Picture of St. Peter's Basilica Leonardo Da Vinci

Meeting

In 1499, artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci was in Rome to visit St. Peter's Basilica. It was then that he met Alberto Grasso, a famous Italian architect who was working on the project of expansion and renovation of religious buildings.


Leonardo was fascinated by Grasso's plans and asked him if he could examine them in more detail. Grasso readily agreed and invited Leonardo to come to his house to discuss the possibilities of developing the site.


During the discussion, Leonardo was impressed by Grasso's innovative vision of the project. He shared his own innovative idea: to create a gallery under the ground that would connect all the buildings together so that visitors could easily move between them without having to climb or descend stairs.


Grasso greatly appreciated this suggestion and offered Leonardo to join his team to implement this ambitious plan. And so began a fruitful collaboration between one of the greatest artists of all time and a talented Italian architect whose influence on the current design of St. Peter's Basilica cannot be denied.