Map of Imola

In August 1502 Cesare Borgia named Leonardo his "architect and general engineer". That autumn Borgia's court stayed in Imola, and Leonardo surveyed the town.

He set up at the centre, divided the horizon into eight wind directions and sixty-four sub-divisions, took bearings on each street corner and paced the distances. The result is a true plan, as if seen from directly above, at a time when most town views were drawn in bird's-eye perspective. The moat is in blue and the houses are pink.

Niccolò Machiavelli was in Imola in the same months as Florence's envoy to Borgia. The two men would work together again on the Arno project in 1503.