World Culture: “Da Vinci - the Genius” exhibition underway in St. Petersburg

On October 1st 2011 the Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineer and Signal Corps in St. Petersburg is staging the most complete and comprehensive travelling exhibition ever created dedicated to Leonardo Da Vinci – “Da Vinci - the Genius”. The exhibition is a part of the Cultural Exchange Year between Russia and Italy.

“Da Vinci - the Genius” exhibition unveils the full scope of Da Vinci’s remarkable genius as an inventor, artist, anatomist, sculptor, engineer, musician and architect. It took more than a decade to create the exhibition and now you can see a vast array of full-scale inventions crafted from Leonardo Da Vinci’s personal notebooks (codices), and reproductions of his most famous Renaissance paintings, including “The Mona Lisa”, “The Virgin of the Rocks” (Madonna of the Rocks), “The Annunciation”, “Lady with an Ermine”, anatomical sketches, the preparatory drawings to “The Battle of Anghiari” and 3D interactive presentations of “The Last Supper”, “The Vitruvian Man” and the Sforza Horse sculpture, which offer to take a different look on these famous works.

One of the highlights of the exhibition is “Secrets of Mona Lisa” section, which represents the work of the French engineer Pascal Cotte. His life-long passion for the study and preservation of “The Mona Lisa” led him to invent the state-of-the-art 240-megapixel Multi-spectral Imaging Camera, which uses patented infrared technology and intense illumination to scan the painting and virtually peel away layers of varnish applied over centuries. All his amazing revelations are displayed in gallery style and in full on super size, high resolution prints, with the largest being the 4,26m х 3,05m giant image of Mona Lisa. 

The group of Italian specialists have created over 120 of Da Vinci’s machine inventions, 65 of which are on display in the exhibition, and have crafted these where possible using techniques and materials of 15th century Italy, including wood, cotton, brass, iron, canvas and cord. Most of them are full-scale models.

Among the many inventions found in Da Vinci’s codices, on display are his visions for the glider, parachute, the precursor to the modern helicopter, the bicycle, forerunner of the modern military tank, automobile, submarine, ball bearing and gear system among many other remarkable inventions that were far ahead of their time.