On the Leonardo’s project for the tiburio of Milano cathedral: some consideration on static behaviour

Abstract

Among the numerous intuitions and projects that have characterized Leonardo da Vinci's art and technique, the conception of architectural structures has an important role, including studies and the proposal for the project of the tiburio of the Milan Cathedral. Based on some hypotheses of reconstruction of geometries and structural systems developed in the architectural field, and formulated as an interpretation of original drawings, it was intended to test whether the solutions proposed by Leonado were also actually feasible, examining them with current structural modeling techniques, of evaluation of static functioning and definition of structural safety. Using the finite element method (FEM), two different proposals were investigated for the vaults and supporting arches of the tiburio, finding its substantial reliability even though this was hypothesized in the absence of technical verification tools that did not exist at the time.