Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) was the quintessential Renaissance Man: artist, philosopher, scientist, mathematician, and an inventor ahead of his time. From the 15th to 18th Centuries, though, he was primarily known for his paintings. Then, in 1797, Giovanni Battista Venturi published his “Essai sur les ouvrages physico-mathématiques de Léonard de Vinci”, which brought to light Da Vinci’s immense volume of work in the scientific fields of fluid dynamics and aerodynamics. Curiously, he was only able to do this because of the access he gained to notebooks that had been looted by Napoleon’s troops during their occupation of Milan, Italy, and brought back to France.

To conclude that Venturi was just a writer, though, would be as bad as regrettable as calling Da Vinci just a painter. Born into a rich family in northern Italy, he was a star pupil at the Jesuit seminary in his hometown of Bibbiano. He was such a good student that in 1756 – at the age of ten – he started attending the seminary in Reggio Emilia, studying logic, metaphysics, and mathematics.

As a teenager, he enrolled in the university there, studying physics and biology before returning to the seminary, where he was ordained as a priest in 1769. He taught logic at the seminary for five years, and then went on to “the big city” of Modena to teach philosophy and geometry at the university there. He was 28 when he started there, and by age 30 he was teaching physics as well.

In addition to his service in the priesthood and at the university, he also held the office of official state engineer, mathematician, and auditor, appointed by the Duke of Modena. This meant he was responsible for the construction of bridges, draining of marsh land, and implementing regulations for the building of dams. And, in his spare time, it seems he also completed the town of Modena’s historical memoirs, a task that had been started by the town historian, but had remained dormant since his passing, some 56 years earlier.

All of this would have earned Venturi local, probably regional, and perhaps even national fame…especially the part about making Leonardo Da Vinci famous for more than just his art. But what really sealed his place in the annals of history was his discovery of a particular fluidic effect: namely, that a reduction in fluid pressure results when a fluid flows from one section of a pipe into a narrower section.

Despite its discovery in the late 18th Century, it was not actually practically applied for almost 100 years, when an American hydraulic engineer named Clemens Herschel patented a water flow meter, in 1889. He named it the Venturi Meter, and they became prolific in water works around the turn of the century. Coincidentally, Mr. Herschel had a background in bridge building too.

Today, there are numerous machines that use the Venturi effect: fluid moving educator pumps, gas inspirators in grills, stoves, & Bunsen burners, paint atomizers, wine aerators, locomotive engine steam injectors, sandblasting nozzles, scuba diving regulators…and vacuum generators.

That last one is where EXAIR gets involved. We incorporate Venturis into our E-Vac Vacuum Generators, which are capable of vacuum levels up to 27″Hg. They’re used for material handling, pick & place systems, bag/package opening, label placement, vacuum forming, and workholding, just to name a few.

They’re also used in our Reversible Drum Vac and EasySwitch Wet-Dry Vac Systems. These are just two selections from our extensive line of compressed air operated Industrial Housekeeping Products.

Giovanni Battista Venturi retired in 1813, but continued writing a number of scientific and literary works, including a collection of Galileo’s manuscripts & letters. He died in 1822, at the age of 75.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
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