Il Sogno dell’Ing. Bernardi

With this work, Shife pays tribute to the visionary genius of engineer Enrico Zeno Bernardi, pioneer of mechanical engineering and the automobile, after whom the institute hosting the mural is named.

Through an essential and highly symbolic graphic language, the artist retraces the stages of a dream that changed the history of mobility: in 1882 Bernardi filed the first patent for an internal combustion engine powered by gas; in 1884 he built the first prototype of a petrol-fuelled combustion vehicle; and in 1894 he presented the first three-wheeled automobile to be industrially produced.

It was in Padua that he founded Miari & Giusti, regarded as the first Italian automobile manufacturer. The mural celebrates his legacy with a contemporary aesthetic, where fragmented faces, gears, bold colours, and geometric forms intertwine to evoke the power of vision and innovation.

A dream turned reality, which continues to inspire generations of students, researchers, and dreamers.

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