Mona Lisa, Musée du Louvre, Paris, April 2019.
Susan Broomhall
Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is the world’s most visited artwork. Its appeal rests partly on several mysteries.
Leonardo da Vinci’s experiments with friction underpinned the modern science of Tribology.
Once called ‘the most important subject no one has heard of’, tribology is now a key part of the fourth industrial revolution.
Leonardo da Vinci, Saint John the Baptist .
Wikipedia
On the 500th anniversary Leonardo’s death and in appreciation of his rich and varied contributions, how can our educational systems inspire the same imaginative qualities in students today?
Model of Leonardo da Vinci’s helicopter from the exhibition “Leonardo da Vinci - Scientist and Inventor”, Sofia, 2007.
EPA/Krum Stoev
Leonardo’s range of knowledge fascination with flying led directly to the development of modern aircraft, nearly four centuries later.
Ferrara, Italy bears some resemblance to da Vinci’s design.
hectorlo/Flickr.
Leonardo da Vinci’s ideal city contained design features and engineering works not realised until hundreds of years after he died.
Leonardo da Vinci had a seemingly inexhaustible imagination for innovation.
Engineer, artist, mathematician, thinker: Leonardo da Vinci was all these and more.
Marcantonio Raimondi’s 1505 engraving may show Leonardo da Vinci playing an instrument called a lira da braccio.
Cleveland Museum of Art.
A lot has been said about Leonardo and music, much of it speculation. But what do we know for sure?
‘Design for a giant crossbow.’
Leonardo da Vinci
As Leonardo da Vinci found centuries ago, scholars of art, design, engineering and science can work together for mutual benefit.
From cats to dragonflies, Leonardo sketched scores of animals.
Leonardo da Vinci/Royal Collection Trust
Rather than prioritizing human beings at the pinnacle of the animal kingdom, Leonardo revered all living beings. When he compared people and animals, it’s the animals that often came out on top.
Larger than life even 500 years ago, Leonardo’s legend has grown over the centuries.
Hunter Bliss Images/Shutterstock.com
Dead five centuries, Leonardo retains a rock star’s fame, well known around the world by just one name. Here, some facts about the man and his legacy.
Old man (possible self-portrait) and water studies, c 1508-9.
Wikimedia Commons
Leonardo’s obsession with water flowed through his technical work, his art and his scientific ideas.
Leonardo da Vinci, Study of Two Warriors Heads for the Battle of Anghiari, c. 1504-5. Black chalk or charcoal, some traces of red chalk on paper. Google Art Project.
Wikimedia Commons.
Leonardo’s professional life reveals his genius for creating technologies of destruction.
Leonardo da Vinci, Landscape drawing for Santa Maria della Neve on 5th August 1473.
Wikimedia commons
His exquisite drawings suggest a particular depth of feeling for the natural world and he was attuned to the emotions of animals. Yet it seems that preservation of nature was not on Leonardo’s mind.
Leonardo da Vinci’s anatomical drawings and mechanical designs reveal his fascination with engineering, motion, anatomy and ageing.
Google Art Project, via Wikimedia Commons.
Leonardo’s interest in the human form and replicating human bodily movement foreshadow ideas present in modern robotics.