Paper detail

A strange bridge by Leonardo

On folio 855 recto of the Codex Atlanticus, Leonardo da Vinci drew three 'easily movable' bridges, but one of them is enigmatic: all 'replicas' in Leonardo museums and exhibitions come as a surprise, to say the least, to any engineer or architect whose attention is drawn to it. This is the case for models in Amboise (France), Chicago and Portland (USA), Florence (Italy) and for the one of the traveling exhibition by the Australian company 'Grande Exhibitions' that already visited 40 major cities in the world. All 'replicas' of the bridge model attributed to Leonardo have pillars standing on the deck of the bridge, while the deck is suspended by cables attached on these pillars. At first sight this problem does not catch the attention of the observer, as the bridge seems to be a mixed form of a beam and a suspension bridge, but it was not overlooked by my colleague architect-engineer Dr. Laurens Luyten (Gent, Belgium). Yet, after a TV-interview in Brussels so much pressure was exerted by some of the museum collaborators, the architect prefers to keep the silence about the engineering by these 'scientific' exhibitions. Yet, it is the author's opinion the ridiculous models do not honor Leonardo, and so the present paper takes up the challenge to report about his observation in his name (with his permission). Something should be done, for sure: millions of people look at the bridge replicas that immediately embarrass any engineer.