Studies
Leonardo's output is the epitome of that extraordinary period of human history which was the Italian Renaissance, a period of great cultural advances and of great projects. Leonardo's output is the expression of the men and women of the time, of what they felt and did, of the machines they built so that in turn they could build churches, palaces, fortresses; machines for waging war, for work, for the manufacture and trade of all those goods whose availability was of such great importance to the rulers and their courts. However, more importantly, Leonardo's output bears witness to who and what he was - a man who was shaped by the loveliest and most stimulating city of the time, Florence, and who embarked upon his own path of research and drawing up of ideas and plans embracing a multitude of sectors, ranging from hydraulics to mechanics, to flight, to anatomy and to optics... We shall be taking a look at some of the most interesting ideas of all those contained in the over 6,000 Leonardo's folios. Each of these ideas is epitomized by one of the models housed in the Museum's "Leonardo da Vinci" Gallery
War Machines
- Armoured car
- Automatic striker
- Cannon with peg elevating gear
- Cannon with screw elevating gear
- Chain for automatic igniting device
- Double sling
- Eight barrel organ
- Giant crossbow
- Machines for attacking defensive walls
- Ogival projectiles
- Scything wagon
- Sling to hurl stones
- Split-trail gun carriage
- Three-barrelled cannon
- Winch for lifting artilleries
- 33-barrelled organ
Flying Machines
- Adjustable-tilt wing
- Air screw
- Anemometer
- Articulated wing
- Beating wing
- Flapping-wing machine with a vertical bearing
- Flying ship
- Glider with manoeuvrable tips
- Inclinometer
- Leaf-spring engine for flying machine
- Parachute
- Wing-beating device with a screw and lead screw system
- Wing structure
Work Machines
- Alembic
- Axle on rollers
- Ballot wheel
- Continuous cooling distiller
- Continuous teaseling machine
- Controlled-flame furnace
- Device for developing conical ducts
- Device for wiredrawing on bearings
- Drilling machine
- Drive train device
- Fan
- Goldforging hammer
- Hygrometer
- Hygrometer 2
- Improved alembic
- Large drop-bottom crane
- Machine for carving files
- Machine for lifting columns
- Machine for making ropes
- Machine for threading screws
- Mechanical drum
- Mechanical loom
- Mirror lapper
- Multiple-cylinder mill
- Odometer
- Printing press
- Revolving cranes
- Rolls for studies on friction
- Screwtongs
- Self-moving car
- Silk-doubling machine
- Study of a furnace
- Teaseling machine
- Tensile strength of wire
- Threading tool
- Trench-digging machine
- Winged spindle
- Wheel for studies on the impossibility of perpetual motion
- Winch
Water and Land Machines
- Automatic ship-bottom breaker
- Bilge pump
- Breech-loading naval cannon
- Bridge channel with clapping door sluices
- Channel paving
- Circular thunderbolt
- Diving suit
- Double hull
- Equipment for draining a port
- Fast-construction bridge
- Fast ramming boat
- Float
- Floats for walking on water
- Hydraulic saw
- Mobile ram boats
- Mud dredge
- Paddle Boat
- Paddle-wheeled boat propulsion system
- Pole hammer
- Guillotine sluice-gate
- Parabolic bridge
- Revolving bridge
- Sea dredger
- Ship-bottom breaker
- Shroud cutter
- Sluice gate
- Small dome for breathing and flexible pipe
- Temporary bridge on a double row of trestles
- The Galata bridge
- The transformation of water into steam
- Webbed glove
Leonardo the Architect
- Angular tower with corbels
- Centrally-planned church
- Central plan or 2-level church
- Centrally-planned church with nine radiating chapels
- Centrally-planned temple with four cylindrical bell-towers
- Corner of a castle
- Curtain with semicircular salients
- Ditch with submerged fortification
- Mountain castle with two defence enceintes
- Ravelin or triangular bastion
- The Ideal City
- Temple with a gemmated plan
- Temple with five domes