Da Vinci – The Genius, Traveling Exhibition

There are only a handful of people in the history of mankind who were masters of art, science, engineering, and music. We celebrate those who are gifted in any one of these disciplines, but sometimes a person is able to master several of these areas of wisdom. Leonardo Da Vinci was such a person and because of the breadth of his wisdom, he is indisputably considered a genius. The Traveling exhibition Da Vinci – The Genius is the most comprehensive exhibition on Leonardo Da Vinci to tour the world.  The full range of Da Vinci’s genius as an artist, scientist, inventor, anatomist, engineer, architect, sculptor, and philosopher is on display. If you are interested in any of these fields, you simply must visit this exhibit.

Italian artisans carefully studied Leonardo’s codices, and using the notes and designs written by the master himself they were able to craft interactive and life-sized machine inventions. Some of these include the first concepts of a car, bicycle, helicopter, glider, parachute, SCUBA, submarine, and  military tank. The exhibit is  large and varied and has something to offer each member of your family.

I visited the exhibit at the Arizona Science Center with my two kiddos and my young cousin.  I was not sure if they would enjoy the exhibit since they are all elementary-aged children. However, by the time we left they wanted to see more. A lot of the exhibit is strictly hands-off, however there is a section of hands-on machines that the kiddos just loved. The entire machine portion of the exhibit was fascinating and I especially loved seeing the replicas of the flying machines Da Vinci designed.

The next section of the exhibit focused on Da Vinci’s military engineering genius and this was fascinating to us because we are a military family. Although Da Vinci was a  pacifist, he did live in a time of war and he designed several military weapons and prototypes. I found the tank especially interesting.

Da Vinci is probably best known as an artist and several reproductions of his work are displayed in the exhibit.  I really liked the newly discovered painting shown below next to the Madonna.

Of course Da Vinci’s most famous work is the Mona Lisa and it is displayed in rare form via the world exclusive Secrets of the Mona Lisa. This section of the exhibit was my favorite and you must see it to fully appreciate it.

This is the best exhibit I have seen in a long time. I will be going back at least once before the exhibit leaves Arizona. If you have the chance to see this exhibit, make sure you do. Da Vinci – The Genius was created by Grande Exhibitions, with the assistance of the Anthropos Foundation, Italy, and Pascal Cotte, France. I was provided complimentary tickets to visit the exhibit to make this review possible. All opinions are my own.