The minister also reminded participants that Italians are Leonardo's heirs: "our roots derive from him, which is why it is our civic duty to know our past, to safeguard and appreciate it, to bring it back to life in the present so that it can stimulate our future."

"We are what we are thanks to what we have been, and we are granted a future only in relation to the tradition that defines us as a civilization," Bussetti said.

Art historian and critic Vittorio Sgarbi commented that "Leonardo is not dead: he is inside every one of us -- a man who knew that our perfection is in the mind. His mind was capable of everything -- he really thought there would be a time when humans would fly."

Leonardo's ideas about flying are on view in "The Wings of Leonardo: Genius and Flight", an exhibition inaugurated by Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi at Fiumicino International Airport.

It includes five life-size reproductions of flying inventions designed by Leonardo, including a flying man with an 11-meter wingspan, a flying ship that takes off from the water, and a fan-powered machine that is an ancestor to the modern-day glider.

Indeed, the Renaissance master who authored what is perhaps the world's most famous painting, the Mona Lisa, has an entire museum dedicated to his scientific thought: the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology in the northern city of Milan, where Leonardo spent a number of years as court engineer to Duke Ludovico Sforza.

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