Bottega di Leonardo

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The Florence workshop.

Bottega di Leonardo was the workshop of the famed polymath Leonardo da Vinci, where he would often design and build his inventions, as well as decode pages of the Codex.

Throughout the years, he relocated his operations from Florence, to Venice, then Rome; however, the workshop would maintain its appearance and purpose.

Florence

Leonardo allowing Ezio to hide in his workshop.

While living in Florence, Leonardo's workshop was located in the center of the city. There, he created commissions for the local townspeople, one of whom was Maria Auditore da Firenze. Through her, Leonardo became acquainted with her son, Ezio, who would frequent his different workshops in later years.

After Ezio had become an Assassin in 1476, Leonardo once hid him in his workshop, as he went to intercept the guard searching for him.

Aside from painting and design, Leonardo also studied human anatomy. He stored and dissected bodies in his workshop, which the city often sent him for research. Because of this, Ezio was once able to hide a guard he had killed in Leonardo's workshop.

Ezio watching Leonardo decipher the Codex.

This studio was where Leonardo first received and decoded a page of Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad's Codex, from which he designed and built the Hidden Blade. Through other pages, he also constructed upgrades for it, including the second blade and poison blade.

Leonardo also allowed Ezio to practice with his hidden blade in the courtyard next to the workshop; instructing his assistant at the time, Vincenzo, to set up dummies for him to use.

After receiving a commission from a Venetian noble in 1480, Leonardo left Florence, and relocated his workshop to Venice.

Venice

"And now, I present to you, your workshop, Ser da Vinci! We spared no expense in its design! You'll see it is perfect; as if you never left Firenze!"

―Alvise da Vilandino.

Upon his arrival and subsequent tour of the city by Alvise da Vilandino, Leonardo was introduced to his new workshop. Alvise commented that it would be "as if he never left Firenze," and indeed, the building and interior were nearly identical to his workshop in Florence.

Mario, Niccolò, Ezio and Leonardo discuss the Apple.

Leonardo continued to decode Codex pages for Ezio in this workshop, and built the Hidden Gun upgrade of the hidden blade. Here, he also improved the design of his Flying Machine, which allowed Ezio to fly over Venice to the Palazzo Ducale.

During 1488, after retrieving the Apple of Eden from Rodrigo Borgia, Ezio took it to Leonardo's workshop. There, he, Leonardo, Mario Auditore, and Niccolò Machiavelli attempted to discover its purpose.

Rome

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Leonardo in his workshop in Rome.

In 1499, after being forcibly recruited by the Papal Captain General Cesare Borgia, Leonardo began to design and create weapons and war machines for the Borgia forces. As such, by 1500, he had relocated his workshop to Rome.

He remained there after Cesare's fall from power. In 1506, Leonardo spent much time in his workshop studying Pythagoras, and the Pythagorean temple, as well as working on his latest painting, the Mona Lisa.

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Leonardo's ransacked workshop.

During that same year, Leonardo was kidnapped from his workshop by Hermeticists, who also ransacked the building's room in search of his map to the temple of Pythagoras. He managed to leave a clue for Ezio to find him by writing on the floor of the workshop.

During their attempts to find the artist, Ezio and Leonardo's assistant Salaì used his workshop to store the da Vinci paintings they recovered, and searched them for clues.

Database Entries

Bottega di Leonardo a Firenze

Leonardo da Vinci opened his own studio after completing his apprenticeship to Verrocchio, one of the most successful Florentine artists of the day.

Between 1476 and 1481, Leonardo probably continued to collaborate with Verrocchio, although no one is quite sure what he was working on. In 1481, he was given his first commission by the monks of San Donato a Scopeto, to paint The Adoration of Magi.

In true da Vinci style, he began the painting, but never finished it.

Bottega di Leonardo a Venezia

During his brief stay in Venice, Leonardo da Vinci was a paid military engineer for the Venetian army, and claimed to be working on a painting of the famous Isabella d'Este, of whom he had made a cartoon while visiting Mantua. Despite promising her repeatedly that he was hard at work, no painting ever materialized.

Although many history books claim Leonardo only visited Venice once, it seems that he used his workshop there as sort of secret retreat, returning to it repeatedly during his life.

Trivia

• The memory "Ace Up My Sleeve" is the first time that Ezio enters the workshop.
• In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, you are able to enter the workshop during the Cristina Memories that take place in Florence.

Gallery

• 
  Concept art of Leonardo's workshop.
• Leonardo looking over his designs.
  Leonardo looking over his designs.
• Leonardo's workshop in Venice.
  Leonardo's workshop in Venice.
• Some of Leonardo's sketches in his workshop.
  Some of Leonardo's sketches in his workshop.
• 
  Ezio and Salaì in Leonardo's workshop.
• Leonardo working in his Rome workshop.
  Leonardo working in his Rome workshop.