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FOR VISITORS:

  • On Friday, October 31, the museum site at the Conti Guidi’s Castle will close at 6.00 p.m. for the set-up of the evening event. The ticket office will close at 5.15 p.m.

Stabilizer

Luigi Boldetti

1970

Leonardo designed a highly complex apparatus for regulating the energy produced by a spring used for winding a clock. The model consists of a sturdy wooden frame housing a series of mechanisms activated by a spring located inside a broad drum-like cylinder.

This cylinder has a toothed crown at its top, which meshes with a conical gear set on a vertical shaft whose ends consist of two worm screws. The continuous meshing is ensured by the worm screw at the base of the vertical shaft. This worm screw, by moving a toothed wheel that engages with the rack section, drags the horizontal axle to which the cylindrical drum with the internal spring is fixed.  As the spring gradually unwinds and the cone-shaped gear descends, the axle with the cylinder moves to the right. The crown on the cylinder engages with the toothed coils of the cone, which, on account of their increasing in width in the upward direction, compensate for the decrease in speed of the crown itself. The rotation transmitted to the vertical pinion to the left of the cone gear is thus maintained at a constant speed.

Technical informations

Type of exhibit
Model
Material
Carved wood, partially turned, metal
Measures
Width: 87 cm, Length: 89 cm, Depth: 35 cm.
Storage location
Relationship with the original work
Source: Leonardo da Vinci, Madrid Codex I, f. 14 r
Inventory number
Record n. OA: 00000045
Location
Museo Leonardiano, Counts Guidi's castle, ground floor

Last update: 24 June 2025, 08:52

Made by the Scuola di Costruzioni ed Esperienze Aeronautiche in Guidonia and donated to the Museo Leonardiano in 1938, this model reproduces a flying machine with beating wings conceived by Leonardo in the late 1480s. It is a part of his first phase of reflections on flight, characterized by projects involving the use of human power alone to operate devices capable of reproducing the beating of wings.

This machine’s pilot is positioned and secured with a strap on the rectangular platform, to which the complex mechanisms guiding the wing movement are connected. By thrusting with his feet into the stirrups, he actuates a system of cords and pulleys, causing the wings to go up and down. The same movement automatically causes the flexing, along with a small rotation, of the wings themselves, so that the wings’ surface is presented edge on during the rise, in order more easily to cut through the air, then becoming flat during the descent, in order better to compress it. To facilitate the extension of the wings, springs are applied at the junctures of the sections, causing them to return automatically to the starting position.

Technical informations

Type of exhibit
Model
Collection
Material
Carved/partially painted walnut wood, leather, cotton rope, iron
Measures
Height: 35 cm, Length: 87 cm.
Storage location
Relationship with the original work
Source: Leonardo da Vinci, Manuscript B (France), f. 74 v
Inventory number
Record n. OA: 00000005
Location
Museo Leonardiano, Counts Guidi's castle, ground floor

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Last update: 24 June 2025, 08:47

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