The path of a Visionary

What does it mean to see?

APRIL 21–28, 2027
Vinci • Florence • Milan, Italy

Long before Leonardo da Vinci became the painter of The Last Supper and The Mona Lisa, he was a curious child wandering the hills around Vinci. He watched the movement of water, the flight of birds, the anatomy of plants, the play of light across stone, and the endless patterns woven through nature. His genius did not begin with painting. It began with attention.

In Leonardo's Footsteps follows the path of his early life and helps us start changing our ways of seeing through exercises that can train your mind and your eyes to see in different ways. We start the journey in the landscape of Vinci,  then we travel to Florence, where his artistic education took shape, and finally to Milan, where his curiosity for anatomy, engineering, and invention gave him the economical basis to manifest his curiosity.

Rather than simply visiting museums and historic sites, we will move through the places that shaped him, I will guide you through his world with a sensitive eye and open mind.

Vinci

The Awakening of Curiosity

We begin in the Tuscan countryside where Leonardo spent his childhood. Here, among vineyards, olive groves, forests, and streams, we slow our pace and experience the landscape of Vinci, immersing ourselves in the nature that surrounded Leonardo and shaped his attentiveness.

Before Leonardo became the artist, inventor, and visionary we know today, he was a curious child observing the world around him. Nature became one of his earliest teachers. The movement of water, the flight of birds, the structure of plants, the play of light and shadow, and the patterns he discovered in the landscape would continue to appear throughout his art and notebooks.

I will introduce simple exercises here you can use in the rest of the journey, that will help your attention and mindset of the Ways of Seeing concept.

Florence

The Education

At sixteen, Leonardo entered Florence, one of the most vibrant cultural centers of the Renaissance. In Andrea del Verrocchio's workshop, he learned painting, sculpture, engineering, and architecture, surrounded by artists and craftsmen exploring new ways to represent the human body, nature, movement, light, and perspective.

Florence was also alive with philosophical conversations. Humanism, Neoplatonic thought, and Jewish mysticism were influencing artists and scholars alike. Ideas about beauty, proportion, symbolism, and the relationship between humanity and the divine shaped the creative atmosphere in which Leonardo matured.

Here, we explore the Florence Leonardo knew, walking its streets, entering its churches and museums, and encountering the art and architecture that surrounded him. 

We begin to see how his education extended far beyond the workshop, into a city where art, philosophy, science, and spirituality were continually informing one another.

Milan

The Mature Leonardo 

When Leonardo entered the court of Ludovico Sforza, his world changed dramatically. Milan offered stability, generous patronage, and the financial freedom to pursue projects in painting, engineering, architecture, music, and science.

Here, Leonardo was able to move beyond the traditional boundaries of the artist. He designed machines and military devices, studied anatomy, experimented with architecture, planned theatrical spectacles, investigated the movement of water, and continued filling his notebooks with observations and ideas. His curiosity moved freely from one discipline to another, each question leading him toward the next.

It was also in Milan that Leonardo created The Last Supper, one of the most recognized works of art in the world. We will experience the painting in the place for which it was created, allowing ourselves to encounter it not only as an image reproduced countless times, but as a work existing within its original architectural and spiritual setting.

Leonardo also envisioned and designed improvements to Milan's system of waterways, including ideas for canals, locks, and connections that would improve navigation through the city. The Navigli district offers us another way to consider Leonardo's fascination with water, engineering, movement, and the relationship between human ingenuity and the natural world.

Milan brings us into the mature Leonardo, where the artist, scientist, engineer, philosopher, and observer become increasingly difficult to separate. His work reveals a mind that did not divide the world into subjects, but continued looking for the connections between them.

Our journey ends here, in a modern city that continues to value art, design, innovation, and new ideas. After following Leonardo from the countryside of Vinci through the creative awakening of Florence, Milan brings us forward into the present.

Who Is This Journey For?

This journey is not designed to tell you what to see. It is designed to have you see exactly what your eyes see in the first place.

Through easy exercises that help you change your way of seeing, I will guide you through a world of art and help you explore and experience new ways of seeing. This is a very easy fun and mind opening way to anyone curious about exploring art and philosophy in new ways.

As with all Ways of Seeing experiences, historical knowledge is an add on the phenomenological experience rather than replacing it. We begin with direct perception before interpretation, allowing each place to speak before we speak.

This trip welcomes anyone who is drawn to:

• Art and Renaissance history
• Philosophy and symbolic thinking
• Jewish Mysticism and Kabbalah
• Personal reflection through attention
• Slow, meaningful cultural experiences
• The life of Leonardo da Vinci 

No previous knowledge of Leonardo or art history is required - only curiosity.