Drawings and diagrams that Leonardo da Vinci made in the 1400s and 1500s are now on display at a D.C. public library.
The free exhibit “Imagining the future - Leonardo da Vinci: In the mind of an Italian genius” went on display at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in downtown D.C. on Wednesday. The exhibit includes 12 original drawings from da Vinci’s Codex Atlanticus collection. This is the first time so many of these pieces have been on display in the United States, library officials said.
The collection “will likely never be back here again,” said Richard Reyes-Gavilan, the library system’s executive director.
The drawings display da Vinci’s futurist vision and his engineering acumen.
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“He was really an engineer first, and he fancied himself a painter secondarily, so these drawings really, I think, stress his obsession with motion, with machines,” Reyes-Gavilan said.
An exhibit called “Leonardo's Lab” is geared toward children and has hands-on activities.
The main exhibit will be on display through Aug. 20. The children’s exhibit will show through Sept. 30.
Only a small number of people are allowed into the main exhibit at once. Visitors sign up in the library’s vestibule and then get a text when it’s their turn. See the library’s website for more information.
