The Starry Night among art, maths, and origami

We illustrate a project in art, maths, and origami, in the spirit of STEAM, carried out in an Italian high school. We chose the famous Van Gogh's painting: ‘The Starry Night’ and we invited 16-year-old students to cover some elements on the artwork with origami models. These models were related to engineering, architecture, design and art and, for each of them, we designed a lesson on a precise mathematical subject. In this paper, we give the details of the project and we sketch the mathematical lessons we did, giving also the instructions to fold the models. We have also analysed the answers of a questionnaire filled in by students, to check the adequacy and effectiveness of the experience. The results showed that the students welcomed this project, and improved their maths knowledge.