Leonardo da Vinci Exhibit (2 of 4)

Leonardo da Vinci Exhibit (2 of 4)

Recreation of Leonardo's studio

It wasn’t an original idea to get there right as they opened. And I wouldn’t suggest waiting until the last week of an exhibit to join all the other patrons who want to see something before it closes, but it was worth the wait in line to learn more about this artist, inventor, scientist, engineer, (the list goes on and on),... “one of the greatest minds and talents of all time.”

Leonardo da Vinci was a prolific documentarian of his own curiosity, exploration, and fertile imagination, producing 13,000 pages of notes and drawings in his lifetime. The foundation of this exhibit was one of the compilations of his work, a manuscript known as Codex Atlanticus. Using these extensive and detailed pages, artisans were able to fabricate over 3 dozen articles to his specifications. 

The exhibit included large scale working apparatuses and small scale models:

Left: large scale working model of the Perpetual Motion Machine

Right: small scale model of a Scythe Ship- da Vinci envisioned a ship 

mounted with a giant scythe to cut the mast and rigging of enemy ships 

The displays for each item included the page of the Codex from which the item was taken, an explanation of its purpose and large scale diagrams of its function. 

 

In so many areas, da Vinci was ahead of his time. This is a robot soldier with moving parts. They were designed to be connected to a pulley system. These moving "soldiers," grouped on towers to guard a castle fortress, would to be very intimidating to invading enemies... 

Leonardo's movable model of a lion can walk a few steps and then open its mouth to reveal a bouquet of flowers,...

Who thinks of something like that?!