By the time this article is live, you will still have a good couple of months left to visit the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition at UNIQ Istanbul (but only until April the 7th so run you fools!). If you’ve already gone, I don’t have to tell you that this is the most comprehensive exhibition on the prolific Italian genius.
After premiering in Bruges, Istanbul is host to the start of the exhibition’s world tour. After attending, you will agree that calling the Renaissance man “prolific” is the understatement of the century: dozens of replicas of his inventions – some of which interactive – unearth an engineer obsessed with improving existing mechanisms, a man of war capable of conceiving a shocking amount of deadly weapons, an imaginative scientist that envisioned artifacts well ahead of their time, and an exceptionally skilled artist. But if you haven’t gone yet let me reveal the real reason you absolutely can’t miss it: the model of the bridge that Da Vinci designed over the Golden Horn. Bad news: it never was built.
This is probably a good time to tell you that this is not a conventional exhibition review. Here is my confession; I am obsessed with Leonardo da Vinci. He has been a part of my life as far back as I can remember. As a child his drawings of crazy inventions like the parachute or the multi-barreled cannon – both of which can be seen at the exhibition – fed my imagination and curiosity about how things are constructed. His anatomy studies made me fall in love with free sketching. I had my very own Stendhal moment after I stumbled upon La Scapigliata in Parma. And, finally, I can partly blame him for studying Architecture after being infatuated with his study of The Adoration Of The Magi.
Now I need you to be a bit active in this article. Share with me, just for a little while and in the percentage that you consider appropriate, my obsession with the embodiment of the Homo universalis. Let’s take a journey that involves the illegitimate son of a peasant and a rich notary, the 8th sultan of the Ottoman Empire and one of the most memorable unbuild bridges in history.
As I gleefully walked in the space that contains the gorgeous seven meter model of the bridge I discovered what I didn’t think I had in me: some more room to expand my obsession with Da Vinci. This elegantly robust wooden replica is the icing on the cake that should make every Istanbulite excited about this exhibition. As an architect with a troubling fixation on the universal artist, I was scarcely aware about his peculiar proposal. But then, just right after my visit, I jumped down the rabbit hole and I found every single aspect of the story behind this unlikely project to be immensely fascinating.
A priceless letter from 1502 that is nowadays in Topkapı museum shows how Da Vinci tried to convince the Sultan Bayezid II that he was the ideal candidate to build the bridge between Pera and Constantinople. This application letter challenges our common assumptions about the man that today is considered the ideal representation of the multitalented savant: he was at the time an unemployed vassal trying to get a job in pre-Linkedin times. It humanizes the legend as we see a simple man bragging about his accomplishments and trying to bullshit his way through the biggest CEO of the time, an Ottoman sultan.
This might seem like a quirky segue but if you haven’t watched “Da Vinci’s Demons” give a chance to this wonderfully-campy-but-short-lived TV show. It happily takes artistic licenses to show Da Vinci as an exciting adventurer, fighter and kind-of-Mac Gyver type. But it also perfectly recounts how he was his best manager and agent, always trying to get himself a job. Then it goes on a trippy road and fools around with the idea of Leonardo coming to Istanbul and having an obscure connection with the Ottomans. But I’ll let this article spoiler free. Also I’ll let you know that if one day my idea of making a TV show about the greatest Ottoman adventurer Evliya Çelebi gets picked I’ll be sure to apply the lessons learned from such entertaining TV series (if you think I haven’t planned it out already, then you haven’t read my article.)
The sketch of the bridge is in itself a piece of beauty. If you look closer you can see a vessel sailing under the bridge. This is not a banal detail as this arch rising 45 meters above water would have allowed passage to the biggest ships of the time. Mind you that the structural knowledge to be able to construct this double parabolic arch would only come centuries later but Leo already guessed that would be the most fitting design to cross the stream. The design is as functional as it is neat and it would have been the longest bridge in the world. For quite some time the Istanbul authorities toyed with the idea of building it in its original location. That exciting prospect was finally discarded and now we have to content ourselves with a lesser version. If you ever travel to Norway you can see a scaled-down version over a highway and if you go to the outskirts of Bologna you can visit the still standing inspiration bridge “Ponte degli Alidosi”.
Another exciting side of this story is imagining a parallel dimension where Da Vinci, 50 at the time, visited Istanbul and got to meet young Mimar Sinan. The interchange of knowledge between these brilliant minds could fill entire volumes. Unfortunately he never came as his proposal wasn’t accepted by the Sultan.
In that parallel dimension we are lucky enough to have a Da Vinci designed bridge and walk over a magnificently unique structure. While we can only dream of that ideal universe, make the best out of the dimension we are living in, don’t lose any more time and go enjoy this sensational exhibition.
Photos courtesy of Santiago Brusadin.
