Florence, six-meter-high dodecahedron arrives in Piazza della Signoria paying homage to Leonardo

In Florence, the installation that will occupy the center of Piazza della Signoria throughout the summer, near the equestrian statue of Cosimo I and the fountain of Neptune, was unveiled yesterday: a six-meter-high dodecahedron with a mulberry tree at its center that pays homage to Leonardo da Vinci and anticipates the exhibition La botanica di Leonardo. For a New Science between Art and Nature, kicking off Sept. 13 in the Santa Maria Novella complex. The project was conceived and developed by Stefano Mancuso, an expert in plant neurobiology; Fritjof Capra, physicist and systems theorist founder and Director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California; and Valentino Mercati, founder and president of Aboca. Instead, the scientific coordination is by Valentina Zucchi of MUS.E, while conception and production are by Aboca with the organization and coordination of MUS.E. Mulberry tree and dodecahedron are the two symbols of the exhibition that will present Leonardo da Vinci’s studies, insights and investigations. The large polyhedron is intended to invite visitors to reflect on the Vinci artist’s passion for botany. Dodecahedron and mulberry tree are the two symbols of the exhibition: the dodecahedron for representing the entire universe (a concept developed by the ancient Greeks and later taken up by the Neoplatonists), while the mulberry tree was one of Leonardo’s most beloved plants, which he depicted in the Sala delle Asse of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan.

“This new installation,” said the mayor of Florence, Dario Nardella, "is an evocative preview of the new, major exhibition on Leonardo that we are organizing in Florence in the year dedicated to the genius of Vinci. After the exhibition on Verrocchio, at Palazzo Strozzi, dedicated to Leonardo’s master, to which the Municipality lent the Putto with dolphin, and the selection of the sheets of the Atlantic Codex on display at Palazzo Vecchio, we will close the year with another major project, dedicated to Leonardo’s natural and botanical studies thanks to a collaboration with Aboca, our partner in the management of pharmacies. With this work we also renew the tradition of Florence as a natural place of public art, to the contamination of styles, to unprecedented challenges: we are ready, thanks to Leonardo, to reinvent the Florence of the future."

“This exhibition,” says Massimo Mercati, CEO of Aboca, “aims to reread Leonardo’s philosophy and science from four angles: his systemic vision; the study of botany as an interconnection of the complexity of the Living; the reading of the humanistic and neo-Platonic sciences together with those brought by alchemical knowledge. And finally, a reflection that becomes a will and vision for the future: to bring back Leonardo’s thought to correct the damage caused by 5 centuries of reductionist evolution-involution. There emerges the need to take up the thought of the Tuscan Genius by imparting different developments leading to a new cultural and scientific Renaissance.”

“The mulberry tree,” says Valentino Mercati, founder and president of Aboca, “represents the mysteries of nature that, where understood by man with respect and humility, will be able to give more benefits than artificial substances that cannot and will not be able to coexist with the System of the Living. What we hope with this project is above all to bring a new reflection on the relationship between science and nature, aimed particularly in favor of health and sustainability.”

Florence, six-meter-high dodecahedron arrives in Piazza della Signoria paying homage to Leonardo

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