An exhibition celebrating the genius of Leonardo da Vinci as a scientist, inventor and engineer is to open at the Science Museum in London in February.
The painter, who created the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, also once said he believed it was his destiny to build a machine to allow a man to fly, and had one of the most insatiably curious minds of the Renaissance. The event will include models recreated from his working drawings of flying, diving and war machines.
The 39 detailed models of his inventions are themselves museum pieces, created in Milan in 1952 to celebrate the 500th anniversary of his birth. The exhibition will also include some objects from the Science Museum’s own collection, preserved from the Royal Academy anniversary exhibition the same year.
Leonardo was always fascinated by machinery, not only drawing the cranes and hoists being used to build a nearby cathedrals when he was 20 and working in Florence, but often improving on their design.
A studio assistant was said to have died accidentally during efforts to perfect a flying machine; and then Leonardo worked for royal patrons on fortifications and siege machines including giant catapults, as well as works of art.
Many of his engineering designs were based on minutely detailed studies of natural objects, including the anatomy of a bird’s wing.
Ian Blatchford, director of the Science Museum, called Leonardo “one of history’s greatest thinkers”, and said his determination to imagine the world anew had inspired humankind for generations, and would do so for generations to come.
Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Genius was created in cooperation with Italy’s Muzeo Nazionale dells Scienza et della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci. It will be at the Science Museum from 10 February to 4 September 2016