Leonardo Interactive Museum Tickets Florence

The Leonardo Interactive Museum in Florence

The Leonardo Interactive Museum has operated in central Florence for over twenty years, close to the Duomo. Unlike a traditional museum, it is built around touching and doing: the machines are full-size or scaled models made from the drawings in Leonardo's notebooks, and visitors are invited to operate them.

If you are searching for Leonardo Interactive Museum tickets or how to get to the Leonardo Interactive Museum in Florence, the museum is a few minutes' walk from the cathedral, so it is easy to add to a walking tour of the centre. Tickets are sold online for a chosen day and time, and your voucher shows the address and entry slot.

Leonardo the inventor: machines from the notebooks

Leonardo da Vinci, born in Vinci in 1452 and best known for the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, was also an inventor, engineer and student of anatomy. His notebooks, called codices, are full of drawings of machines, flying devices, war engines and hydraulic systems, many of them centuries ahead of their time.

In the museum you can try the tank, the catapult, the worm screw, the vertical screw, the hydraulic saw, the printing press and other mechanisms built from those drawings. Seeing the parts move helps you understand the ideas, and you discover that many of his designs still look surprisingly modern more than five hundred years later.

Workshops, audio guide and who it suits

Beyond the machines, the museum offers interactive workshops in which visitors build bridges, domes and polyhedra using Leonardo's principles, along with displays about his studies of engineering, physics, anatomy and painting. The audio guide, played on your own smartphone with earphones, is available in Italian, English, French, Spanish, German and Portuguese.

Is the Leonardo Interactive Museum worth visiting? It is a good choice for families and for anyone who prefers doing to reading, especially on a rainy day. It is suitable for visitors aged about seven and over, and children under seven are not recommended. The visit takes about an hour.

Planning your visit: tickets, timing and tips

The best time to visit the Leonardo Interactive Museum is on a weekday or earlier in the day, when there is more space to try each machine. Leonardo Interactive Museum opening hours change by season, so check your date in the booking panel. The museum has free Wi-Fi, and the entry is wheelchair-accessible.

Bring earphones and a charged phone for the audio guide. Machines are meant to be used, but you should do so with care and follow the staff instructions. The museum is close to the Duomo, the Accademia Gallery and San Marco, and it pairs naturally with a walk through the historic centre.