{"id":55431,"date":"2019-04-09T16:08:35","date_gmt":"2019-04-09T20:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=55431"},"modified":"2025-09-30T11:08:51","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T15:08:51","slug":"celebrating-leonardo-da-vinci","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/celebrating-leonardo-da-vinci\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating the Genius of Leonardo da Vinci"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Celebrating the Genius of Leonardo da Vinci\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

When Angelo Mingarelli<\/a> was a kid growing up in Montreal, his father, who had immigrated to Canada from Italy and worked as a correspondent for an Italian-language newspaper, would hold court at the dinner table, talking to his sons about art and science and the cornucopia of ideas he was exposed to by his Jesuit and Franciscan teachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy father was a real Renaissance man,\u201d says Mingarelli, a professor in Carleton University\u2019s School of Mathematics and Statistics, \u201cand from a very young age I had a strong sense of who \u2014 and how significant \u2014 Leonardo da Vinci was.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Celebrating
Prof. Angelo Mingarelli<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Because 2019 is the 500th<\/sup> anniversary of da Vinci\u2019s death, Carleton has organized a year-long series of events<\/a> to explore lesser-known aspects of the artist, inventor, scientist and scholar\u2019s life and examine the impact of his achievements on our present day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And because Mingarelli \u2014 probably the most theatrical<\/a> math prof you\u2019ll ever meet \u2014 is so passionate about da Vinci, he was a natural to chair a committee arranging the university-wide festivities known as \u201cCinquecento,\u201d an Italian term for the cultural and artistic flourishing of the 16th<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cI started learning about da Vinci and his mystique as a child,\u201d says Mingarelli, who happened to be born in 1952, the 500th<\/sup> anniversary of the original Renaissance man\u2019s birth.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cEventually that becomes part of you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Leonardo's<\/figure>\n\n\n

The Leonardo 2019 Committee is Formed<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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The wheels that led to Cinquecento started spinning three years ago, when Mingarelli had a conversation with Anna Galluccio, the Italian embassy\u2019s scientific attach\u00e9 in Ottawa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although their discussions remained on the back burner for a while, ultimately the Leonardo 2019 committee was formed, and planning snowballed as Mingarelli invited internationally renowned da Vinci scholars to come to Carleton \u2014 and, much to his surprise, they accepted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those scholars include Martin Kemp<\/a>, an emeritus research professor in art history at Oxford University and one of the world\u2019s leading experts on da Vinci and the Renaissance and links between art and science, who will deliver the Faculty of Science\u2019s annual Herzberg Lecture<\/a> on Nov. 21, 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two months before that, on Sept. 10, best-selling author and historian, Ross King, whose most recent book, Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies<\/em>, won the 2017 RBC Taylor Prize, will also do a lecture at Carleton<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But people interested in or curious about da Vinci won\u2019t have to wait until next fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Celebrating
Diluvio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On May 8, Carleton President Benoit-Antoine Bacon, a neuroscience researcher, will give a talk<\/a> in the Health Sciences Building called Da Vinci\u2019s Vision: The Beauty (and Limitations) of Painting a 3D World.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And on Monday, April 15 \u2014 da Vinci\u2019s birthday \u2014 Mingarelli will officially launch<\/a> Cinquecento with a lecture at the Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre<\/a> focusing on Leonardo\u2019s life and some of his lesser-known contributions, such as anatomy, astronomy and culinary arts, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The free event begins at 7 p.m. and will include refreshments and highlights from Diluvio, an exhibition of wire-mesh sculptures that draw inspiration from da Vinci\u2019s Diluvio drawings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diluvio, which opened last month<\/a> and will remain on display in the lobby of the MacOdrum Library until April 30, means \u201cdeluge,\u201d and the Diluvio drawings sketch out the dynamic properties of air and water in motion, channelled through the power of cataclysmic storms.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cThere are sections in Leonardo\u2019s notebooks where he absolutely praises nature\u2019s creativity,\u201d says Prof. Manuel B\u00e1ez of Carleton\u2019s Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism, whose students created<\/a> the sculptures.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cHe was moved by that to declare a clear, profound distinction between mathematics as conceived by mankind and the mathematics of nature.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Leonardo's<\/figure>\n\n\n

Da Vinci\u2019s Life Outside Art and Engineering<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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The Mona Lisa<\/em> is probably da Vinci\u2019s most famous painting, although the most expensive painting even sold \u2014 Salvator Mundi<\/em>, which went for more than US $450 million at auction in 2017 \u2014 is also believed to be a long-lost Leonardo masterpiece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But regardless of these superlatives, Mingarelli is more interested in da Vinci\u2019s life outside art and engineering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a very big life,\u201d Mingarelli says, talking excitedly about da Vinci\u2019s uncanny ability to draw extremely accurate two-dimensional representations of 3D objects and map human anatomy freehand despite being neither a mathematician nor a medical doctor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was basically a brain for hire,\u201d he continues, noting how da Vinci built bridges and designed fortresses, and how just 7,200 pages of his work are held by archives, galleries and museums, with another 30,000 or so pages unaccounted for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Celebrating
Prof. Manuel B\u00e1ez<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was the greatest genius ever. What else could he have done?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mingarelli is perpetually amazed by da Vinci\u2019s capacity for bringing together the technical and creative. This link is something he tries to emulate in his own work as a math professor, in areas such as \u201ccelestial mechanics\u201d and \u201cfuzzy cellular automata,\u201d and he believes that the capacity to make connections between seemingly disparate ideas can also help students better understand and tackle society\u2019s major challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cLike my dad always said: \u2018The more you know, the better off you are,\u2019 because you can draw links between things that were previously unconnected,\u201d says Mingarelli.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cWe have to extend our imaginations outside our own realms so we can find other applications for the work that we do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLeonardo knew so much,\u201d adds Mingarelli. \u201cHe studied so much. He just wanted to know<\/em> \u2014 and nothing stopped him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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