Decoding Da Vinci's Sketch To The Ottomans: Galata Bridge

Leonardo Da Vinci’s list of accomplishments put him among the world’s greatest artists and inventors. However, over 500 years ago, one controversial sketch wasn’t as much appreciated and has been the topic of many contemporary investigations. Today, more than five centuries later, we are reexamining Da Vinci’s ambitious proposal but not only to look into the structural feasibility of whether or not his design would have been safely constructed, but to delve into the inner workings of Da Vinci’s mind to see if the polymath had prior knowledge of creating stable and efficient forms which has only recently being developed using a computational framework based on the principle of geometrical equilibrium in 3D. Was his sketch just free-handed, something he had done in seconds? Or the renaissance painter and inventor had an intuition that was more than five centuries ahead of its time? Although most historians believe he had no mathematical or geometrical calculation in his design, our study proves otherwise! Through rigorous analysis of Da Vinci’s design, we have found that the polymath had intuitively drawn his sketch according to the principles of geometric design that was developed in 2D almost 400 years after his time and just recently in a 3-Dimensional manner with the help of computational frameworks. This research further continues to explore the potential of Da Vinci’s design with the use of modern materials and methods of construction to see how the design would have been built in our modern time.