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| Fabricator Elena Lavorato sewed a replica of a set of wings designed by
Leonardo da Vinci for the “Inventing Genius” exhibit at the Science
Museum of Minnesota in downtown St. Paul. The prolific inventor and
ultimate Renaissance man, who died 500 years ago, designed several
contraptions to try to get humans airborne. Photo: ANTHONY SOUFFLÉ • anthony.souffle@startribune.com |
A flock of Leonardo da
Vinci’s flying machines landed at the Science Museum of Minnesota in St.
Paul on Saturday. Standing among the contraptions — conceived to go
airborne with giant fabric oars, or wings, or a helix — gives a visceral
sense of the renowned inventor’s prolific creativity, and the sense
that his thinking was centuries ahead of his time.
While da
Vinci might be best known for painting two of the world’s most famous
works, “The Last Supper” and “The Mona Lisa,” he was, in fact, the
Renaissance’s ultimate Renaissance man. He studied nearly every
scientific and artistic practice, from architecture and anatomy to
mathematics and music, along with paleontology, engineering and more.
As a
plaque near the entrance of the new traveling exhibit “Inventing Genius”
explains: Da Vinci lived his life as if he were on a quest to learn
everything there was to know.
The timing
of the exhibit, which runs through Sept. 2, is spot-on. Interest in the
Italian polymath is being stoked again by cultural institutions
celebrating the 500th anniversary of his 1519 death. And a recently
rediscovered “lost” Leonardo, “Salvator Mundi,” sold for $450 million in
2017 — the highest price ever paid for an artwork at auction, despite
its poor condition and disputed provenance...
The difficult task
involved deciphering da Vinci’s old Florentine dialect and mirror
writing (he wrote text from right to left, with the individual letters
reversed, so it looks like typical script only when read in a mirror).
The artisans then brought his sketches to life at various scales, using
materials and techniques that would have been available in 15th-century
Italy.
The flying
machines aren’t hands-on — we can’t expect the Science Museum to carry
that much insurance — but there are several mechanical devices to
operate, including ones that replicate da Vinci’s study of ratchets,
ball bearings and a flywheel along with a couple of ways to convert the
circular motion of a cranked wheel to horizontal motion. (Not only are
those fun to play with, but you just inadvertently learned the
mechanical principle that enables your car to drive you home.) His
experiments with optics are most memorably represented by an eight-sided
closet-size room with mirrors for walls.
Source: Star Tribune
