The special exhibit, Leornardo DaVinci: Artist, Scientist, Mystic, was on display at the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum on May 1-July 31, 2006. A version of the exhibit is at the Toronto Lodge in Toronto, ON canada from September 18-December 12, 2006. Click here for the Toronto Lodge Site for the Leonardo DaVinci Exhibit, including multimedia resources. The exhibit will be shown at the Triangle Lodge in Dallas, TX from February 1-May 31, 2007. Click here for the Triangle Lodge webpage.

The exhibit explores the many aspects of Leonardo DaVinci’s life and work. Visitors glimpse the stages of this great man’s life and career through scale model reproductions of DaVinci’s models and inventions, examination of details of his enigmatic paintings, books and artistic materials from the Rosicrucian Research Library, and explanations of some of Leonardo’s most intriguing designs.

Leonardo DaVinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519), perhaps more strikingly than any other figure, typifies the Art, Science, and Spiritual yearnings of the Italian Renaissance. During this vibrant transitional period, Medieval Western Europe was reawakening to the knowledge and wisdom of the Ancient World, being transmitted to them through reexamining what had been preserved in the West, but even more dynamically, from Constantinople and the Byzantine Roman East, as well as through Islamic science, art, and literature. The result of this fusion was the Renaissance, which ushered in the modern west.

Leonardo’s work in all areas of his life typifies this period, a vital nexus of connection that links the modern world with ancient civilizations and cultures, through the Renaissance. As a scientist and inventor, DaVinci was inspired by the writings of the Roman writer Vitruvius (1^st century BCE), who meticulously described ancient Roman technology, engineering, and architecture in his 10-volume work De Architectura. Renaissance scholars had rediscovered this text in 1414, and its descriptions have been verified by later archaeology. As an inventor, DaVinci strove to restore Western Europe to the technological level of the Roman Empire.

In Art, 15-year-old Leonardo was apprenticed to the Florentine painter Verrocchio, and became part of a tradition that had evolved from ancient portraiture, through Byzantine and Western Iconography to the innovations of the early Renaissance. DaVinci himself pioneered many striking techniques, such as Chiaroscuro, shadings of light and dark. As suggested in the novel The DaVinci Code, some have pointed out that his paintings and sculptures seem to point to esoteric meanings beyond the surface. As a mature artist, he created some of the most remarkable works of his or any other age.

DaVinci’s Spirituality is less easy to discern directly. However, through his work, one may obtain glimpses of his attitudes and mysticism. He practiced the Pythagorean custom of Vegetarianism, although he also designed engines for war. A major artist of Roman Catholic Italy, his portrayals of sacred subjects sometimes emphasized unusual aspects of the subject matter, leading generations to believe that he was concealing a secret behind the enigmatic smile of the Mona Lisa. Regardless of any other speculations, it is clear that DaVinci’s deeply held Humanism was based on the ancient concepts of order in the Cosmos and the Human Person as the Microcosm of this Universal order. He understood the world as revelation of truth in symetry, geometry, and proportion. He lived by the conviction that the human spirit was Capax Universi, capable of all things. As such, he shares the Rosicrucian worldview and connects the ancient past with today, part of the Primordial Tradition.

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