The Duke of Milan, who sponsored da Vinci, certainly had ambitions for the Renaissance man. On top of his giant horse statue commission, the Duke also had da Vinci devise new city plans, castle defenses, weaponry, puzzles, poems, stage sets, and parties, all while he was painting “The Last Supper” and a series of portraits (via Da Vinci Science Center). While da Vinci toiled away at these other tasks, it’s easy to see how a giant clay horse could take 17 years to build, especially as da Vinci prepared to cast it in bronze with an innovative new technique he had developed because, well, that’s the kind of thing da Vinci does.

When the French invaded Milan in 1499, however, they found that a giant clay horse was the perfect target practice for their archers, and reduced the proud equestrian piece into a meager pile of clay. Da Vinci never returned to the project, which remained a distant memory until an American pilot named Charles Dent was inspired to recreate the horse in 1977. After decades of research, sculptor Nina Akamu began to rebuild the Horse, and in 1999, exactly 500 years after it had been dismantled, the horse was finally finished.