A view of the villa from above.
Photo courtesy Lionard Luxury Real Estate.
An oceanfront Tuscan villa that was once home to Leonardo da Vinci is on the market for just $14.6 million, and includes walls designed by the Renaissance master in 1502 while he was working as a military engineer. A few years later, he would paint the Mona Lisa, between 1503 and 1506.
Built in the 1400s as a fort, the four-story, five-bedroom estate is in the town of Livorno, about 15 miles from Pisa and 55 miles from Florence. Napoleon Bonaparte’s sister, Elisa, renovated the estate in the 1800s. The residence offers two terraces with views to the Mediterranean Sea.
It might be your best shot at owning a work created by the legendary artist and inventor.
Artworks by Leonardo are exceedingly rare to the market. Just one painting by him is on public view in the US: Ginevra de’ Benci (1474/78) is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, DC.
Photo courtesy Lionard Luxury Real Estate.
When the painting Christ as Salvator Mundi was reattributed to Leonardo da Vinci in 2012, the reported asking price was some $200 million; two years later, the painting reportedly went to an unidentified collector for about $75 million. That price came despite the panel having been “very considerably overpainted,” according to an exhibition catalogue.
This year has been a good one for da Vinci enthusiasts. A month ago, a music professor at Cleveland’s Case Western University put forth an argument that a 500-year-old engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi includes a portrait of the artist, and a newly discovered Leonardo self-portrait was recently on view at the Muscarelle Museum of Art at Virginia’s College of William & Mary.
Photo courtesy Lionard Luxury Real Estate.
Photo courtesy Lionard Luxury Real Estate.
Photo courtesy Lionard Luxury Real Estate.