Painter, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect

One of the most famous examples of the interconnection between art and science is the work of Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci.

While his Mona Lisa is probably the most famous portrait ever painted, Da Vinci’s scientific drawings, recently on exhibit at the Boston Museum of Science, are smaller in scale and intricately detailed and annotated. They demonstrate that he was no less skilled as an inventor and researcher. 

In 2001, it was proven that Da Vinci was a brilliant bridge engineer when artist Vebjorn Sand built the da Vinci-Broen bridge in Norway using the artist’s never-realized plans for a bridge meant to stretch across the Golden Horn in Istanbul. 

The plan for the bridge was rejected by the Ottoman Sultan, who commissioned it, stating it as an architectural impossibility, and today the bridge was built 499 years after da Vinci designed it, proving the Sultan wrong.