Tsinghua Da Vinci exhibit forced to close for English mistakes

A recent exhibition of works by Leonardo da Vinci was almost perfect, with no less than Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University as host.

The problem was an embarrassment of errors, mostly about the famous masterpieces and their creator, making the exhibit a laughing stock on social media, according to Sing Tao Daily.

One misspelled The Last Supper as The Last "Super" on the panel.

Another, describing how Da Vinci left home at age 47, said "47 years old he leaved from Milan".

The mistakes were quite appalling, netizens said, especially considering the venue.

They said more than 10 obvious English mistakes were found, including blatant grammatical and spelling errors.

Zhou Xin, deputy director of the Tsinghua University Museum, said the exhibit arrived in Beijing on Sept. 4 and that his team did not have enough time to proofread the materials.

Zhou said the museum closed for about three hours on Saturday in order to fix the language issues.

The museum sent invitations to netizens who have helped spot the errors to visit the show again and would give them an honorary membership as a reward.

It said it will cooperate with professional translation companies for future projects.

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