It took five hundred years to truly understand what Leonardo had intended to devise on page 812r of the Codex Atlanticus. In fact, only in recent years was the functioning of that futuristic “automobile” unraveled. The cart was conceived to animate court parties, but it was also a response to one of the great dreams of man: the big wooden leaf springs are used to “program” the vehicle, while its real engines are the cylindrical springs stored in two wooden drums and clearly visible in this 2011 replica.
