Achademia Leonardi Vinci

Editorial

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The magazine’s fourth issue is characterized by in-depth studies of Leonardo’s iconographic sources and his relations with his contemporaries. Contains essays dedicated to the reception of his art lessons from artists active in the first half of the Sixteenth century. The reception of Leonardo’s text – through printed editions and critical texts – is the subject of reflections on his fortune in the French and English context. The main feature of this issue is the relationship between Carlo Pedretti and André Chastel, whose archive contains interesting news about the rediscovery of Leonardo’s two Madrid Codex and the events surrounding their critical edition.

Chastel millimetrico

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Reprint of a contribution by Carlo Pedretti edited in Achademia Leonardi Vinci, IX (1996), pp. 161-163.

Leonardo’s Figure of the Thoughtful Commentator in the Adoration of the Magi: Origin and Interpretation

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The last decade has seen some new approaches to Leonardo’s highly complex composition of the Adoration of the Magi, aspects of which are not yet fully explored. This paper investigates the sources of two figures flanking the principal scene –the youth at the far right and the middle-aged man at the left– as well as Leonardo’s method of rendering them. Scholarship has offered thought-provoking interpretations of the elder character, who, standing in deep contemplation, observes –with his hand on his chin– the scene in front of him. However, the origins of this figure’s pose have not been examined. It is argued here that the origins of the pensive man in the Adoration of the Magi may be traced back to Roman sarcophagi that were known to Leonardo and other Renaissance artists. It is further suggested that the elderly man in the Uffizi panel is related iconographically to figures in works by 15th- and 16th-century artists, namely Donatello, Raphael, Gian Francesco Rustici, and Giorgio Vasari.

From diagram to landscape: the chapters on aerial perspective in the Treatise on Painting

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The landmark publication of Leonardo da Vinci's Traitté de la peinture and Trattato della pittura in Paris in 1651 brought attention to Leonardo's theory of aerial perspective. The early prepublication copies of the abridged version had line diagrams for four of the chapters on aerial perspective, some of which presented conceptual difficulties to the illustrators. The tendency was to enhance their ornamental character, not their didactic value. Two seventeenth-century innovators are responsible for their transformation into landscapes exemplifying the precepts of aerial perspective in practice: Gaspare Berti, hired by Cassiano dal Pozzo, transformed the line diagrams into illusionistic pictures. Charles Errard completed the transformation by envisioning landscape pictures in fictive frames combining engraving and etching to capture atmospheric effects on distant hills and buildings. A half-century later, full page illustrations in the 1716 pocket-sized edition of the Traité testify to the success and continuing importance of Errard's contribution.

“This great genius, who preceded Chancellor Bacon in the true method of philosophising near a century”. Translation and reception of the Essai sur Leonardo da Vinci by Giovanni Battista Venturi (1798-1802)

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In 1797, Venturi studied Leonardo’s codices, brought by the French to Paris, and published his Essai sur les ouvrages physico-mathématiques de Léonard de Vinci. The pamphlet corresponded to the short lecture given by the author at the Institut de France on 25 April 1797 and, for the first time, it highlighted Leonardo’s original texts, and commented on their scientific aspects. This is the reason for the considerable stir that Venturi’s work immediately had. This article examines the English reception of Venturi’s essay, represented by the translation of chemist William Nicholson (1798) and by the use of material collected by Venturi in John Sidney Hawkins’ biography of Leonardo, which was included in the new English translation of the Treatise on painting (1802).

Gleanings from the Archive of André Chastel around the rediscovery and edition of Leonardo’s Madrid Manuscripts

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This article examines the events surrounding the ‘discovery’, in the second half of the 1960s, of Leonardo da Vinci’s Madrid manuscripts (Matritensis 8936 and 8937) and the evolution of Ladislao Reti’s facsimile critical edition of those manuscripts, using documents from the archives of André Chastel. A series of letters shed light on the subsequent controversies and the involvement of key figures such as Ladislao Reti, André Corbeau, Ramón Paz, Anna Maria Brizio, Oskar Kristeller and Carlo Pedretti, among others. A critical examination of these letters reveals Reti's commitment to the project of a double publication, that seeks to balance a facsimile edition with a more accessible volume, The Unknown Leonardo, that combines scholarly rigour with public dissemination.

Between Leonardo and Pico: Ulysses at the crossroads of modernity

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The purpose of this paper is to continue the work that we began in Tra Leonardo e Ficino. Le vie dell’anima e il bivio della conoscenza alla fine del Quattrocento, continuing to explore Massimo Cacciari's indication of the passage-and-break that he identifies between the Ficino and Pico’s Florence, and Bruno, pointing precisely to Leonardo as the embodiment of this caesura. By comparing Leonardo with Pico, in the fundamental theoretical passages of their thoughts with respect to the relation of Man and his mind to the natural dimension in which he is thrown and the Principle that animates and/or creates it, we intend to identify the extent and manner in which the passage intuited by Cacciari is consummated in Leonardo, so as to continue the path toward some more adequate studies of Leonardo's thought in the humanistic context – and in particular in the new humanistic studies’ perspectives – of which he is a leading exponent.

Sodom and the Battle of Isso, the fascination of Leonardo’s Battle of Anghiari

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The text analyzes the stylistic influence of Leonardo da Vinci's Battle of Anghiari (1503-06) on the fresco with the Battle of Isso (1516-17) by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, known as Sodoma, in the Villa of Agostino Chigi in Rome. Leonardo's painting though never completed is known to us through the surviving original drawings and copies made as early as the 16th century. They all relate to a specific episode, The Conquest of the Banner, perhaps the first to be started. The Sodoma fresco presents iconographic echoes from Leonardo's painting that are punctual to stylistic analysis, especially in the central part. Sodoma is documented in Florence between 1514 and 1516 and had the opportunity to see, probably, what Leonardo had left unfinished on the wall of the Sala Grande that he would later use. The Battle of Isso should therefore be counted, together with Raphael's drawing (ca. 1505), among the earliest evidence of Leonardo's work. This conclusion not only reaffirms Sodom's fascination with Leonardo but also contributes to the broader ongoing debate about the actual making of Leonardo's Battle by reinforcing the point of view of those who are convinced of the existence on the wall, albeit fragmentary, of the Conquest of the Banner.

The anatomical indicators in Michelangelo’s drawings: the chiaroscuro dimension

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Throughout their careers, Leonardo and Michelangelo developed very different lines of thought, presenting us with two parallel and opposing visions on artistic anatomy. Leonardo was to all intents and purposes an ‘artist-scientist’ – a devoted connoisseur of ancient anatomical texts who personally performed dissections - he was interested in anatomy also as a science and not strictly as a mere artistic practice. On the other hand, Michelangelo studied anatomy for the sake of the artistic nude. This difference is tangible in the two drawings analysed which appear to be similar in style and iconography. The article also aims to underline a series of signs recurring in Michelangelo’s anatomical drawings whose function will be observed and analysed.

Review to: C. Vecce, Leonardo, la vita. Il ragazzo di Vinci, l’uomo universale, l’errante, Firenze-Milano, Giunti, 2024, 660 pp.

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Review to: C. Vecce, Leonardo, la vita. Il ragazzo di Vinci, l’uomo universale, l’errante, Firenze-Milano, Giunti, 2024, 660 pp.

Review to: André Chastel et l’Italie (1947-1990). Lettres choisies et annotées, par Laura de Fuccia et Eva Renzulli, Avant-propos de Sabine Frommel et Michel Hochmann, Roma Campisano Editore, 2019, 660 pp.

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Review to: André Chastel et l’Italie (1947-1990). Lettres choisies et annotées, par Laura de Fuccia et Eva Renzulli, Avant-propos de Sabine Frommel et Michel Hochmann, Roma Campisano Editore, 2019, 660 pp.