Leonardo Da Vinci Exhibition At The Ronald Reagan Library And Museum (09/06/2019) - Room 2

 The second room on the tour was split in to two sections by a large partition with an opening to walk through. In the first part of the second room, a large wooden replica of Leonard Da Vinci's mechanical lion was displayed along with copies of pages from the Codex Atlanticus and illustrations explaining the design and structure of the mechanical lion. The lion was built by Da Vinci to walk before the king of France and present him with flowers.

The second part of the room was a lot larger than the first and had several models displayed in it. Displayed with each model were copies of the pages from the Codex and illustrations explaining the design and structure of the models. The designs ranged from industrial devices to military machines and showed how versatile and creative Da Vinci was as an artist and an inventor. Some of the designs that were built into models included a hydraulic saw, a perpetual motion engine, and a multi-gun battle ship. Although most of these designs weren't actually built by Da Vinci, it was impressive to see the amount of thought and detail he put into to each of the drawings and designs in the Codex Atlanticus. 

 

The next stop on the tour was my favorite part of the whole exhibit, by far. Room 3 was were Da Vinci's flying machines were! This room made me feel like this man might have been the first man to fly if he had been able to get his hands on the right materials to build these designs with. If the first two rooms had left any question in your mind as to wether or not this man was a genius, this room made it very clear that he was absolutely and undeniably a genius. It made me feel like I can build a set of these wings that would work. Who knows... Maybe one day in the future I'll posts a video of me flying around Los Angeles in a pair of Da Vinci's bat wings. For now, though, we'll just marvel at his brilliant designs in the next post.