Museum set for Da Vinci 'genius': Exhibit opening Friday takes a look at vast inventions, ideas

It was bad enough that Leonardo da Vinci was born out of wedlock,separating him from his mother and earning some level of shame in15th century Italy.

But Leonardo was also born left-handed, which at the time wasconsidered a mark of "impurity."

He overcame his first setback and used the second to hisadvantage. Leonardo developed a sort of shorthand and even took towriting backward and from right to left.

"Obstacles cannot crush me," he once wrote.

Indeed. The Museum of Science and Industry is devoting 20,000square feet of space to Leonardo -- and even that seems hardly enoughto cover the breadth of his genius.

Leonardo produced more than 15,000 pages of notes before he diedin 1519 -- on art, for which he is best known, but also on hundredsof inventions.

"Most people know about his 'Last Supper' and the 'Mona Lisa' andThe Da Vinci Code. This is going to show them more -- who he was andwhy he is important," said the museum's manager of temporaryexhibits, John Beckman.

On Wednesday, workers swarmed the MSI, setting up about 60 replicainventions as well as fine-tuning the fruits of 21st centuryinnovation: high-tech story-telling systems like plasma televisions,which allow visitors to manipulate images of his works, and hand-held, razor-thin cell phones that run tiny movies explaining hisefforts.

A year in the making, the extra-fee "Leonardo da Vinci: Man,Inventor and Genius" opens Friday. The MSI is renting the replicainventions from an Italian firm and has developed a supportingexhibit that includes the ability to examine Leonardo's ideas byelectronically flipping through computer-scanned pages of hisworkbook Codex Atlanticus. Noted Beckman: "He drew like crazy."

None of Leonardo's inventions still exists, said Beckman, but thereplicas built from his designs show cutting-edge ideas, some ofwhich wouldn't be put into regular use until hundreds of years afterhis death at age 67.

WEAPONS FOR 'BEASTLY MADNESS'

Paddle boats, flying machines, underwater-breathing devices, wind-measuring tools, automatic hammers and hydraulic saws -- Leonardoimagined in 3-D. He performed autopsies to understand how the humanbody worked.

But his most profitable specialty was developing weapons. Whilethe exhibit quotes the inventor describing conflict as "beastlymadness," he was up to the task, cranking out ideas for double-hulled boats, multibarreled guns, bullet-like cannon balls andrefined catapults. One particularly gruesome weapon features a horse-drawn wagon equipped with huge spinning blades -- a kind of lawnmower designed not to slice grass but to cut down soldiers.

PRESENT-DAY THINKERS GET DUE

A couple of historical artifacts are on hand. An actual page fromone of Leonardo's workbooks describes an elevator-equipped stage thatallowed a mountain to open and an actor to emerge. And the MSI hasborrowed a mill turbine from da Vinci's uncle's farm that may haveplayed an early role in educating him about machinery.

Still, Beckman said the MSI does not intend "Leonardo" to be a"parchment and quills exhibit."

The display also features the stories of about three dozen "modern-day Leonardos" -- from physicist Bradley Edwards, who is developing a62,000-mile-high elevator to space, to Todd Kuiken, a biomedicalengineer at the Rehab Institute of Chicago who pioneered a procedurethat allows amputees to control mechanical limbs through their minds.

Those inventors are faithfully following Leonardo's once-statedmotivation: "The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding."

The exhibit runs through Sept. 4 and costs $21 for adults and $15for children. That fee includes general admission to the rest of themuseum.

aherrmann@suntimes.com

DA ART:

- Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" painting is a portrayal of thefinal meal Jesus shared with his disciples -- plus one? In The DaVinci Code, author Dan Brown suggests that the disciple John isactually Jesus' wife, Mary Magdalene, noting the feminine face. Theauthor also says Peter is making a menacing gesture toward John/Mary's throat.

The Museum of Science and Industry exhibit counters that John isportrayed with gentle features in other paintings and that Peter isleaning toward John and gesturing to make a point.

- Was the model for "Mona Lisa" the wife of a Florence silkmerchant -- or Leonardo himself? Bell Labs used a digital analysis tocompare "Mona Lisa" with portraits of Leonardo and found "thefeatures of the face align perfectly," says the MSI exhibit. Theexhibit notes that most paintings were commissioned, yet Leonardostill had the "Mona Lisa" in his possession when he died. If it wascommissioned, why wasn't it delivered?

- Leonardo often wrote backward in notes to himself. A"handwriting generator" converts words to "Leonardo style" atwww.msichicago.org/temp_exhibit/leonardo/handwriting/index.html