The Ingenious Engineering of Leonardo da Vinci’s Self-Supporting Bridge, Explained


The video above from Sabins Civ­il Engi­neer­ing promis­es to reveal “the MAGIC behind Da Vinci’s Self Sup­port­ing Bridge.” That sounds like a typ­i­cal exam­ple of YouTube hyper­bole, though on first glance, it isn’t at all obvi­ous how the frag­ile-look­ing struc­ture can stay up, much less sup­port the weight of a cross­ing army. Not only does the design use no per­ma­nent joints, says the nar­ra­tor, “the more weight on the bridge, the stronger it becomes.” The key is the dis­tinc­tive man­ner in which the pieces inter­lock, and how it directs force to cre­ate a “fric­tion lock” that ensures sta­bil­i­ty.

Remove just one piece of the bridge, how­ev­er, and it all comes crash­ing down, which is more fea­ture than bug: designed to facil­i­tate troop move­ments, the struc­ture could be dis­man­tled to pre­vent use by the ene­my even more eas­i­ly than it was put up in the first place.

Just one of the var­i­ous tools of war Leonar­do came up with, this bridge was con­ceived under the patron­age of the famous states­man Cesare Bor­gia (a chief inspi­ra­tion for Nic­colò Machi­avel­li’s The Prince), who employed him as an archi­tect and mil­i­tary engi­neer in the ear­ly fif­teen-hun­dreds.

Though Leonar­do’s bridge designs have proven influ­en­tial in the half-mil­len­ni­um since his death — think of him next time you cross the Gala­ta Bridge in Istan­bul — no evi­dence remains that he ever built one in his life­time. But unlike most of his inven­tions, real­ized or the­o­ret­i­cal, you can build it your­self today with­out much dif­fi­cul­ty. The video presents an exam­ple large enough to walk across, which may make it feel rather less sta­ble than it actu­al­ly is. Luck­i­ly for stu­dents look­ing to under­stand the self-sup­port­ing bridge in a hands-on man­ner, the same engi­neer­ing prin­ci­ples apply just as well on the more man­age­able scale of pop­si­cle sticks — a mod­ern build­ing mate­r­i­al at which Leonar­do him­self would sure­ly have mar­veled.

Relat­ed con­tent:

How to Build Leonar­do da Vinci’s Inge­nious Self-Sup­port­ing Bridge: Renais­sance Inno­va­tions You Can Still Enjoy Today

MIT Researchers 3D Print a Bridge Imag­ined by Leonar­do da Vin­ci in 1502— and Prove That It Actu­al­ly Works

Leonar­do da Vinci’s Inven­tions Come to Life as Muse­um-Qual­i­ty, Work­able Mod­els: A Swing Bridge, Scythed Char­i­ot, Per­pet­u­al Motion Machine & More

The Inge­nious Inven­tions of Leonar­do da Vin­ci Recre­at­ed with 3D Ani­ma­tion

Leonar­do da Vin­ci Draws Designs of Future War Machines: Tanks, Machine Guns & More

Built to Last: How Ancient Roman Bridges Can Still With­stand the Weight of Mod­ern Cars & Trucks

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.





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