Later art based on Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches for “The Battle of Anghiari.”
Posted on 10/06/2009 6:22:58 PM PDT by BGHater
If you believe, as Maurizio Seracini does, that Leonardo da Vinci’s greatest painting is hidden inside a wall in Florence’s city hall, then there are two essential techniques for finding it. As usual, Leonardo anticipated both of them.
First, concentrate on scientific gadgetry. After spotting what seemed to be a clue to Leonardo’s painting left by another 16th-century artist, Dr. Seracini led an international team of scientists in mapping every millimeter of the wall and surrounding room with lasers, radar, ultraviolet light and infrared cameras. Once they identified the likely hiding place, they developed devices to detect the painting by firing neutrons into the wall.
“Leonardo would love to see how much science is being used to look for his most celebrated masterpiece,” Dr. Seracini said, gazing up at the wall where he hopes the painting can be found, and then retrieved intact. “I can imagine him being fascinated with all this high-tech gear we’re going to set up.”
Dr. Seracini was standing in the Palazzo Vecchio’s grand ceremonial chamber, the Hall of 500, which was the center of Renaissance politics when Leonardo and Michelangelo were commissioned to adorn it with murals of Florentine military victories. On this July day of 2009, it remained the political hub, as evidenced by the sudden appearance of Florence’s new mayor, Matteo Renzi, who was rushing from his office to a waiting car.
The scientific lecture ceased as Dr. Seracini moved quickly to intercept the mayoral entourage. He was eager to use the second essential strategy for retrieving a Leonardo painting in Florence: find the right patron.
Later art based on Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches for “The Battle of Anghiari.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Italy is the treasure trove of Western art and artifacts. I remember when Americans and corporations like American Express aided the effort to save the art of Florence (Firenze in Italian) after the floods.
Several years ago, some great art was unearthed under the Cathedral of Siena.
That would be a real hoot!
Vasari wrote this about Leonardo:
"In the normal course of events many men and women are born with various remarkable qualities and talents; but occasionally, in a way that transcends nature, a single person is marvellously endowed by heaven with beauty, grace, and talent in such abundance that he leaves other men far behind, and indeed everything he does clearly come from God rather than from human art."
"Everyone acknowledged that this was true of Leonardo da Vinci, an artist of outstanding physical beauty who displayed infinite grace in everything he did and who cultivated his genius so brilliantly that all problems he studied he solved with ease. He possessed great strength and dexterity; he was a man of regal spirit and tremendous breadth of mind ..."
- Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, Penguin Classics
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Thanks BGHater. It will be nice to view another unfinished work by the theoretically great master. :') |
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Salieri, on Mozart, from the movie, “Amadeus”:
” Extraordinary! On the page it looked
nothing. The beginning simple, almost
comic. Just a pulse - bassoons and
basset horns - like a rusty
squeezebox. Then suddenly - high
above it - an oboe, a single note,
hanging there unwavering, till a
clarinet took over and sweetened it
into a phrase of such delight! This
was no composition by a performing
monkey! This was a music I’d never
heard. Filled with such longing,
such unfulfillable longing, it had
me trembling. It seemed to me that I
was hearing a voice of God.
But why?
Why? Would God choose an obscene
child to be His instrument? It was
not to be believed! This piece had
to be an accident. It had to be!”
Those two excerpts share some similarity in their description of a genius. Of course one was written by a 20th century playwright and the other by a man who was an artist himself, a friend of Michelangelo, and whose life in the 16th century overlapped with the life of the man he was writing about. Apparently Vasari did not see any of the “obscene child” aspect in Leonardo either.
An Interview with Rab Hatfield
http://www.theflorentine.net/lifestyle/2007/04/an-interview-with-rab-hatfield/
An interview with Peter Weller
http://www.theflorentine.net/lifestyle/2007/10/an-interview-with-peter-weller/
Florence Journal; The Warts on Michelangelo: The Man Was a Miser
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/21/world/florence-journal-the-warts-on-michelangelo-the-man-was-a-miser.html
Discovery by SU Florence professor in Botticelli masterpiece becomes subject of BBC documentary
https://www.syr.edu/news/articles/2010/botticelli-mystic-nativity-02-10.html
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