RT Journal Article
T1 Giovanni Canestrini�s models
A1 Ian Hutchings
YR 2016
VO 6
IS Autumn 2016
K1 Leonardo da Vinci
K1  models
K1  friction experiments
K1  sketches
K1  Giovanni Canestrini
AB Among the exhibits at the 2016 Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the Science Museum, London, was one that purported to illustrate Leonardo’s experiments on friction. The models involved were the work of Giovanni Canestrini (1893–1975) who contributed to the 1939 and 1953 Leonardo exhibitions in Milan. This article discusses the original sources and history of these models, in the light of recent research into Leonardo’s work on friction. It concludes that, while being relevant to Leonardo’s study of mechanics, these models seriously misrepresent his experimental investigations of friction.
NO Canestrini (1938) p 301, ‘studi sull’attrito di rotolamento’
NO ibid. p 321
NO Canestrini (1939a) p 497, ‘Leonardo è il primo che affronta lo studio sistematico delle cause di attrito sia nel caso di superfici plane, che nel caso dei perni precedendo di due secoli Amontons (1699) e Coulomb (1781), il quale riprodurrà, per le sue esperienze, il banco che troviamo disegnato al fol. 41 recto del Codice Arundel’. This statement should probably not be taken to suggest that Canestrini believed that Coulomb’s work was directly influenced by a knowledge of Leonardo’s sketches.
NO Canestrini (1939b) p 145, ‘Banco per esperienze sull’attrito’
NO Canestrini (1939a) p 494, ‘Perni rotanti su rulli’. Canestrini misattributes the diagram to Codex Atlanticus
NO Canestrini (1939b) p 157, ‘Studi sull’attrito nei perni. Here he misattributes it to Asburnham MS 2037
NO Mostra di Leonardo da Vinci e delle Invenzione Italiane
NO ‘Modello ricostruito di pancone per esperienze nell’attrito radente e volvente’ (from Guida, 1939; the entry in Catalogo, 1939 is essentially the same)
NO ‘Modello ricostruito di un apparecchio sperimentale per lo studio dell’azione delle forze e dell’attrito in un sistema rotoide’ (from Guida, 1939); the entry in Catalogo, 1939 is ‘apparecchio sperimentale per lo studio dell’azione delle forze e dell’attrito in un sistema rotoide. Modello ricostruito dal Cod. Atl. f. 390 v.b.’. The catalogue uses the earlier foliation of Codex Atlanticus; the equivalent current folio is 1081v.
NO p 147, ‘Ricostruzione del banco per le esperienze sull’attrito secondo i disegni di Leonardo’
NO Catalogo (1939), p 87, ‘Pancone per esperienze di attrito radente e volvente. Modello ricostruito dal Cod. Arundel f.41r’
NO ‘Modello ricostruito – su disegno di Leonardo – per lo studio dell’azione delle forze e dell’attrito in un sistema rotoide’
NO ‘Frizione a cilindri’
NO ‘Rulli reggispinta in un disegno di Leonardo’
NO ‘Sistema di coppie rotoidali con rulli reggispinta ai perni’
NO Probable dates for the manuscripts are derived from the sources listed in Hutchings (2016, p 53)
NO ‘la confregazione circolare fia equale alla confregazione retta’
NO Although there is no text describing this sketch, it is clear from other diagrams on the same page and the facing page that the weight is intended to be 2 libbre. The libbra was approximately 0.33 kg (Hutchings, 2016) and a wooden cylinder of this weight with a density of 720 kg/m3 (typical of European oak, ash or beech) with its length twice its diameter would be 84 mm in diameter and 167 mm long. If we are to assume that the sketch does represent a real experiment, then this gives us an indication of the size of the apparatus – the cylinder would be only about one third of the dimensions of Canestrini’s ‘reconstruction’ in Model A.
NO Other examples in the context of friction are in Codex Atlanticus ff. 198r, 525r, 532r, Codex Forster II f. 124v.
NO ‘figure…del banco che ha servito a Leonardo per le sue esperienze’
NO The extent to which Leonardo performed real, practical experiments to investigate friction, and to what extent his sketches represent concepts or ‘thought experiments’ is a matter of considerable interest, and is discussed more fully in Hutchings (2016, pp 63–65).
PB The Science Museum Group
SN 2054-5770
LA eng
DO 10.15180/160602
UL http://journal.sciencemuseum.org.uk/browse/issue-06/giovanni-canestrini-s-models/
CR Bennett, J, 2015, ‘The Science Museum and the Leonardo da Vinci Quincentenary Exhibition of 1952’, Science Museum Group Journal, Autumn 2015, Issue 04, http://dx.doi.org/10.15180/150403
CR Canestrini, G, 1938, L’Automobile, il contributo italiano all’avvento e evoluzione dell’autoveicolo (Rome: Reale Automobile Club D’Italia)
CR Canestrini, G, 1939a, ‘Le macchine di Leonardo’, in Piantanida S and Baroni C (eds), Leonardo da Vinci, edizione curata dalla Mostra di Leonardo da Vinci in Milano (Novara: Istituto geographico De Agostini), pp 493–507
CR Canestrini, G, 1939b, Leonardo: costruttore di macchine e di veicoli (Milan: Tumminelli)
CR Catalogo, 1939, Mostra di Leonardo da Vinci, Catalogo, Palazzo dell’Arte, Milano, maggio – ottobre XVII
CR Dowson, D, 1979, History of tribology (London: Longman), p 98
CR Galluzzi, P, 1999, The Art of Invention: Leonardo and Renaissance Engineers (Florence: Giunti)
CR Giorgione, C, 2015, ‘The birth of a collection in Milan: from the Leonardo Exhibition of 1939 to the opening of the National Museum of Science and Technology in 1953’, Science Museum Group Journal, Autumn 2015, Issue 04, http://dx.doi.org/10.15180/150404
CR Guida, 1939, Mostra di Leonardo da Vinci, Guida Ufficiale, Milano, Palazzo dell’Arte, 9 Maggio – 1 Ottobre XVII, pp 23–24 http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/automobile/pdf/canestrini_guida.pdf (accessed 25 May 2016) 
CR Hutchings, I M, 1992, Tribology: friction and wear of engineering materials (London: Edward Arnold), p 23
CR Hutchings, I M, 2016, ‘Leonardo da Vinci’s studies of friction’, Wear 360-361. pp 51–66, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wear.2016.04.019
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CR Leaflet, 1939, Mostra di Leonardo da Vinci e delle Invenzioni Italiane, Milano, Palazzo dell’Arte 9 Maggio–30 Settembre 1939, http://www.museoscienza.org/voci-della-scienza/documento.asp?doc=113 (accessed 25 May 2016)
CR Marcolongo, R, 1933, ‘La meccanica di Leonardo da Vinci’, Atti della Reale Accademia delle Scienze Fisiche e Matematiche, ser. 2, 19(2), pp 1–110
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CR Reti, L, 1971, ‘Leonardo on bearings and gears’, Scientific American 224(2), pp 101–110
WT Science Museum Group Journal
OL 30