Leonardo da Vinci Museum in Florence: tickets, prices, opening hours and which of the two to choose

Before you book a Leonardo da Vinci museum in Florence you need to know something that confuses hundreds of visitors every week: there are two museums, they are different, they are run by people with nothing to do with each other, and they stand fifty metres apart. The one sold on Tiqets and GetYourGuide is the Leonardo Interactive Museum, at Via dei Servi 66/R: ticket €8.30 online, €10 on the platforms, open every day 9:30–19:30, visit of about an hour.

Two Leonardo museums, fifty metres apart

Both are legitimate, both are open, both have wooden machines you can work by hand. But they are not the same place, and a ticket for one is not valid at the other.

The Leonardo Interactive Museum’s site explicitly warns its visitors that fifty metres earlier, on the corner of Via del Castellaccio, there is another museum with no connection to it. That is a useful heads-up, not a quarrel: if you have booked online through a platform, your ticket is valid only at Via dei Servi 66/R.

From here on, when this page says “the museum”, it means the Leonardo Interactive Museum, at Via dei Servi 66/R: that is the one you book through the links on this site.

Leonardo museum Florence tickets and prices

The museum presents its online prices as a 50% discount tied to its twentieth anniversary, but the full rate appears nowhere: the site only says that at the desk you can buy whatever tickets are left for the day “without the 50% discounted rate”, without saying what that amounts to. Doubling the online prices would be our arithmetic, not a published figure, so we are not doing it.

On the guided tour the site shows two figures: €14.90 in the tickets section and €12.90 in the FAQ. The first one holds: the tickets page is up to date, while the FAQ has been frozen for two years and also gets admission wrong, quoting €8.00 instead of €8.30. Same story with the days: the FAQ talks about tours from Friday to Monday, the tickets page limits them to Saturday and Sunday, in Italian only and with few places.

On the platforms the ticket costs €10 on Tiqets and €9.90 on GetYourGuide at the time of checking: between €1.60 and €1.70 more than the official online price, in exchange for instant confirmation, an app and customer support. At this level the difference is small: slot availability matters more than the price.

Opening hours, last entry and special days

It is open every day of the year from 9:30 to 19:30, with last entry one hour before. There is no weekly closing day: this is one of the few museums in the centre you can visit on Monday too, when the Uffizi and the Accademia Gallery are closed.

Only the holiday period differs: on 25 December it closes at 19:00, from 26 to 30 December it is back to 19:30, on 31 December it closes at 18:00, and from 1 to 7 January ordinary hours resume. The same page also shows 10:00–18:00, but it is stuck to the list of Christmas dates: it is a holiday-season panel left up, not a winter timetable. Reduced seasonal hours do not exist.

What ages it suits, what you can touch, how long it takes

The museum recommends the visit from ages 7-8 up, and it is right: below that threshold the mechanisms get worked happily enough but the story — the aerial screw, the winch, the transmission of motion, the studies of water — goes over their heads. Under 14s must be accompanied by a parent.

What you actually do: turn cranks, lift weights with winches, set wooden gears going, try out the mechanics Leonardo drew in his notebooks. The workshops are included in the ticket, not an extra to be booked separately.

The stated duration is about an hour, workshops included, and it matches what the platforms show. It is an easy visit to slot in: a morning at the Accademia Gallery and the museum in the afternoon, or the other way round.

Neither Leonardo museum is state-run, so neither takes part in the free first Sunday of the month: that scheme covers only the Uffizi, the Accademia, the Bargello, the Medici Chapels and the other state museums. The full rules are on tickets.

How to book and what happens if you change your mind

The ticket is bought on the official site or on the platforms, with confirmation on your phone. The condition really worth knowing is free cancellation up to 24 hours before the visit: a margin the state museums never allow, given that Uffizi Galleries tickets are in the holder’s name and non-refundable. Guided tours, however, are non-refundable here too.

The museum publishes no phone number: the contacts are the email addresses info@ and booking@leonardointeractivemuseum.com.

Leonardo or the Museo Galileo? The difference is real science

This is the comparison that counts, and it is worth making before you buy.

The Museo Galileo, at Piazza dei Giudici 1, does not display reconstructions: it displays original instruments, from Galileo’s telescopes to clocks, from armillary spheres to instruments from the Medici collection. The full ticket is €14, reduced €7 for ages 6 to 18, family ticket €32, and under 6s go in free; booking costs €1. Hours are 9:30–18:00 on Monday and from Wednesday to Sunday, but on Tuesday it closes at 13:00. The stated duration is one to two hours and here too the official advice is from ages 7-8 up.

The Museo Galileo is not state-run either, and it does not take part in the free Sunday: it says so in its own FAQ.

In practice: if your child wants to touch, go to Leonardo; if your teenager (or you) wants to understand how science was born here, go to the Galileo. The full listing with hours and closures is in other museums.

With small children: HZERO and the alternatives

Under seven, the Leonardo museum does not deliver much. For that age group HZERO works better, at Piazza degli Ottaviani 2r: a 280-square-metre model railway with more than seventy trains and a treasure hunt through over a thousand scenes. Full €14, reduced €9, children aged 4–13 €7, free under 4; family tickets run from €24 to €41 depending on the number of people. Watch the calendar: HZERO opens Wednesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 19:00 and is closed Monday and Tuesday, with last entry at 18:00.

On the platforms HZERO costs €18, against €14 at the desk. Together with the Pinocchio Museum Experience at Via Ricasoli 44 it is the pairing that best holds up a rainy day with small children: you will find both in other museums and in the itineraries under things to do.

The combo with the Accademia Gallery

Tiqets pairs the Leonardo museum with the Accademia Gallery, applying its 5% discount to the sum of the two chosen tickets. The package makes logistical sense — Via dei Servi and Via Ricasoli are a few minutes apart, and the David is still the city’s number one visit — but do the sums: the Accademia on its own costs €20 plus €4 booking according to galleriaaccademiafirenze.it, and the Leonardo museum €8.30 on its own site. The combo buys convenience and guaranteed slots, not savings. All the calculations in euros are in combos, and the David page with hours and closures is Accademia and David.

In short

The Leonardo da Vinci museum you book online in Florence is the Leonardo Interactive Museum at Via dei Servi 66/R: tickets from €8.30 on the official site and from €10 on the platforms, hours 9:30–19:30 every day, an hour’s visit, free cancellation up to 24 hours before. The other Leonardo museum, the Niccolai one at Via del Castellaccio 1/R, is a fair alternative but is only sold on its own. For the rest of the city’s smaller museums, with prices and closing days, go to other museums.