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Primary sourcePaintingc. 1500

Architectural Studies

Leonardo da Vinci · c. 1500

A Renaissance-era photographic slide of Leonardo da Vinci's drawings exploring church architecture and building plans.

These are Leonardo's own architectural drawings, showing his work beyond painting.

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Lantern slide of a Leonardo da Vinci architectural study sheet. Labels read 'VINCI (Leonardo da) (1452-1519)', 'Etude d'architecture', 'Dessin', and 'B 5989'. The drawing shows a domed church sketch, a semicircular plan, a rectangular church floor plan with columns, workers hauling a block with a cart, and a seated figure.
Leonardo da Vinci, Architectural Studies, c. 1500. Photographic lantern slide, KU Leuven.

About this source

What it is

This lantern slide, made for teaching art history, photographs a sheet of architectural drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, created around 1500. The slide was produced for the Université de Louvain between 1839 and 1939.

The drawing shows studies for domed and rectangular church plans, along with a sketch of workers moving a heavy block, showing Leonardo thinking through both design and construction.

Why it matters

Leonardo was not only a painter but also studied architecture and engineering. Sheets like this reveal how Renaissance artists explored building design on paper, often without ever constructing what they drew.

Look closer

  • What different building shapes can you spot on this sheet?
  • Why might an artist also study construction methods like moving heavy blocks?
  • This is a photograph of the original drawing, not the drawing itself — what might be lost in that copying process?

This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Leonardo da Vinci on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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