Completion of Santa Maria del Fiore

Construction of the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral, also known as il Duomo, was completed in the year 1436. From start to finish, the cathedral took over 140 years to complete. Though Leonardo had no influence on the dome, as it was designed and constructed before he was born, the dome had a great impact on him. Da Vinci loved to incorportate domes into his architectural designs, as they require a combination of mathematical and artistic influences.

Sources: http://www.leonardo-da-vinci.net/architecture/

https://theculturetrip.com/europe/italy/articles/16-interesting-facts-about-florence-cathedral/

Photo Source: https://theculturetrip.com/europe/italy/articles/16-interesting-facts-about-florence-cathedral/

The death of Brunelleschi

On April 15, 1446, Filippo Brunelleschi, the overseer of the reconstruction of the Florence Duomo, died. His architecture and the machinery he designed to make it possible made a lasting impact not only on Florentine architecture, but inspired Leonardo's love and interest in machinery, physics, and engineering. The death of Brunelleschi also meant that someone else had to be hired to create and place the lantern, bronze ball, and cross at the top of the duomo. Verrocchio was hired for the job, meaning that Leonardo was able to work even closer on the duomo as he was an apprentice of Verrocchio.

Source: Mueller, T., & Yoder, D. (2017, September 19). Brunelleschi's Dome. Retrieved from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2014/02/Il-Duomo/

Annunciation by Leonardo Da Vinci

Annunciation by Leonardo da Vinci

Annunciation is generally considered to be one of Leonardo’s earliest works, created during his time as an apprentice in the studio of Andrea del Verrocchio. Dating from around 1472, this painting, made with tempera and oil on a wood panel, depicts one of the most popular subjects for artwork throughout this period. The left side of the composition is dominated by the archangel Gabriel who is seen kneeling and holding a bundle of white lilies, the symbol of the virgin. Opposite of Gabriel, Mary is seen acknowledging the arrival of the angel from behind a marble bench, where she was reading. The event is set in an earthly, natural environment, with landscape painting in the background that is characteristic of da Vinci’s later works. 

“Annunciation.” Artworks, Uffizi Galleries, www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/annunciation.

Image Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons, fair use

Andrea del Verrocchio

Portrait of Andrea del Verrocchio

Andrea del Verrocchio was a 15th century Italian sculptor, painter and goldsmith. Very little biographical information is known about the early life of Verrocchio, but it is thought that he studied painting with Sandro Botticelli under the Renaissance master Fra Filippo Lippi. He was also trained as a goldsmith, and in fact took the name "Verrocchio" from his master.  Verrocchio’s rise to artistic prominence is largely owed to the patronage of the Medici family, who supported his career as a sculptor. His reputation across the country led many great artists to study in his studio, perhaps most importantly young Leonardo da Vinci.

Passavant, Günter. “Andrea Del Verrocchio.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1 Feb. 2019, www.britannica.com/biography/Andrea-del-Verrocchio.

Image Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons, fair use

Uffizi Gallery

Uffizi Gallery, Florence

The Uffizi Gallery is one of the largest and most important Italian museums, storing a collection of priceless works of art from the Italian Renaissance and beyond. Cosimo de’ Medici commissioned Giorgio Vasari to design the building in 1560. It’s original function was to house Florentine legal and administrative offices, with a private gallery for the collections of the Medici family on the second floor. At the end of the Medici dynasty, The Family Pact of 1737 allowed Anna Maria de’ Medici to declare that the Medici’s art collections may never be moved from Florence, ensuring the permanence of the Uffizi Gallery and its priceless collections. In 1769 the Gallery was opened to the public and has since become one of the most visited museums in the world.

“History | The Uffizi.” Uffizi Galleries, www.uffizi.it/en/the-uffizi/history.

Image Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons, fair use

X-radiography

The Syndics of the Drapers' Guild by Rembrandt

X-rays were discovered in 1895 by Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen. Although they are most widely used in the realm of medicine, they also provide a technical method for examining artwork. X-radiography is unique because it is a non-invasive and non-destructive technique that provides information about the construction, structure, and condition of a work. Additionally, it can be used to identify the materials that the object is made from and expose layers of underpainting. This information is important not only for guiding the conservation of an object, but also for attributing it to the correct artist and determining the authenticity of the object. This technique was used to analyze Annunciation and allowed researchers to distinguish the work done by Leonardo da Vinci from the work done by his mentor, Andrea del Verrocchio.  The image to the left shows the x-radiograph of Rembrandt van Rijn's The Syndics of the Amsterdam Drapers' Guild, revealing alternate compositions of the group that Rembrandt considered before completing the final painting.

“Digital Radiography.” Museum Conservation Institute Imaging Studio, Smithsonian Institute, www.si.edu/MCIImagingStudio/X-ray.

History.com Editors. “German Scientist Discovers X-Rays.” History, A&E Television Networks, 24 Nov. 2009, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/german-scientist-discovers-x-rays.

Image Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons, fair use

Tomb of Piero and Giovanni de Medici by Verrocchio

Tomb of Piero and Giovanni de Medici by Verrocchio

The tomb of Piero and Giovanni de Medici, completed in 1472, was the Medici’s first major commission from Italian painter and sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio. The sarcophagus is unique both in its composition and its materials. The tomb is set in an archway and uses a combination of coloured marble and porphyry, complimented by decorative bronze ornamentation. Verrocchio was a master of both stone and metalwork, which sets this tomb apart from others of this period. This work is significant not only because it marks the start of the Medici’s lifelong patronage of Verrocchio, but also because it is most likely the inspiration piece for the marble bench that appears in da Vinci’s Annunciation. This provides evidence that Leonardo da Vinci was active in Verrocchio's workshop, and both masters may have had a hand in painting Annunciation

Passavant, Günter. “Andrea Del Verrocchio.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1 Feb. 2019, www.britannica.com/biography/Andrea-del-Verrocchio.

“Tomb of Piero and Giovanni De Medici.” Andrea Del Verrocchio, AndreaDelVerrocchio.com, www.andreadelverrocchio.com/tomb-of-piero-and-giovanni-de-medici/.

Milan and "Seashells"

From 1482 to 1499, Leonardo da Vinci served as a court artisan to Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan. During his time in Milan, da Vinci was able to not only paint and sculpt but also to study a wide variety of other subjects: nature, flying, mechanics, anatomy, and more. da Vinci reportedly hiked in the nearby Alps and often explored various caves where he studied fossils and rock formations. One day, a group of peasants brought da Vinci (who was known for his interest in rocks) a sack of “seashells” they had found in the mountains, further proof of da Vinci’s developing theories on geology.

Modern Geology

In 1785, James Hutton, widely seen as the father of modern geology, published his paper Theory of the Earth. In this popular paper, Hutton discusses many of the concepts Leonardo da Vinci had hypothesized hundreds of years earlier. Both men refute the Biblical flood as the foundation for formations we know today and assert Earth must be much older than what was previously believed.

The Flexible Bow Catapult

Representative Depiction of Dionysius' Catapult

With the specificity of ancient Greek tactical warfare as a quest to conquer cities of breadth, depth, and optimized defense, the rulers of Greek colonies during the fourth century B.C. era became increasingly interested in improving their range and decimating force of weaponry in their lustrous goals to secure any and all sieges or battles.  Thus, the commencement for designing a weapon to redefine infringing warfare began in 399 B.C. when Dionysius the Elder, the Greek ruler of the colony of Syracuse in Sicily, issued a declaration to produce new novel weapons, one of which was the infamous catapult.

Although categorized as the first catapult recorded through conventional documentation, these ancient catapults more closely resembled the common draw-bows of soldiers during this era and utilized what has now been coined, “The Flexible Bow Mechanism,” an apparatus which generates power through tension created by movable sliders.  Thus, these mechanical bows were responsible for launching arrows through the compositionally conglomerative use of composite wooden ores, tension fibers of animal sinew, and wooden compression horns.  Contrary to the depiction of stereotyped catapults, one should note that this initial design remained attached to the human subject as, descriptively, this preliminary design was to be worn across the shoulders of soldiers on the battlefield and strategically placed along a surface once one’s destination was secured.  However, records also suggest that the soldiers of Syracuse were also known to have constructed mobile siege towers that were to overlook enemy city walls and utilize flexible-bow catapult to provide heavy aerial fire.  The design also received notable adjustments in its inception.  This included the preferred use of animal sinew to human or horsehair for optimized elastic tension, the addition of linear ratchets alongside the weapon’s main stock which increased the resistive force of the bow, and the use of a circular rachet to allow winches to be used in the drawing of the highly compressed bow. 

Furthermore, the weapon’s highly optimized precision was said to have made the catapult an attractive device for the ruling Greek commissioners.  Thus, due to the increased precision of the bow, the size of the design quickly increased to favor more impactful assaults.  While no longer permitting the mobility of the device by mere human strength, the catapult required a lower pedestal for stability purposes.  To facilitate this change in design, the ancient engineers of Syracuse were recorded as the creators of the first iteration of the universal joint, a mechanism which is commonly thought to originate in the 16^th and 17^th century by either Girolamo Cardano or Robert Hooke.  While there is not any official recording for the approximate range of these early catapults, these weapons were said to have been able to utilize arrows nearly two meters long and decimate enemy forces with deadly accuracy.

Sources:

History of Catapults - Physics of Catapults. (n.d.). Retrieved May 6, 2019, from https://sites.google.com/site/physicsofcatapults/home/history-of-catapults

Yurtoğlu, N. (2018). Http://www.historystudies.net/dergi//birinci-dunya-savasinda-bir-asayis-sorunu-.... History Studies International Journal of History, 10(7), 241-264. doi:10.9737/hist.2018.658

The Torsion Catapult

Representative Depiction of Torsion Catapult

Transitioning from the Flexible Bow catapult 50 years prior, the increasing interest in the utility of the catapult lead to the subsidization of the next phase of this devastating weapon, the Torsion Catapult.  Commissioned by Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, around 350 B.C., the newly developed catapult utilized what is referred to as the torsion principle, a system which requires tightly wound fibers being drawn to a notched pull.  This specific catapult apparatus significantly improved the range and precision of the previous catapult design and was largely unchanged for many centuries.  With slight adjustments deriving from physicists and engineers such as Philo of Byzantium, Archimedes of Syracuse, Hero of Alexandria, and Vitruvius of Rome, the torsion catapult was able to transition from launching arrows the size of light javelins and handheld stones to projectiles weighing as much as 78 kilograms.  Moreover, according to Vitruvius, these catapults, when unloaded, were capable of weighing 162 kilograms and most commonly launched projectiles ranging from 13 to 26 kilograms at a range of 640 meters.  With their high degree of intrinsic accuracy and wall-penetrating power, historical commanders ranging from Alexander the Great to Julius Caesar were known for utilizing these weapons in significant historical battles such as the siege of Gaza in 332 B.C., the Roman siege of Syracuse from 213 to 211 B.C., and the siege of Jerusalem in 63 B.C.

With the advent of this creative weapon, shifts in politics and society arose.  Firstly, the increased mechanization of warfare displaced the human-to-human contact and denounced the personability of war as one’s emotional investment in eliciting physical violence was replaced by strategic aerial assault tactics.  This increased separation of battling forces was noted by Philo of Byzantium in 200 B.C. as he claimed, in his artillery manual, that a wall had to be at least 4.62 meters thick to withstand catapult stones and that the minimum distance to maintain between the walls of a defensive fortress and a catapult should be at least 150 meters.  Thus, by noting that a wall-reducing device was now readily available in warfare, new social constructs had to be developed in order to preserve social living space.  For example, Aristotle, in the mid-4^th century B.C. was quoted in suggesting that the newly popularized quadrilateral city blocks of ancient civilizations be combined with the prior, ancient landscapes, such as motes, inner-city defense walls, and ditches, in order to maintain structural composition of these newly developing cities when subjected to the decimating force of invading catapults.  Conversely, the introduction of the torsion catapult also significantly redefined the Eurasian political landscape as Alexander the Great’s successfully dominating conquest was considerably assisted by his use of this optimized weapon.  With the development of the catapult proving to be an imperative military marvel, the equality of arms in warfare was lost and the technical skills necessary to operate mechanical weapons foreshadowed the first differentiations of status amongst military operations.  Moreover, the specialized knowledge in mathematical and technical skills required to construct and maintain catapults thus increased the social status of catapult engineers as military experts and allowed them to survive political purges.

Sources:

International Symposium on History of Machines and Mechanisms : Proceedings of HMM 2008, edited by Hong-Sen Yan, and Marco Ceccarelli, Springer, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/purdue/detail.action?docID=417096. Created from purdue on 2019-05-09 18:07:26.

Yurtoğlu, N. (2018). Http://www.historystudies.net/dergi//birinci-dunya-savasinda-bir-asayis-sorunu-.... History Studies International Journal of History, 10(7), 241-264. doi:10.9737/hist.2018.658

Antikythera Mechanism

This is the first ever recorded use of clockwork, and dates back to Ancient Greece, It is speculated to have been used to predict astronomical events such as eclipses, or perhaps to track the 4-year cycle of ancient olympic games. 

After detailed imaging, it is suggested that the original mechanism contained 37 gears to follow the sun and the moon, to predict eclipses,

Euclid's Elements (300 BC)

A sketch taken from a Latin translation of Elements

With its five postulates and thirteen books, Euclid’s Elements (written circa 300 BCE) set the precedent for the way humans do mathematics, establishing a norm of clearly stated assumptions and carefully delineated logic when giving a proof. As such, Elements was the seminal text for geometry in the plane well until the nineteenth century when new geometric paradigms supplanted Euclidean geometry. The revived interest in the intellectual achievements of the Greeks during the Renaissance certainly included a fascination with Euclidean geometry, which provided the mathematical underpinnings for Renaissance painters to develop perspective, a technique used to represent a three-dimensional image on a flat surface. While perspective was an important feature in da Vinci’s paintings, it was also a crucial aspect in his geometric sketches in which he was tasked with finding the best way to depict complicated three-dimensional geometric figures in the plane. Lastly, Elements established a norm of codifying mathematical knowledge into a single text, a norm that Luca Pacioli (the geometer for whom da Vinci created geometric sketches) strived to uphold with his comprehensive mathematical summaries such as De Divina Proportione and Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalita (the first of which necessitated da Vinci’s artistic abilities for illustrations).

Sources

Kline, Morris. “Projective Geometry.” Scientific American, vol. 192, no. 1, 1955, pp. 80–86., doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0155-80.

“Luca Pacioli.” Luca Pacioli (1445-1517), School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St. Andrews, Scotland, www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Pacioli.html.

Shearer, Rhonda Roland. “Chaos Theory and Fractal Geometry: Their Potential Impact on the Future of Art.” Leonardo, vol. 25, no. 2, 1992, pp. 143–152., doi:10.2307/1575702.

The image source is Wikimedia Commons, and it is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1924.

The Geocentric Model

Geocentric model vs Heliocentric model

Ancient Greek Philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato, and others, porposed the geocentric model of the universe, claiming that the Earth was the center of the universe and all the planets and the stars revolved around us in concentric circles.  This theory was then ammended by Ptolemy to account for the changes in certain planet's luminosity.  He determined that, rather than the planets and the sun simply be orbiting around the Earth, they would simultaneously be moved by a system of two spheres creating a second path of circular motion (shown in the below link).  This explaination was widly accepted for over a thousand years, including the time da Vinci lived.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGjlT3XHb9A

The Baptism of Jesus

Baptism of Jesus

Along the River Jordan in Palestine, Jesus was baptized by St. John the Baptist. Baptism is the first Christian Sacrament and is the pouring of water over one’s head. Baptism cleanses the receivers of their sins, including Original sin, and the welcomes them into the Christian Church. The Baptism of Jesus is the first Baptism mentioned in the Bible, thus instilling the sacrament, and giving Christian’s an example that is still followed today. Jesus' Baptism is also the first time the Trinity (The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit) is seen all together in the Bible. All three persons of God were present at the Baptism, showcasing the significance of the event. As Jesus was baptized the heavens opened up, a dove (the Holy Spirit) came down and rested on Jesus, and the Father's voice was heard from the Heavens. 

Source: https://www.compellingtruth.org/Jesus-baptized.html

Image retrieved from WikiMedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baptism_of_Christ_Baptistery_Florence_copy.jpg

The Birth of Vitruvius (80 BC)

Vitruvius

Vitruvius was born around 80 BC. He was a famous military engineer and architect. While most of his life is undocumented (including exactly where he lived), it is known that was alive while Italy was under the rule of the Roman Empire. He is most known for his theories about proportions in temples and the human body, including the first recorded measurements that would inspire da Vinci to sketch his Vitruvian Man.

Source: Isaacson, Walter. “Vitruvian Man”. Leonardo Da Vinci. Simon & Schuster, 2017.

Photo Source: https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/vitruvius-34320.php

Verge and Foliet Clock

The animated motion of a Verge escapement

The Verge and Foliet are the first escapements to be used to construct the first mechanical clocks. Using a notched wheel and a rod wih two plates, the rotational motion of the wheel can be controlled and regulated into small ticks. These escapements were used in all clocks until the pendulum was introduced, and da Vinci used these mechanisms in his own clockwork.

Oil Paint as a Medium

Up until the 15th century, the most common medium for painting was tempura paint. Tempura paint dries very quickly, meaning artist using tempura could not easily blend colors. Tempura paintings have been found from about 3000 BC. on early Egyptian sarcophagi decorations, thus showing how long tempura had been the most common medium. This shows monumental the transition from tempura to oil paint truly was. Oil paint began to make its way to Europe in the 12th century but was not widely adopted until the 15th century. The appeal to oil paint was that it dried slowly which allowed artist to continually work the paint. This allowed for artist to blend the paints thus allowing for softened transitions between colors, and results in a more accurate depiction of shading. The technique spread to Italy in the late 1400's starting in Venice and by 1540 oil painting completely dominated as the most popular medium - tempura was no longer being used at all. Oil paints often only came in a few premade colors, there artists had to mix small amounts of colors to create more shades, often done on a wooden palette. The crescent shaped wooden palette that is typically a symbol of an art, is in reference to oil painters. 

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempera    

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_paint

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_painting

Image retrieved from Wikimedia Commons:  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cadmium-paints-amy-lavine.jpg

Wars in Lombardy:

Italy in 1494

The wars in Lombardy were a series of struggles between the Republic of Venice and the Duchy of Milan, leading to the five major Italian territorial powers that make up the map of Italy until the Italian Wars (i.e., Venice, Milan, Florence, Naples, and the Papacy). The wars ravaged the economy of Lombardy and weakened the power of Venice. The Peace of Lodi in 1454 brought 40 years of comparative peace to Northern Italy. This is the time of the Medici rule of Florence, first Cosimo de’ Medici, then Piero “the Gouty,” then Lorenzo Il Magnifico.  The death of Lorenzo marked the end of the Golden Age of Renaissance Florence. Both Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti were active (and tied to Lorenzo) during this period. In 1428, Venice acquired Brescia and Bergamo as a result of this struggle.

The Fall of Constantinople

The fall of Constantinople marked the end of the Byzantine Empire after ten centuries of war. The Ottoman Turks defeated felled the city and ended the European Middle Ages. 

The Byzantine Empire had been a bastion of Christian Europe facing Muslim Asia. The Ottoman Turks were expanding their empire and saw Constantinople as a center of the rival Christian faith and a symbol of imperial power. 

Constantinople had held off many attempts to destroy or capture it but was declining in power over the years. Mehmed II set out to take the city in the spring of 1453 and used the sea to gain access to the city. Initial attacks failed, but on May 29th, Mehmed launched attacks from the sea and the land simultaneously.  The Ottomans were finally able to overwhelm the defenses due to the use of gunpowder-powered cannons. After gaining access past the walls, the Ottomans killed the emperor and massacred the citizens. 

Mehmed rode a white horse down streets that ran with blood to Hagia Sophia, the city's famed cathedral. He used the cathedral as a mosque to say prayers of thanks for the victory. 

The fall of Constantinople was important because it was a watershed moment in military history. The city had defended itself with walls and ramparts since ancient times. These fortifications were used as the model of many later cities. The end of the Byzantine Empire marks the end of the Medieval period.  

Bunting, Tony. “Fall of Constantinople.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 22 May 2018, www.britannica.com/event/Fall-of-Constantinople-1453.

“Fall of Constantinople.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2 May 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople.

Paolo Uccello's The Hunt in the Forest

Paolo Uccello was an Italian painter who died just before the Renaissance. In one of his last paintings titled The Hunt in the Forest, we can see perspective beginning to appear in art. Uccello's piece also is a great example of how plants and trees were painted during the pre-Renaissance. His plants show variation and stand out from each other, but they still don't look like a real tree. Uccello's plants in the foreground also still maintain the symbolic look rather than the realistic look that would appear during the Renaissance.

Image from Wikimedia Commons, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paolo_Uccello_The_Hunt_in_the_Forest.jpg. This image is under common domain and free use.

Verrocchio and DaVinci paint 'The Baptism of Christ'

"The Baptism of Christ" was commissioned to Verrochio by the monks of San Salvi, a church located in Florence. It is thought that the painting was worked on by Verrocchio, DaVinci, and possibly one other older artist. At the time it was very common for artist to paint the main figure and leave the secondary figures to their pupils. It is thought an older artist may have painted the dove and the hands for the appear to be less developed than the rest of the painting. DaVinci is known to have painted the left angel in the painting as well as Jesus' figure and parts of the background.  In the background it can be seen that DaVinci began to play with sunlight, mist and shadows giving the painting three-dimensional feel, while the parts of the background Verrocchio did, such as the trees, have more of a static feel. DaVinci used oil paint for his parts of the painting. Oil paints allowed DaVinci to create smoother transitions and gradients between his colors, creating a more realistic look. These smooth transitions can be seen in the shadows and shading of Verrocchio’s parts of the painting, such as the hair of the angel and the shading of Jesus’s body. Something unique DaVinci did was give his angel’s face emotion as well as have the angel be paying attention to the main event of the painting. At the time is was not common for secondary figures to display either of these things. Most secondary figures were depicted like Verrocchio’s angel, staring off bored into the distance. This is just another aspect displaying how ahead of his time DaVinci truly was.

Source: https://www.leonardodavinci.net/the-baptism-of-christ.jsp 

image was found on Wikimedia https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baptism_of_Christ_by_Andrea_del_Verrocchio.jpg

Verrocchio gives up the brush

  In recent times, X-rays have been done on the painting 'The Baptism of Christ' that reveal a completely different outline for the angel that DaVinci painted. This indicates DaVinci followed his own vision rather than his master's from very early on in his career (he was only in his early 20's at this time). Often times people say Davinci's angel stands out from the rest of the painting for it is significantly better, as it is far more realistic and detailed. After seeing DaVinci's detailed and far superior angel in their painting "The Baptism of Christ", Verrocchio became embarrassed and ashamed that his pupil was a better artist than him. It is said that after realizing this he vowed, out of shame, to give up painting for the rest of his life. This rang true, as "The Baptism of Christ" is Verrocchio's last known painting. He continued work as an artist but focused on drawing and sculptures. After this time Verrocchio completed some of his best works such as "The Doubting Thomas" located outside the OrsanMichele in Florence or the "Equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni" in Venice, Italy.

Sources:  http://www.leonardo-da-vinci.net/baptism-of-christ/

Image was found on Wikipedia https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Christ_with_St._Thomas_the_Apostle_of_India.jpg

Leonardo da Vinci Incorporates Structural Reciprocity in Other Designs

Leonardo da Vinci demonstrated a thorough understanding of structural reciprocity not just through his arched bridge design, but also through his design of complex geometric structures that could form domes or roofs. He was one of the first scientists in the West to propose complex architectural designs composed of reciprocal structures that extended into three dimensional space. This was revolutionary for the time, as much of Western architecture was predicated upon hierarchical, rather than reciprocal, logic. In the Codex Atlanticus, da Vinci proposed a series of six designs of interconnected, reciprocal geometric shapes. Though the exact date of these designs is not identified, they most likely informed or went hand-in-hand with da Vinci’s work on the arched bridge. Both indicate that da Vinci was thinking about space in innovative ways that no engineers or architects had done before.

Sources:

Pugnale, A., & Sassone, M. (2014). Structural Reciprocity: Critical Overview and Promising Research/Design Issues. Nexus Network Journal, 16(1), 9-35. Retrieved May 16, 2019, from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00004-014-0174-z

Taddei, M. (2006). [Unique edition of the Codex Atlanticus as a box. Made by Mario Taddei in the 2007]. Retrieved May 16, 2019, from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mario_Taddei_Unique_edition_of_the_Codex_Atlanticus_-_Codice_Atlantico-www.mariotaddei.net_(27b).jpg

Photo, taken from Wikimedia Commons, is free to use under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 License.