Recent
and forthcoming events
The Leonardo da Vinci Societys Annual
General Meeting and Annual Lecture, 20 May 2005.
The Society's Annual General Meeting was
held at the Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, at 5.30 pm on Friday 20
May 2005. The officers and committee of the Society were re-elected. There was
also a Special General Meeting at which two proposed amendments to the
Society's constitution were approved. These are that 'An annual general meeting
will be held, on or around the Friday nearest to 2 May each year...', and that
the sentence 'When it is considered necessary, the Committee may make cooptions
to full vacancies' has been added to section 5.
Following this, the Annual Lecture was
given by Professor Claire Farago (University of Colorado, Boulder), on
'Leonardo's Trattato della Pittura in its cultural context. Rodney Palmer
writes: Professor Farago established how in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
Italy authorial identity differed from that of the Foucauldian individual
authors' rights that have prevailed since the late eighteenth century. She made
us aware of the reality of the collaborative production of editions of
illustrated texts after Leonardo by making mention of recent work by Ingrid
Rowland on the constructed identity of Raphael the author, and by Charles Hope
and Thomas Frangenberg on the multi-authorship of Vasari's Lives.
Regarding the chronology of specific
manuscripts of Leonardo's Trattato, Professor Farago seconded Donatella
Sparti's understanding of the sequence of transmission from the Codex
Pinellianus of around 1585, source of Codex Barberini 4304 and not vice versa,
up to the first edition of the Trattato, ostensibly edited by Raphael du
Fresne, of 1651. Professor Farago concentrated on the group of
sixteenth-century Florentine manuscripts associated with a group of Florentine
literati, the Concini, Gaddi and Giacomini, their relationship to Codex Urbinas
1270, and the editorial ramifications of the latter, in which Francesco Melzi's
books 5-8 largely on what is now
called 'aerial perspective'
were eliminated by efficient editors quite uninterested in the subtleties of
Leonardo's art theory.
The Giacomini manuscript is a hybrid text
combining Egnatio Danti's commentary on Vignola's two rules of Albertian linear
perspective (which Leonardo did not advocate) with the content of books 2, 3,
and 4 of the Codex Urbinas concerned with the composition of the figures in the
narrative, their arrangement and color as they are disposed in the light. The
whole imitates the three-part format of Alberti's Trattato della pittura of
1436. Professor Farago deems the Giacomini manuscript to have been made with
publication in mind, in the ambience of the Medicean Accademia del Disegno,
founded in 1563, where Gaddi was involved in the production of treatises,
Giacomini played a part as censor, and Danti (who referred in his own work to
Leonardo's 'Precetti') taught mathematics at the Medici Court from 1571.
Certainly there were potential academic, courtly and wider readerships for what
would have been the first treatise on painting published in Florence since
Alberti's. Professor Farago's hypothesis about the intended outcome of the
Florentine group of Trattato manuscripts - their publication - is plausible
enough in itself; the main problem being that one cannot help feeling that some
period source would have referred explicitly to what would have been such a
major cultural enterprise.
Professor Farago easily explained the
non-appearance, assuming one was planned, of any edition of Leonardo in later
Cinquecento Florence. The programme of Cosimo de' Medici's Accademia del
Disegno was at odds with Leonardo's, which is one reason why few qualms were felt
at having Vasari paint over Leonardo's Battle of Anghiari in the Council
Chamber of the Palazzo Vecchio. By the 1580s, partly due to its Republican
connotations, artistic licence was discouraged in Grand Duke Francesco I's
absolutist state. Both Gaddi and Giacomini communicated in the 1580s with the
great Bolognese naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi, the great Paduan naturalist and
collector Vincenzo Pinelli, original owner of the Codex Pinellianus, and others
of the time who were more disposed to optical naturalism in the representation
of nature It seems likely that the Codex Urbinas was sent away from Florence in
the 1560s, then unsympathetic to Leonardo's ideas, for safekeeping in the
Marches, where, Professor Farago ended by reminding the audience, Federico
Barocci is widely thought to have consulted Leonardo's treatise on painting in
his pursuit of the complex optical effects of reflected colour.
Leonardesque News
Lettura Vinciana XLV
The forty-fifth Lettura Vinciana was
delivered at the Biblioteca Leonardiana in Vinci, on Saturday 16 April, by Dr
Franoise Viatte, formerly Director of the Department of Graphic Arts at the
Muse du Louvre, Paris. Her title was Della figure che va contro il vento.
Il tema del soffio nellopera di Leonardo da Vinci – the theme of breath
in Leonardos work.
This quotation from the Treatise on
Painting, and the drawing
that accompanies it, taken from Manuscript A and dating to around 1508-1510,
served as the starting point for a reading of Leonardos writings about air,
breath and wind. Both Leonardos descriptions of these, and the place that they
occupied in his creative process were discussed. The lecture dealt with natural
and weather-related phenomena generated by the movement of air, such as dust,
smoke, wind and rain. It also engaged with a series of related, broader issues
that never ceased to engage the painter: distance, the infinite, indistinctness
and the theme of flight itself, devices and machines designed to rise off the
ground, the flight of birds, allegories and flying figures.
By extension, Dr Viatte suggested, the
notion of breath can also be employed as the basis for an examination of
Leonardos drawing.It can be used as a pointer in the attempt to develop an
interpretation of the beginnings of a work, characterized by the impulse, the
mark and the rapidity of the annotation. Reference was made to some of
Leonardos finest works, for instance the Adoration of the Magi and the Battle of Anghiari, and emphasis was placed on the role of
drawing as precursor in his work. As has recently been shown with regard to the
manuscripts, drawing often preceded the text.
In her lecture Dr Viatte sought to offer a
critical interpretation of drawing as an expression of breath. At the same time
she delineated the role of air, in all its different forms, in Leonardos work,
especially in the texts that deal with sfumato and observations on light.
Two Leonardo da Vinci reprints from
Dover Publications
At the end of April Dover Publications
issued an unabridged republication of the translation of the Treatise on
Painting by John Francis
Rigaud, first published by George Bell and Sons in 1877. This rather wooden,
dated translation of a relatively small selection of Leonardos advice to the
painter cannot stand comparison with more recent anthologies available in
English. A second unabridged reissue, published at the end of May, is of Edward
McCurdy, The Mind of Leonardo da Vinci, London (Dodd, Mead and Co.), 1928, which presents a
detailed investigation of all aspects of Leonardos endeavours and
achievements, not only in sculpture and painting but also in music, engineering
and experimental aviation. Rather coarsely divided into three sections, the
biography, the manuscripts and Leonardos thought, and his painting and
sculpture, this book is now of interest principally to the historian of
Leonardo studies.
Leonardos Trattato
della Pittura in
Greece
We have received a copy of Chrysa
Damianaki, Translation and Critical Reception of Leonardo da Vincis Trattato della Pittura in Greece, Rome (Vecchiarelli Editore), 2003. This
is the first study in a series entitled Mnemosine. Studi e Testi edited by
the author, who is Associate Professor of the History of Art at the University
of Lecce, Italy. The book deals with the two illustrated manuscript copies, in
the Biblioteca Marciana, Venice (Codex Gr. IV 50), and in the National Library,
Athens (MS. 1285) of the Greek translation of the Trattato by Panagiotis
Doxaras (1662-1729), the first Greek exponent of an Italian style of painting.
In her Preface, Claire Farago summarises the important findings and
implications of this study. Damianaki is the first to give detailed
descriptions of the two practically unknown manuscripts; to compare the two
versions; to establish the text in relation to its Italian sources; and to
place it in its contemporary cultural context. Moreover, Damianaki is able to
establish that Doxaras had ambitions to westernize Byzantine painting: he
intended that the Athens manuscript should be published with engraved
illustrations, many closely based on the engravings in the Du Fresne editio
princeps of 1651.
The book is an expansion of the paper read
by the author at the The fortuna of Leonardo da Vincis Trattato della Pittura conference at the Warburg Institute,
13-15 September 2001, with which the Society was closely associated (see this Newsletter issue 00, November 2001). It mnay be seen
as one facet of the larger research project on the Trattato and its fortuna on which Claire Farago and Thomas Frangenberg
are currently engaged.
Did someone mention
Leonardo? :
Recently discovered rooms at the Santissima Annunziata,
Florence
Matthew
Landrus writes: Before news of another lost Leonardo dissipates into www
oblivion, a record of recent events may be in order. It is early to judge all results of the Santissima
Annunziata discovery, though it already has the underpinnings of what many
might want of a Leonardo mystery: an exhumation of his lost places and things,
of a secret stairway, a secret room for human dissections, and a ghost image
imprinted on a wall. To this form
of story we might attribute traditional cravings for Leonardo mysteries. Would it matter as much – for
example, if a lost Michelangelo were found? As Leonardo frequently appears and disappears in the news, a
note of his latest ghosts is worthwhile whilst they linger. Articles and photographs at the web
sites numbered and addressed herein were online as of 25th February
2005.
The popularity of Leonardo da
Vinci has never been greater, especially for the wrong reasons. In forty-two countries, purchasers of
eighteen million copies (at last count) of The Da Vinci Code have been apparently curious
about Dan Browns approach to Leonardo; and many have noted that this is not
because of its fictions, but because of its supposed facts.[1] To think of Leonardos association with ancient conspiracies
adds quasi-historical legitimacy to the unfolding of a present-day story that
could overturn fundamental principles of two millennia of Christian
tradition. What fun. Of course the enjoyment of such ideas
occasionally involves the suspension of disbelief to believe in da Vincis
codes. This undoubtedly sold the
book, and many of us.
We know very little about
Leonardos personal life, though we have a great legacy of his work. His writings show an almost Tacitean
ability to get a lot of information into just a few statements or sketches. Does any of his work suggest that he
tried to hide ancient secrets? No
– on the contrary, his work reveals his obsession with methods of direct
communication. What would Leonardo
want us to have of his?
Presumably, the kind of material that he left behind will do (or so one
would think).
Why, then, the tendency to jump
to conclusions with the possible discovery of something Leonardo
related? As proven by The Da
Vinci Code, even false conclusions can gross 140 million in book sales.[2] Certain associations with Leonardo can offer lucrative
results.
On Monday, 10th
January 2005, the Military Geographical Institute (IGM) in Florence issued a
statement and photographs about the discovery of lost rooms and a secret
stairwell that were presumably used and partially painted by Leonardo. General Renato De Filippis, Commander
of the IGM, reported on behalf of an IGM appointed research team: Alessandro
Del Meglio, Roberto Manescalchi, and Maria Carchio.[3] The demolition of walls during a renovation of the IGM
revealed the location of the lost rooms, situated at a top floor, between the
IGM and the Santissima Annunziata monastery.[8]
The first online report was at adnkronos.com on the day of the announcement. According to the site, General De
Filippis made this announcement during the
presentation of the exhibition, Leonardo, i giochi e lo sport, (Leonardo, the games and sports).[3] The Regional Council of Tuscany had this exhibition
installed at the Palazzo Panciatichi, Florence, just for the period of 10th
- 20th January.
Curated by the Museo Ideale
Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci, Italy), the exhibition was sponsored by the
Fondazione Monte dei Paschi di Siena in celebration of Italian successes in the
Athens Olympics and Paralympics of 2004, and possibly in anticipation of 2006
Winter Olympic Games in Turin, as well as the Milan bid for the 2016 Summer
Olympic Games. Journalists were
allowed a special viewing of the exhibition at 11:30am on the 10th,
the day of General De Filippis press conference. The 2006 Olympic torch was
unveiled in Milan on the 20th, the final day of the show. Also opening on the 10th was
an exhibition of Leonardos Codex Atlanticus and reconstructed inventions at
the Palazzo Corsini, Rome, in place until 28th February.[4] The exhibitions were well timed.
On Wednesday, 12th
January, Rome correspondent Richard Owen reported for The Times: Found: the
studio where Leonardo met Mona Lisa.[5] The analogy for such a claim?: for all or part of the period
between April 1500 and mid 1502, evidence suggests that Leonardo stayed at the
Santissima Annunziata church complex; he could have used the recently
discovered rooms as his studio spaces; the family of Francesco del Giocondo
– husband of Lisa Gherardini (a.k.a. Mona Lisa) – happened to have
a chapel at the monastery; therefore Leonardo could have met Lisa Gherardini at
Santissima Annunziata. (Perhaps
visions of the two of them – eyes meeting at the church and then off to
share a bottle of chianti at a local trattoria – come to mind, though it
could never have happened.) At
best, Francesco del Giocondo and Leonardo knew one another through contact with
the Medici. The most surprising
detail, however, is that of the discovered rooms – small spaces with tiny
windows, being used previously as studio spaces. Moreover, there was the suggestion that Leonardo possibly
helped paint the rooms frescoes.
The day after, on 13th
January, the Regional Council of Tuscany announced three meetings at the
Palazzo Panciatichi on the 14th, 17th, and 19th,
addressing the following topics, respectively: Leonardo: vero o falso, Leonardo allAnnunziata, tra il
convento dei Servi di Maria e lIstituto Geografico Militare, and Arte e
design, giochi e sport dallEtruria alla Firenze medicea. Alessandro Vezzosi, director of
the Museo Ideale di Vinci, directed the first discussion; Maria Carchio, Alesandro
Del Meglio and Roberto Maniscalchi directed the second meeting; and the third
arrangement was a round-table discussion with Paola Cassinelli Lazzeri,
Guiseppina Carlotta Cianferoni, Yoritsugu Katagiri, Massimo Ricci, and
Alessandro Vezzosi.[6] Thanks to these ongoing discussions, whilst the jury
convened – so to speak, little or no fresh news about the discovery
appeared online.
Enter Associated Press writers
Marina Sapia, with the help of Aiden Lewis, and Francis DEmilio, who produced
a detailed report on 21st January, compiled with the help of
interviews and press conferences during the previous eleven days. This is the version of the story to
which most readers and viewers had access in the following weeks, as it formed
the basis of this topic on the most web sites. Exhibit A for the story was a photo, released on the 10th
– though not published by international news media until the 21st,
of a fresco with decorative swirling tracery, two simple birds and an angels
face – with wings attached – at the centre.[7] At issue: that the rooms served as a studio for
Leonardo and his pupils has grabbed the imaginations of many. If they worked in the convent, might
not they have done the frescoes, including one depicting birds – a motif
that tickled Leonardos fancy.[7] James Beck is quoted as saying that there is no real
evidence. Vezzosi refers to the
various possible links to Leonardo, his pupils and Lisa Ghirardini. Manescalchi notes that the birds
remind us of the study done by Leonardo of birds in flight. Colin Eisler reminds us that the birds
are not unique for the time in which they were likely painted. The article also considers an
attribution of certain monastery frescoes to Vittorio da Feltre, who visited
Florence in the early 1500s, according to Vasari, specifically to meet Leonardo
and Michelangelo.
Also on the 21st,
the Associated Press released a short video of a tour of the Santissima
Annunziatas newly discovered rooms.[8] This was available at the
AP.org site, as well as re-edited by CBS and made available at cbsnews.com.[8] The tour begins at a doorway in the Santissima Annunziata,
continues up the recently discovered secret stairway, and ends at a corner
room thought to have been Leonardos personal studio, or secret room. Included in the video is a view of the
outline of a kneeling angel, chipped away from the surrounding fresco (as a
planned addition to or a sign of removal from the wall), thought to be similar
in profile to that of Leonardos Annunciation – as noted in Sapias AP
report. A comparison of these two
examples suggests otherwise.
For Discovery News
(discoverychannel.com), Rosella Lorenzi reported on the 21st the
details of the Military Geographical Institutes recent press conference.[9] She notes relevant points noted above, along with further
historical information about the church complex, and that Leonardo possibly had
an interest in the monasterys collection of 5000 manuscripts. Especially
useful at the web site is the first international online publication of five
photograph details (around 540 x 380 pixels in size), showing a floor plan of
the rooms and secret stairwell, fresco details of birds in flight, frescoes
in the secret stairwell, and an exterior view of the monastery. This was an opportunity for readers to
see what might or might not have been Leonardesque about the bird paintings,
and to get a three-dimensional sense of the discovered rooms with the help of a
floor plan.
That Sunday, the 23rd,
RedNova (rednova.com) uploaded an update to the Associated Press story,
inserting at the beginning, One of the worlds leading specialists on Leonardo
da Vinci cast doubt Saturday that fading frescoes might be the work of the
Renaissance master or one of his pupils.[10] This and the three other additions to
the AP report are thanks to an interview with Martin Kemp and his studies of
high-quality photos of the frescoes in question. He informs me that his original advice on this was that:
They look like absolutely standard 1480-ish frescoes and the birds are not
notably Leonardesque.
Thus, lost rooms, secret
stairwells, Vasaris travelling painter reference, and quasi proto-Leonardesque
birds do not locate a Leonardo studio.
The story lacks a smoking gun – some form of direct proof. After two days of relative silence on
the matter, on 25th January, Phil Stewart (from Rome) republished
the story for Reuters (reuters.com):
Da Vinci workshop discovered in Italy.[11] Two relatively macabre
elements emerge with the story:
the idea that Leonardo used one of the discovered chambers as a secret
room to dissect human cadavers and that the fresco silhouette of an angel is
the ghost of Leonardos previous interest in a fresco painting of the
archangel Gabriel. Stewart attributes
these ideas to a slide presentation by Manescalchi. About the angels ghost and Leonardos Annunciation, I have commented above. About the dissections, I would have to
say that such ideas would only put nails in the coffin of this mysterious discovery. Institutions could only very rarely get
permission for dissections from the Pope, and the order of the Servi di Maria
(Servants of Mary) would have been actively against such a practice especially
at the Annunziata church complex.
We are researching, said
Manescalchi, referring to the ongoing search for documentation among the
monasterys records for evidence that Leonardo may have stayed there in the
early 1500s. This is at least
encouraging, as further documentation, or even discoveries of Leonardos
marginalia in the monasterys previous manuscripts, might attest to the idea
that the newly discovered rooms are of an age when rooms of this kind at the
monastery had boarders such as Leonardo.
What the news media and press conferences make of all this is another
story. For example, Stewart may or
may not have quoted the following statements in context: Its easy to say Its not true,
[Manescalchi] said. I didnt
paint the Angels ghost.[11]. In any event, I have my doubts about this angels ghost,
though not about the periodic passing of Leonardos.
Sources
(as of 25th February 2005):
1 http://www.spectator.co.uk/newdesign/
books.php?issue=2004-12-18&id=2632
2 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?
xml=/news/2004/11/16/wcode16.xml
3 http://www.adnkronos.com/news/prod/bolletti/
storia/2005/gennaio/culgen2.htm
4 http://www.parlamento.toscana.it/Stampa.asp?
5 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/
6 http://www.consiglio.regione.toscana.it/
Informazione/Comunicatistampa/comunicato/
7 http://entertainment.tv.yahoo.com/entnews/ap/
8 http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/search/
search.php?searchString=discovering+mona+lisa&source=cbsvideos&sort=1&type=any&num=10&offset=0
9 http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20050117/
leonardo.html
10 http://www.rednova.com/news/display/? id=121102
11 http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?
type=science News&storyID=7427028
And here: http://sciencenews.orb6.com/stories/ nm/20050125/arts_italy_davinci_dc.php
The
Leonardo da Vinci Society
We would always be grateful for suggestions
of material, such as forthcoming conferences, symposia and other events,
exhibitions, publications and so on, that would be of interest to members of
the Society for inclusion in this Newsletter or on the webpage, which can be visited at
<http://www.bbk.ac.uk/hafvm/ leonardo>
President: Dr J.V. Field, School of History
of Art, Film and Visual Media, Birkbeck College, 43 Gordon Square, London
WC1H.0PD; e-mail: jv.field
hart.bbk.ac.uk
Vice-President: Professor Francis
Ames-Lewis, School of History of Art, Film and Visual Media, Birkbeck College,
43 Gordon Square, London WC1H.0PD; 020.7631.6108; e-mail: f.ames-lewis
bbk.ac.uk
Secretary/Treasurer: Dr Tony Mann, School
of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, University of Greenwich, Old Royal
Naval College, Park Row, London SE10 9LS; 020.8331.8709; e-mail: A.Manngre.ac.uk
Committee members:
Rodney Palmer, 4 Holland Street, Cambridge
CB4 3DL; e-mail:
rodpalmer63@hotmail.com
Professor Frank A.J.L. James, Royal
Institution Centre for the History of Science and Technology, Royal Institution
of Great Britain, 21 Albemarle Street, London W1X.4BS; e-mail: fjamesri.ac.uk
Matthew Landrus, Wolfson College, Oxford;
e-mail: Matthew.landruswolfson.oxford.ac.uk
Please send items for publication to the
editor of the Leonardo da Vinci Society Newsletter, Francis Ames-Lewis, School of History of
Art, Film and Visual Media, Birkbeck College, 43 Gordon Square, London WC1H
0PD; fax: 020.7631.6107; e-mail: f.ames-lewisbbk.ac.uk