Ornitottero to the 5th Reggimento AVES “RIGEL”
The mosaic work entitled Ornitottero (Ornithopter), created by the students of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli as a tribute to Leonardo da Vinci, has found a new and important location in the 5° reggimento Aviazione dell’Esercito “RIGEL” – 5th Aviation Regiment of the “RIGEL” Army of Casarsa della Delizia.
Conceived in 2019 on the occasion of the celebrations for the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death, the large installation, with mosaic parts, is inspired by the flying machine designed by the Renaissance genius. Precisely for this link with the sky and with man’s aspiration to fly, the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli has entrusted this work to the 5° reggimento Aviazione dell’Esercito “RIGEL”.
Great satisfaction was expressed by the Commander of the 5th “RIGEL”, Colonel Paolo Cesare Ceccobelli, on the occasion of a visit by the president of the School Stefano Lovison and the director Gian Piero Brovedani. Today the work finds a prestigious arrangement in the representation room and exhibition venue of the 5th “RIGEL” regiment.
Leonardo imagined a device, the ornithopter in fact, where the man positioned inside it moved and maneuvered large wings inspired by those of birds. Key elements of the whole project, the wings allow flight and become its symbol. Precisely for this reason, in the essential reproduction of Leonardo’s machine, the wings became the center of the mosaic intervention: large and arched were illuminated by tesserae that reconstruct, as in an embroidery, the elegant membranes present on the wings of the dragonflies. The installation in wood and aluminum is mobile and the large wings rise and fall according to the displacement of the central golden sphere that acts as a counterweight. In the movement, the surface of the wings, finely decorated with lines of colored enamels, vibrates in the light.
The mosaic installation of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli represents a source of pride for the regiment which can thus boast a further important collaboration with another excellence of the territory, to consolidate the close link between the 5° Reggimento Aviazione dell’Esercito “RIGEL” and the Friuli Venezia Giulia region.
The president of the Lovison School, Colonel Ceccobelli and the director Brovedani with the Ornitottero behind him.
5 August 2022
