500 Years Later, da Vinci's Mechanical Lion Is Brought to Life
A reconstruction of Leonardo da Vinci's mechanical lion is on display at the Italian Cultural Institute in Paris.
The display, erected in homage to da Vinci and his work, will be open to the public until October 9.
Leonardo da Vinci was a multi-hyphenate visionary known equally for his art and ahead-of-his-time engineering designs. He's responsible for creating timeless masterpieces including The Last Supper, the Mona Lisa, and several sketches for devices like a self-propelled cart, diving gear, and a parachute.
One of da Vinci's designs included a sketch for a mechanical lion, commissioned by Pope Leo X for King Francois I in the early 1500s to entertain the French monarch by walking and placing flowers at his feet.
da Vinci's lion was lost to time, but now it's roaring back to life. A reconstruction of the mechanical lion, built from da Vinci's original designs, is now on display at the Italian Cultural Institute in Paris. The wooden lion, which stands at 6'7" and is nearly 10 feet long, will be on display through October 9.
The Institute wanted to honor da Vinci's dedication to "urbanism, science, and technology" by exhibiting one of his works. The decision to build and display the mechanical lion was made across the span of two meetings at the Italian Embassy.
This past May marked the 500 year anniversary of da Vinci's death; half a millennium later, his influence is still felt and seen in the modern machines we use today. Some of da Vinci's most influential designs and inventions include an ornithopter, perpetual motion models, gear systems, a massively gigantic crossbow, and a mobile bridge, among others.
Want proof of da Vinci's innovative thinking? He designed the predecessor to the modern machine gun in the 1480s, more than 300 years before Richard J. Gatling introduced his eponymous gun to the world, a rudimentary version of modern military tanks, and a prelude to modern parachutes.
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