TV series · Lux Vide · Sony · Rai · 2020

Leonardo.

For the international series on Leonardo da Vinci starring Aidan Turner, we rebuilt an entire Renaissance village — Lombard courtyards, Gothic arches, palazzi with mullioned windows.

Story

One act

Building the Milan
of Ludovico il Moro.

Leonardo is the event TV series by Lux Vide with Sony Pictures, France Télévisions and Rai — eight episodes on the life of Leonardo da Vinci, with Aidan Turner as the Renaissance titan. Shooting between 2019 and 2020, suspended in March by the first lockdown, resumed after the summer, broadcast spring 2021.

For the scenes set in the Lombard palazzi at the court of Ludovico il Moro, the production needed a full-scale outdoor set: courtyards, porticoes, façades, Gothic arches, staircases. We rebuilt in the open air an entire Renaissance village in faux stone and plaster — a "fifteenth-century Milan" usable for wide shots from any angle.

Three main architectural registers. The Gothic-Lombard palazzo: sand-ochre façades in modulated plaster over a faux grey stone base, mullioned windows with red terracotta frames on the upper floor, pointed arches on the ground floor, solid wood doors.

The inner courtyard: porticoes with three depressed arches, stone columns with stylised acanthus-leaf capitals, exposed wooden roof beams, mullioned windows on the upper floor with terracotta frames. A practicable architectural backdrop from the ground floor to the first floor.

The corridor-gallery: a sequence of pointed Gothic arches in eroded faux stone, packed-earth gravel underfoot — the effect of an abandoned palazzo crossed silently. Cinematographic depth obtained from the geometry of the set itself.

Technique: hand-sculpted expanded polystyrene for the large structures, modulated plaster applied directly to the panels for the sand-ochre finish, faux stone for the rustication and capitals, real wood for roof beams and doors. Build 13 March 2020 — the last days before the national lockdown shutdown.

Panoramic view of the Renaissance village from the Leonardo set: two palazzi in grey-white faux stone with a central archway and red-tiled roofs, secondary buildings in light wood on the right, green hilly landscape in the background, grey cloudy spring sky — The Renaissance village — panoramic view

Corridor-gallery with pointed Gothic arches in faux stone: a sequence of arches receding into the distance like a forced perspective, walls in eroded-stone colour with rough texture, packed-earth gravel underfoot, in the background a threshold with stone steps leading toward the light — The corridor-gallery of Gothic arches

Inner courtyard of the Lombard palazzo: portico with three depressed arches with red terracotta frames, grey stone columns with acanthus-leaf capitals, plastered wall in sand-ochre colour, mullioned windows with terracotta frames on the upper floor, exposed wooden roof beams — The Lombard courtyard, interior view

Set details

The Quattrocento
at full scale.

Five architectural typologies, a single open-air build. March 2020 caught us at the end of the finishing work.

Façade of the two-storey Lombard palazzo: rusticated faux grey stone wall on the ground floor, three pointed Gothic arches with light stone frames, central dark wood door, light wooden mullioned windows on the upper floor, upper wall in light grey plaster; to the right an adjacent building in light cut stone — The Gothic façade with mullioned windows

Portico with three depressed arches: arch frames in red terracotta, grey stone columns with stylised acanthus-leaf capitals, wall in modulated sand-ochre plaster, beneath the arches dark doorways and windows with terracotta frames, above the portico exposed wooden roof beams and another arched window — Portico with acanthus-leaf capitals

Wooden balcony suspended above a passage between two buildings of the set: structure in light wood planks with balustrade of small columns, decorative arches framing six small mullioned windows, beneath the balcony the archway between the two wings of the palazzo in faux stone; scaffolding and construction equipment visible in the background — Wooden balcony between the two wings

Behind the scenes

The Quattrocento in the open air,
March 2020.

The build wrapped on 13 March 2020 — the last day before the national lockdown. It is the date we remember as a watershed: the finishing of the Leonardo set was nearly complete, and from that day the world changed.

Modulated sand-ochre plaster

The walls of the Lombard palazzo are in modulated plaster applied directly to polystyrene and fibreglass panels. Colour modulation is obtained through glazes of natural earths (yellow ochre, red ochre, Siena earth), as a Renaissance fresco would have been done. No flat industrial colour: the wall must look like it has lived for five centuries.

The acanthus-leaf capitals

The capitals of the courtyard columns are sculpted in the round: acanthus leaves stylised in the manner of the Lombard Quattrocento, not in the Roman-classical taste (more rigid), not in the taste of the late Cinquecento (more soft). Bramante and Filarete are the references — Leonardo knew them, and the director wanted a capital that the eye of the period would find familiar.

Real wood on the balcony

The roof beams, the solid wood doors, the wooden balcony suspended between the two wings of the palazzo are in real wood, not scenographic. It is a choice of craft: structural set wood lasts the duration of the production, and the camera in close-up reads it without recourse to special effects. The physical weight of the material supports the direction.

13 Mar

2020 · last day of construction before lockdown

8 ep.

the series length · aired on Rai 1 spring 2021

architectural typologies including palazzo, courtyard, corridor, balcony, village

Tech sheet

All production data

Type: Exterior scenographic sets for television series · full-scale Renaissance architecture
Series: Leonardo · 8 episodes · broadcast spring 2021
Co-production: Lux Vide · Sony Pictures Television · France Télévisions · Rai Fiction · Big Light Productions
Lead: Aidan Turner as Leonardo da Vinci
Build period: Construction until 13 March 2020 · shooting suspended by lockdown, resumed after summer 2020
Elements built: Open-air Renaissance village · two-storey Gothic-Lombard palazzo with mullioned windows and pointed arches · inner courtyard with portico of three arches, columns with acanthus-leaf capitals · corridor-gallery of Gothic arches in eroded faux stone · wooden balcony suspended between two wings of the palazzo
Techniques: Hand-sculpted expanded polystyrene · modulated plaster for the ochre-sand finish · faux stone for rustication and capitals · real wood for roof beams, solid doors, balustrades, balconies
Our role: Full delivery of the Renaissance village — sculpting, plastering, faux stone, on-site assembly of the open-air set
Second life: Set dismantled after shooting · some elements (columns, capitals, mullioned windows) kept in our workshops for Renaissance reuse

Second life

The series on air,
the set dismantled.

Leonardo aired on Rai 1 in the spring of 2021, with strong ratings and international distribution. Our sets are dismantled after shooting — it is the rule of cinema, even for television epics.

Some individual sculptures return to our workshops for future reuse: the columns with acanthus-leaf capitals, the terracotta mullioned windows, the blocks of patinated faux stone. They are elements that enter our Lombard Quattrocento repertoire and will be useful the next time a set demands that specific period.

Leonardo stays in our memory as the build that closed on 13 March 2020: the last finishes, the last brushstrokes on the plaster, and then the silence of the national lockdown for the months that followed.