On the five hundredth anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci, the Red Filatoio Foundation took the opportunity to produce an exhibition that highlights the artist’s ingenuity in the development and invention of devices and machines for one of the predominant activities of his time , the textile art.
The exhibition, divided into 3 sections, aims to be an effective tool for understanding and disseminating Leonardo’s inventions through 3D reconstructions, multimedia devices, blow-ups, video projections, immersive installations.
The languages used will be different depending on the sections: more traditional in museum spaces to protect and enhance the existing and more innovative and technological cultural heritage in the exhibition spaces to give life to an overall experiential and emotional visit.
The two circular twisting machines, faithfully reconstructed in the Filatoio di Caraglio on a real scale, perfectly functional and unique, exist all over the world, becoming the starting point for the construction of an original and unrepeatable exhibition project, which allows the representation of the many drawings of the Master from life : designs that reflect the movements of the same machines with incredible variations that were immediately adopted by the workers at the time with a significant impact on the production of silk for over two hundred years.
In Leonardo’s manuscripts appear some riddles and among them one entitled “The silk spinning wheel”. Leonardo not only knows the circular silk twisting machines but is fascinated by it, so much is the sense of power and harmony that captivates the observer of the functioning of this intricate interpenetration of mechanisms, whose design is centuries old.
With the curatorship of Prof. Crippa and arch. Toselli, who studied, designed and created the reconstruction of all the machines in the Piedmontese Silk Museum, the exhibition aims to be an effective tool for understanding and disseminating Leonardo Da Vinci’s inventions. The exhibition avails itself of the precious collaboration of the Museum of Science and Technology of Milan, the Textile Museum of Prato, the Leonardo Museum of Vinci and the Abegg Museum of Garlate.
Finally it is included in the initiatives carried out on the occasion of Leonardo’s celebrations which will be communicated on the website www.leonardoatorino.it by Turismo Torino with the collaboration of the Association of Museums Subscription.
