Accomplishment

A reminder to members of City Daily Photo: the theme day for October is Orange.

A large space at this exhibit featured shifting images of Leonardo's designs and art, with a current day reproduction of one of his designs at its heart.

That design was a tank. It never went into production beyond his designs, and has been found to have a flaw that would have rendered it useless. The cranks that moved the wheels were set in the wrong direction, making it impossible to move forward. Was this a deliberate act by an avowed pacifist to sabotage his own work?

Seeing his take on what would come to fruition centuries later was interesting, however.

Pacifist or not, his patrons wanted military designs, and some of those concepts are brought to life in reproductions, full scale or models. They include an assault ladder, one of a number Leonardo designed.

His engineering skills in the field of weapons of war proved to be formidable.

A mowing wagon was one of his designs, using horse power, but which never really advanced beyond the concept stage.

At one point, Leonardo and his rival Michelangelo were commissioned by Florentine patrons to paint two epic renditions of battles. Leonardo was to paint the Battle of Anghiari, while Michelangelo was to paint the Battle of Cascina. Neither artist completed their work; Leonardo's work has been called the Lost Leonardo, as what he had finished was painted over in 1565. Some of his sketch work of the painting survives, and copies of the vivid details were on display.

More of Leonardo the weaponeer. This is created from his designs, a fan shaped multi-directional gun machine. It is thought that it would have been difficult to reload during battle.

And this is a three registered gun machine. Leonardo sought to increase the rate in which cannons could be fired, and he designed multiple cannon devices such as this one, on a revolving framework of three that would allow for one rack to be firing, one on standby, and one cooling off after firing. His theoretical designs are thought to be the forerunner, centuries ahead of time, of the machine gun.

The emergency bridge is another Leonardo concept, designed to be erected quickly in battle conditions by making use of small tree trunks in the vicinity of a river and interweaving their trunks without the need for nails or ropes. Downward pressure is applied to lock the braced pieces together.