Just an update to the ping message. Thanks nickcarraway.
Posted on 01/12/2005 12:59:52 AM PST by nickcarraway
Restorers find artist’s workshop in old Florence friary, writes Bruce Johnston
The workshop where Leonardo da Vinci first met and may have begun painting the woman he immortalised as the Mona Lisa has been discovered in a military college.
The studio and lodgings, filling five rooms on two floors and still showing traces of wall paintings bearing what one expert called "astonishing associations" with his work, have come to light in what was once part of the friary of the Santissima Annunziata in Florence and was later taken over by Italy's Military Geographical Institute.
A team of restorers found the rooms behind a hidden door leading into the complex where Leonardo stayed in 1500.
Until now all that was known about his time in Florence was his interest in experiments on insects, as documented by the art historian Giorgio Vasari.
The artist's father, Ser Piero da Vinci, had represented the friary in a legal dispute in 1497 and Leonardo is thought to have left the complex in either 1500 or 1501.
The Mona Lisa, generally believed to be a portrait of a Chianti girl of noble origins, Monna Lisa Gherardini, is said to have been painted between 1500 and 1504. Her wealthy husband, Francesco del Giocondo, was also a client of Ser Piero's, and involved in the same 1497 dispute.
"There is good reason to believe that Leonardo obtained the premises at the Santissima Annunziata through the intervention of Pope Alexander VI, the former Cardinal Roderigo Borgia, not his father," Roberto Manescalchi, a restorer at the institute, said.
"It was during this period that the artist probably at least made the acquaintance of the sitter of the Mona Lisa, before possibly painting her later."
During this stage of his time in Florence, Leonardo is also thought to have prepared the cartoon for his painting of Madonna and Child with St Anne, now in the National Gallery in London.
According to Mr Manescalchi, the artist also painted the Madonna dei Fusi for the secretary of state of Louis XII of France, Florimond Robertet, and drew studies of birds in flight. Among the frescoes uncovered on one of the walls of the newly discovered premises are images of birds over what appears to have been a madonna, now lost.
Although the images may have been those of a pupil rather than the artist himself, Mr Manescalchi said they clearly reflected Leonardo's own studies.
Along with the master at least one of his pupils, such as Gian Antonio Boltraffio or Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno, known as "il Salai", may have shared his lodgings, Mr Manescalchi said.
He said that he had also found "beyond a shadow of a doubt" that Andrea del Sarto, one of the leading Florentine painters of the generation after Leonardo's, had later stayed in the same lodgings himself.
The area in question, he explained, was part of the complex traditionally set aside by the friars of the Servi di Maria who ran it as lodgings for lay pilgrims and guests. Prof Alessandro Vezzosi, director of the Museo Ideale Leonardo da Vinci, was enthusiastic about the discovery. He said: "The finds are particularly interesting as they will help us to understand the context in which Leonardo worked."
However, some experts were more cautious. "To be sure of the discovery, more research must be done," said Cristina Acidini, superintendent of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure restoration institute in Florence, and a Leonardo expert.
However, Mr Acidini added: "But it is equally true to say that these frescoes are encouraging."
"A team of restorers found the rooms behind a hidden door leading into the complex where Leonardo stayed in 1500."
So these students at the military school were so disciplined or busy that they didn't explore beyond the halls and rooms that had ready access. I guess my mind works differently. I like to get into the rooms, explore the nooks and crannies, find the quiet out of the way corners.
There is a report that the Mona Lisa is actually a SELF-portrait by da Vinci, but,-- well--, in drag. Compare the face to picture of the artist and you see the same shape and features. However most da Vinci pictures are of him as a much older, wrinkled man.
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Riddle of Mona Lisa is finally solved: she was the mother of five
Telegraph | 1/08/2004 | Bruce Johnston
Posted on 08/03/2006 9:17:59 PM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1677425/posts
Just an update to the ping message. Thanks nickcarraway.
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