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...scientists have uncovered a hidden feature underneath a medieval castle in Milan, Italy, that researchers once could only speculate about based on a sketch of Leonardo's from around 1495 and references in other historical sources — underground passageways that were likely intended for soldiers to use in the event that the castle's defenses had been breached.The discovery, which the Politecnico di Milano announced in January, came about through a series of surveys that aimed to digitize the 15th century Sforza Castle's underground structures through nondestructive methods such as ground-penetrating radar and laser scanning...Biolo and her team originally intended to digitize...

French scientist Pascal Cotte has astounded art historians with a major discovery about Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece Lady With an Ermine (1489-90), the BBC reports. Until now, it had been assumed that da Vinci’s composition had always included the white ermine, but Cotte’s three year-long investigation has revealed that the Italian artist actually painted the work not in one, but in three clearly differentiated stages. His first version was ... [snip]

For centuries, humans have been fascinated by flight. In ancient China, kites few to investigate the weather. Inventors such as Leonardo da Vinci developed many ideas about flight, too. Gliders and balloons lifted humans into the sky, but none of the inventions gave a person control of where they flew. Before Powered Flight The physics of flight and propulsion play key roles in who became pioneers. George Cayley used aerodynamics while designing fixed-wing aircraft. His designs would later inspire Orville and Wilbur Wright. Since propulsion is one of the primary requirements to lift a human into the sky for flight,...

Salvator Mundi, a $450 million painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, has not been seen publicly since it sold at Christie’s in 2017, the year it became the most expensive artwork ever auction. And the reason for that, according to a new BBC report, is that it may be held in storage in Geneva. The good news, per the BBC, is that its owner, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, may eventually make it publicly viewable. According to that report, the crown prince, often labeled MBS for short, plans to display it in a future museum in...

The Last Supper — Leonardo Da Vinci — Photo by: (www.wikipedia.org) ================================================================================ The Last Supper (Il cenacolo) is the famous fresco that Leonardo da Vinci painted between 1495 and 1497. If you go to Milan, you will surely go to the Dominican convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie to see and enjoy this magnificent work. I want to share with you and investigate the way in which Leonardo chose the models for his works and explain the curious story of Jesus and Judas from da Vinci’s Last Supper. Leonardo took quite a long while to pick the models for his...

This is one of those days when the Babylon Bee staff must shrug and wonder why they work so hard, when the real world of the left is working for you for free. A real story: The Mona Lisa was attacked by a cake-throwing eco-warrior in a bizarre stunt that thankfully failed to damage her famous smile. Videos posted on social media appear to show a young man in a wig and lipstick arriving at the Louvre in Paris in a wheelchair Sunday — then leaping up and attacking Leonardo da Vinci’s 16th-century masterpiece. The man, who was not immediately...

Climate activists hurled soup on the Mona Lisa on Sunday morning at the Louvre museum in Paris

French farmers are using their tractors to set up road blockades and slow traffic across France to seek better remuneration for their produce, less red tape and protection against cheap importsTwo climate activists hurled soup Sunday at the glass protecting the Mona Lisa at the Louvre Museum in Paris and shouted slogans advocating for a sustainable food system. This came amid protests by French farmers against several issues, including low wages. In a video posted on social media, two women with the words “FOOD RIPOSTE” written on their t-shirts could be seen passing under a security barrier to get closer...

It’s enough to wipe the smile off her face. A pair of climate-change activists hurled pumpkin soup at the Mona Lisa on Sunday at the Louvre Museum in Paris as onlookers gasped, shocking new video shows. “What is more important?” the crazed activists shouted in French. “Art or the right to have a healthy and sustainable food system?” The two nuts are members of the activist group called “Riposte Alimetaire,” or Food Response, which issued a statement saying the stunt was meant to highlight the need to protect the environment.

Bubbles Red Arrow Five centuries ago, Leonardo da Vinci observed air bubbles deviating from a straight path in a zigzag or spiral motion. However, the cause of this periodic motion remained unknown until now. Researchers from the universities of Seville and Bristol have solved the mystery surrounding the unsteady path of an air bubble rising in water. Professors Miguel Ángel Herrada of the University of Seville and Jens G. Eggers of the University of Bristol have uncovered a mechanism that explains the erratic movement of bubbles rising in water. The findings, published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National...

The Italian government on Wednesday said police had seized more than 5,000 ancient artefacts in a record 45-million-euro haul after dismantling a Swiss-Italian trafficking ring. Culture Minister Dario Franceschini said it was the country's "largest discovery yet" of looted works and consisted of 5,361 pieces, including vases, jewellery, frescoes and bronze statues, all dating from the 8th century BC to the 3rd century AD. The archaeological treasures came from illegal digs across Italy and "will be returned to where they were found", the minister told reporters. Police said the items were worth around 45 million euros ($52 million) and were...

In the late 1480s, Leonardo da Vinci sketched out a clever design for a one-person helicopter propelled by an "aerial screw." Starting in 2019, a University of Maryland engineering team designed and tested the underlying technology as part of a design contest. Then over the last year and a half, team member Austin Prete built Crimson Spin, an unmanned quadcopter drone using da Vinci's screwlike design, and flew it on several brief journeys. Although Prete built only a small drone, the technology could work with an aircraft big enough to haul a human. "I do believe it should be able...

Paper offers foundation to advance search for Leonardo’s DNA. Leonardo Da Vinci: New family tree spans 21 generations, 690 years, finds 14 living male descendants. The surprising results of a decade-long investigation by Alessandro Vezzosi and Agnese Sabato provide a strong basis for advancing a project researching Leonardo da Vinci’s DNA. Their extensive study, published by the journal “Human Evolution” (Pontecorboli Editore, Florence), documents with new certainty the continuous male line, from father to son, of the Da Vinci family (later Vinci), from progenitor Michele (born 1331) to grandson Leonardo (6th generation, born 1452) through to today — 21 generations...

A European collector has bought a 17th century copy of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa painting for 2.9 million euros ($3.4 million), a record for a Mona Lisa reproduction, in an auction at Christie's in Paris on Friday. Known as the "Hekking Mona Lisa," after its owner who unsuccessfully argued that a copy he had bought in the 1950s was the real thing, is one of many reproductions of the original, which hangs in the Paris Louvre museum. "This is madness, this is an absolute record for a Mona Lisa reproduction," a Christie's spokeswoman said. She said there had been...

"It is machination, it is deception," said the director general of the Berlin Royal Museums in his defense when criticized for buying a fake. Wilhelm Bode did not budge an inch: The sculpture he acquired in 1909 was an as-yet unknown production of the great Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci.After 100 years and numerous controversies, a group of scientists led by a CNRS researcher has just proven him wrong once and for all. The Flora wax bust, conserved at the Bode Museum in Berlin, recently underwent radiocarbon (14C) dating, which provided both a precise date and an incontrovertible result: It...

It may be surprising for many to hear that a Reformation occurred in Italy. We normally use the term “Reformation” to describe the defection of Protestants from Roman obedience in places like Wittenberg, Strasbourg, Zurich, and Geneva. But surely the Italian peninsula was always loyal to the papacy? Yet Italy was also poised for gospel renewal in the opening decades of the 16th century. Waves of invasions by French and Habsburg armies, epidemic diseases such as syphilis, harvest failures, and a growing resentment toward clerical authority produced a generation of troubled hearts. And, as they did else elsewhere, reformers in...

LEONARDO DA VINCI's masterpiece the Mona Lisa has captivated art lovers for centuries - but now, a scientist who analysed every inch and layer of the famous portrait has discovered hidden details beneath the painter's brushstrokes.The early 16th Century painting is arguably one of da Vinci’s most famous works and currently resides in the Louvre, in Paris. It’s estimated that 80 percent of their annual 10.2 million visitors attend to see the Mona Lisa. Scientist Pascal Cotte was asked to digitise the painting using a specialist camera, which was able to capture hidden layers beneath the portrait. From his multispectral...

A new study of the microbial settlers on old paintings, sculptures, and other forms of art charts a potential path for preserving, restoring, and confirming the geographic origin of some of humanity's greatest treasures. Genetics scientists with the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), collaborating with the Leonardo da Vinci DNA Project and supported by the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, say identifying and managing communities of microbes on art may offer museums and collectors a new way to stem the deterioration of priceless possessions, and to unmask counterfeits in the $60 billion a year art market... The genetic detectives caution that additional...

If accepted at the time, the design would have likely revolutionized architecture. ======================================================================== In the early 1500s, Leonardo da Vinci designed a hypothetical bridge for the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. It was rejected. Over 500 years later, an MIT team has recreated the design with a model and have showed that it would have worked. Da Vinci's design incorporates architectural techniques that would have not been seen for another 300 years. ========================================================================== Gretchen Ertl ========================================================================= Researchers at MIT have proven Leonardo da Vinci correct yet again, this time involving his design for what would have been at the time...

A video uploaded to YouTube last week by engineer Egor Zakharov shows the iconic portrait translated into three different video clips, each featuring Mona Lisa moving her mouth and turning her head as if in conversation — demonstrating that we can now produce realistic avatars using a single image. Moscow-based Zakharov, an AI researcher with the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology and the Samsung AI Center, and his colleagues published their findings, which have not been peer-reviewed, in the journal arXiv. Three-dimensional models of the human head are deeply complex, requiring “tens of millions of parameters,” the study authors...