The artist had himself spent several years as a guest of the King of France in Amboise before being persuaded to take on this project. This complex design would incorporate enough buildings to be considered a village, but the most grandest of villages at that. There would be a series of buildings interspersed with gardens that crossed the Saurdre River.

Soon after Da Vinci's death these plans were abandoned. The King chose to pursue an alternative project instead, namely the castle of Chambord. Whilst much of the artist's work for this project has been lost there has been considerable research that has been able to locate various bits of information on it within his own manuscripts. The intended location for this series of buildings was found.

A film was recently released entitled Da Vinci Unfulfilled Dream which is a 52 minute documentary looking at might have been. The photograph here is from the very same programme and is a CGI illustration of how his designs may have looked, had they been implemented. The film is available in French and English.

Whilst never being put into practice, Da Vinci would have been honoured to set about working on designs for potentially the new capital of France, spearheaded by an extravagant royal palace where extraordinary budgets looked set to be available. There was some preliminary ground work completed but nothing beyond that.