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The patron of the arts Ludovico Sforza (1452-1508), known as "Il Moro", had after the murder of his elder brother Galeazzo Maria Sforza (1444-1476), the rightful heir of the founder of the ruling dynasty, become the guardian of the latter's son and in that way seized power over Milan in 1480. Like his brother before him, Ludovico wanted to justify his rulership by donating an equestrian monument in honour of his father Francesco Sforza.
Leonardo was probably commissioned to produce the monument in 1485 and worked on it until 1499, when the French invasion of Milan spelled the permanent end of the project. His first design for the monument dating from the mid-1480s shows a rearing horse with a dynamic rider, under whose front hooves a conquered soldier lies. This motif was not merely a reference to the taking over of power in Milan, but was principally an envisualization of the name of Sforza, which roughly translates as "force". Enormous technical problems delayed the completion of the project. The full-scale model of the horse in clay was unveiled in November 1493 in the courtyard of the Milan fortress. In 1499, the French occupying forces destroyed the model.
During his second period in Milan, in about 1510, Leonardo produced designs for a second equestrian monument that was also not constructed: it was the funeral monument for Marshal Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, who was in the service of the French. A group of horse drawings dated to the last three years of Leonardo's life suggest that François I also asked Leonardo to design an equestrian monument, though no trace of such a commission has remained in other documents.
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| Summary of works by Leonardo |
| Paintings |
| early work | in the 1480s | in the 1490s | late work | copies |
| Studies to paintings |
| Battle of Anghiari | studies (1) | studies (2) | heads | various |
| Other studies |
| anatomy | nature | engineering | maps | architecture | sculpture |
