Among the exhibits at the 2016 Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the Science Museum, London, was one that purported to illustrate Leonardo’s experiments on friction. The models involved were the work of Giovanni Canestrini (1893–1975) who contributed to the 1939 and 1953 Leonardo exhibitions in Milan. This article discusses the original sources and history of these models, in the light of recent research into Leonardo’s work on friction. It concludes that, while being relevant to Leonardo’s study of mechanics, these models seriously misrepresent his experimental investigations of friction.
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Ian Hutchings
Author
University of Cambridge
Citation
ISSN
:
2054-5770
DOI
:
10.15180/160602
Publication Name:
Science Museum Group Journal
Volume:
6
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