‘Santa Claus is comin’ to town.’ And very soon after, so too, is Leonardo. In Pueblo, work on the world’s third Leonard da Vinci Museum is moving along and on track to meet its opening day in March 2026.
The Pueblo Leonardo da Vinci Museum will be the first of its kind in the United States and only the third in the entire world. It will be housed in what was once the Pro Bull Riders Sport Performance Center at 310 Central Main Street.
The rodeo themed organization relocated to Fort Worth, Texas. It had a 17-year run in Pueblo before announcing in August 2024 that it would be leaving town.
But while the images of flailing hooves, snorting nostrils and flying cowboys will no longer be part of the city’s historic downtown, something as exciting will fill the void.
Leonardo is considered one of the great artists of the Renaissance. He was a painter, sculptor, inventor, architect and botanist, a man of almost other worldly imagination.
His paintings include, of course, the iconic Mona Lisa. But it was just one of the legacy pieces that still enthrall millions. His Madonna and the Child, Salvador Mundi or Savior of the World, his self portrait, Vitruvian Man and The Last Supper are among his most memorable works. Each holds deep mystery that, centuries later, continues to inspire wonder and debate.
Ever fascinated with birds and flight, Leonardo left to the world 15th century renderings that continue to both baffle and amaze in a 21st century, five hundred years after his death.
Leonard’s lifelong obsession with flight is memorialized in his drawings. His ‘Codice sul volo degli Uccelli or Codex on the Flight of Birds, is a portal into a mind that imagined the means by which man could replicate this unique property of birds.
From his imagination and using his drawings as blueprints, the Pueblo Leonardo Museum will feature replicas of his Helical air screw. To say its sophistication is both surreal and uncanny may actually sell its inspiration short.
One replica that visitors will see in Pueblo is Leonardo’s single, screw-shaped blade that he believed would achieve flight, much like a helicopter rotor provides lift. But because it relies on muscle power, it would probably never would accomplish what he envisioned. Nonetheless its concept of aerodynamics in the 15th century shows the ingenuity of a man who imagined the future.
A number of the items that will be housed in the museum are now in the process of being safely moved from the PuebloPlex.
“Things are very, very busy all the way around,” said the Craig Eliot Cisney, vice president of the board for the Southern Colorado Science Center in a recent email. “Since the last time we spoke,” he said, “we have received a couple of shipping containers of new museum pieces from the artisans of Florence that were made from the drawings of Leonard da Vinci.”
Also to be included in the museum are “a complete set of facsimile codices of Leonardo…and have been told it is one if not the only complete set of all of the Codexes (sic).”
While March is the tentative ribbon cutting for the museum, there could be a small stumbling block. But the city has stepped up to address it.
The Pueblo City Council recently approved nearly $200 thousand to repair a sanitary sewer line to the former Bull Riders headquarters.
“It was unforeseen,” Pueblo Mayor Heather Graham told The Pueblo Chieftain. The weight of the iconic bucking bull that once graced the sidewalk outside the building put too much pressure on the sewer line. The building could not be occupied, and the museum would have been put on hold until the repairs were complete.
