New Da Vinci Mechanics Exhibition opens on Saturday
A new exhibition featuring the machines, models and masterpieces of Italian genius, Leonardo da Vinci, opens at
Canterbury Museum on Saturday, 28 November.
With more than 60 creations on display, many of them interactive, the exhibition brings to life the most important and
impressive designs of the original Renaissance Man. On loan from the Museum of Leonardo da Vinci in Florence, each
machine has been hand-crafted using the materials of the time by the internationally-acclaimed Artisans of Florence, and
is accompanied by images of da Vinci’s original designs.
Museum Director, Anthony Wright, says the Museum is pleased to be working again with the Artisans of Florence to present
this impressive new exhibition. “The first da Vinci exhibition at the Museum in Winter 2008 was very popular and we’re
delighted that this time we can make it free entry for the thousands of visitors we’re expecting at the Museum over the
Christmas and January holiday period.
“This exhibition features models created from careful study of da Vinci’s designs. Visitors will be able see da Vinci’s
dreams and designs translated into reality, many of which became innovations in the development of European civilisation
for centuries after his time,” Mr Wright says.
Da Vinci was a genius, a designer and an innovator hundreds of years ahead of his time. He considered nature the most
perfect artist and was inspired more by what he saw, than by classical writings or instruction.
He studied the workings of nature’s devices and sought to recreate these as practical machines: machines for moving
water, for war, for excavating, for drilling and, perhaps most famously, for flight. Exhibition highlights include the
tank (pictured), the spring powered car, the hang glider, the air screw (the precursor of the helicopter) and a robotic
drummer (pictured).
Da Vinci’s studies of the human body were the most extensive and detailed of the time. He dissected bodies, in defiance
of the Church, to study and draw the structure of organs, bones and muscles. The exhibition also features anatomical
models and high quality canvases of da Vinci’s most famous artworks (Mona Lisa, Vitruvian Man, The Last Supper and The
Annunciation).
Da Vinci Mechanics opens 28 November until 8 February 2016. Created by Artisans of Florence – International and NICCOLAI TEKNOART SNC
(Firenze).
ENDS