Italy – Leonardo’s horse is the greatest equestrian statue in the world

Not many people know that the greatest equestrian statue in the world is Italian and is located in Milan ! We are talking about “Leonardo’s Horse”, which holds the distinction of being the greatest, but also certainly the most beautiful and the most harmonious in its proportions. Discover now all our trips, tours, holidays and horse trekking in Italy. In 1977, Charles Dent, an American pilot, art collector and lover of sculpture, was enthusiastic about the idea of making Leonardo’s dream come true after five centuries. He set up the organization and managed, after more than fifteen years of effort, to find the funds: the cost of the horse, finally, reached almost 2.5 million dollars. However, the man failed to see his dream come true, because he died in 1994, before the feat was completed. When Dent died, the project was about to be abandoned when Frederik Meijer , owner of a supermarket chain in Michigan, offered to finance the project, as long as two horses were made: one for Milan and the other for Meijer Gardens, a natural and artistic park in Grand Rapids (Michigan) , owned by Meijer, where copies of the most famous modern statues are collected outdoors.

Leonardo’s Horse was then placed in this American park in October 1999 and it is today the most important piece of the exhibition. The project went ahead in spite of numerous difficulties and in the end the direction of the works was given to the sculptor Nina Akamu who finally brought the company to fruition. The first step was to create a small horse, about 3 meters high, to then arrive at the gigantic clay sculpture of 8 meters. Thus 7 cast parts in melted bronze were obtained from the clay horse, which were welded together once they arrived in Milan in July 1999. After some discussion, the horse was finally placed in September of the same year, at the entrance to the racecourse of San Siro.