Who commissioned Leonardo da Vinci’s giant equestrian monument, known as Gran Cavallo?

Ludovico Sforza commissioned Leonardo da Vinci’s giant equestrian monument, known as Gran Cavallo.

Sforza, the Duke of Milan, wanted a monumental bronze horse honoring his father, Francesco Sforza. Leonardo began the project in the late 1480s and spent years studying horses, proportions, casting, and sculptural composition. The proposed statue would have been extraordinarily large for its time.

Leonardo completed a full-size clay model in Milan in 1493. It became known as the Gran Cavallo, or Great Horse, and attracted widespread admiration. The intended bronze casting was never completed because the bronze reserved for the monument was diverted to make cannons during wartime.

French troops later damaged the clay model in 1499. The original monument disappeared, but modern sculptors created large recreations based on Leonardo’s drawings and surviving evidence. The project is often remembered as one of his most ambitious unfinished inventions and artworks.