraordinary equestrian monument we have the honour of safeguarding, with the positioning of its copies at iconic points of the city, in the form of our Cavalli d’Artista. Then, starting from Design Week, we shall be opening the gates of the Racecourse to the public, as a new location for entertainment and a gathering place for the city’s inhabitants. The Leonardo Horse Project is not a one shot event, but an important step in a wider experience started three years ago when we implemented the relaunch of the Snai San Siro Racecourse, now listed as a Monument of National Interest. Since then, we have made considerable progress: thanks to concerts, events and activities targeting all age groups, we have managed to attract over 500,000 visitors and more than 2,000 school children to the Racecourse This year, we aim at doing even better, by taking one of the treasures of our Racecurse into the city for the first time, thanks to the pacific invasion of our Cavalli d’Artista”. 
Leonardo Da Vinci was an inventor, a scientist and an artist moved by infinite curiosity, attracted by all artistic studies and an observer of natural phenomena. His unquenchable thirst for research and study in addressing the challenges posed by technology and the limits of his time recall the figure of a contemporary designer. It is this remarkable talent of the Da Vinci genius that #snaitech intends to homage, by
celebrating Leonardo as the first designer in history. In fact, we not only owe paintings, sculptures and mechanical inventions to Leonardo, but also innovative and functional objects of everyday use able to drive social change. 
Experimentation and versatility have also guided the choices of curator Cristina Morozzi, who has selected talents and artists from the worlds of #design, art, fashion and technology. The scientific contents regarding Leonardo carry the signature of physicist #massimotemporelli. Twenty years from its installation in Milan, Leonardo’s Horse becomes an inspirational source for the artists who have been invited to imagine and reinterpret reproductions of the Horse as part of a shared project.

This is how #cristinamorozzi presents the artists engaged in paying a tribute to the genius of Leonardo: “Markus Benesch, known for his polychrome installations and invasive psychedelic decorations; #marceloburlon, a cultural nomad, a trader in multiple crafts; #matteocibic, an eclectic designer of boundless imagination; Serena Confalonieri, a creative talent skilled in material contaminations and the use of #design with inspirations borrowed from the fashion world; Simone Crestani, an artist who works with glass, personally engaged in his workshop, blowing glass into shapes inspired by the plant and animal kingdoms; Roberto Fragata, a fashion designer who combines elegance with simple shapes and hints of boldness; Andrea Mancuso Anelogia Project, endowed with a narrative approach that draws its nourishment from historical references and recollections; Antonio Marras, designer in love with art; Vito Nesta, designer and interior designer, a skilled illustrator of
dreamlike worlds; Daniele Papuli, creator of artistic paper artefacts which he shapes into complex and spectacular forms; Elena Salmistraro, who stands out for her elaborate and fabulous figurative language; Mario Trimarchi, a prodigious storyteller armed with a pencil; Marcel Wanders, promoter of a narrative trend, interspersed with hints of gothic origin”.
Starting from the inauguration of the project – on April 10th – the Cavalli di Design will be exhibited at the Snai San Siro Racecourse in the area where the original Horse of Leonardo stands.
To mark the Grand Opening, the Racecourse will be animated until late at night by a DJ set of international fame. On the same day, in the former tack room, a multimedia exhibition will be inaugurated, fruit of a collaboration with the Museo della Battaglia of Anghiari, under the curatorship of Gabriele Mazzi, director of the Tuscan museum. The anatomical studies on horses, sketches, drawings and preparatory cardboard models for the mural Leonardo never managed to produce, depicting the battle of Anghiari, will provide the cue for a story which reveals some interesting aspects of the artist’s personality and training.
The project also contemplates the development of an augmented reality app, enabling the public not only to view Leonardo’s Horse and the other Horses exhibited in various parts of the city, but also to activate exclusive interactive contents regarding Leonardo and the other artists who have personalized the scale reproductions of the original artwork.

LEONARDO’S HORSE
Standing at the entrance to the Secondary Grandstand of the Snai San Siro Racecourse, Leonardo’s Horse, with its height of 7 metres and 10 ton weight, is one of the largest equestrian sculptures ever produced.
The majestic work – entirely cast in bronze by US artist Nina Akamu in 1999 – is inspired by an equestrian monument commemorating Francesco Sforza and designed by #leonardodavinci between 1482 and 1493. The studies and interest in the anatomy of the noble animal, previously conducted by Leonardo, provided the foundation stones on which to develop a monumental work: thereproduction of a horse four times larger than life in an upright position, standing on its hind legs only. Unfortunately, Leonardo never managed to finish the work because, when the clay model was finally ready, French soldiers invaded the city and the bronze destined for the production of the Horse was used to build cannons for the defence of Milan.

In 1977, Charles Dent, a US civil airline pilot, fascinated by the story of Leonardo’s unfinished Horse, founded the Leonardo Da Vinci’s Horse Foundation which, five centuries from the original project by the great genius, managed to bring it to fruition thanks to a fundraising. This is how the Horse came to be created by Nina Akamu, and later donated to the city of Milan where it is exhibited at the Snai San Siro
Racecourse.
Divided up into seven different parts, the Horse arrived in the capital of Lombardy in the autumn of 1999 and, ever since then, has greeted visitors before the spectacular scenario of grandstands dating back to the early twentieth century.