By Erika, age 13
The Museum of Science in Boston currently features the traveling exhibit about Leonardo DaVinci. He was an incredible inventor, engineer, and artist. There were wooden models of many of his inventions. In addition to his designs, the exhibit includes enlargements of his anatomical sketches and analyses of the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper. DaVinci was a man ahead of his time, despite him feeling like a failure when he died.
Among his many inventions were designs that wouldn’t and sometimes couldn’t be made for hundreds of years. He designed a parachute, a scuba suit, and weapons of war. Among my personal favorites were the tank and machine guns. In the film shown at the exhibit, The Man Who Wanted to Know Everything, a group of British marines built a tank based on his design. The marines figured out that since there weren’t any patents or copyright laws in DaVinci’s time, he had intentionally written some mistakes in his plans. After testing it, they decided that it would have been a terror on the battlefield.
The exhibit isn’t just about his inventions. There is a short video on The Last Supper, explaining how they found the original beneath all the layers of paint used in restorations. There are also photos of the underlying portraits of Mona Lisa. By scanning the canvas, they found that there are actually four paintings, even though we can only see one. The picture on the left shows the third layer of the Mona Lisa. Outside of the main room are his anatomical sketches. (Please note that some of them are inappropriate for children.)
I highly recommend this exhibit for any engineers and fans of DaVinci. Even if you aren’t interested in it now, I would still recommend going. Leonardo DaVinci was a genius and his inventions will blow your mind.