“Under the Shade of the Mulberry Tree”: Reconstructing Nature in Leonardo’S Sala Delle Asse

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168 Pederson

Chapter 7 “Under the Shade of the Mulberry Tree”: Reconstructing Nature in Leonardo’s Sala delle Asse

Jill Pederson

Painted by Leonardo da Vinci during the last decade of the fifteenth century while in the service of Duke Ludovico Maria Sforza of Milan, the Sala delle Asse, or the “Room of the Wooden Boards” as it is known,1 prominently dis- plays Visconti and Sforza coat of arms and four plaques with laudatory inscriptions set against an elaborate pattern of branches and verdant leaves (Fig. 7.1).2

* I would like to thank Raffaella Fabiani Giannetto and Anatole Tchikine for the opportunity to present the original version of this paper during their session at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America in New York, 2014. Earlier iterations of this essay were gener- ously read by Carlo Catturini, Allie Terry Fritsch, David Young Kim, Lia Markey, and Timothy McCall. Research was made possible by fellowships from the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at UCLA and the American Philosophical Society. 1 Recent bibliography on the Sala delle Asse includes: Claudio Salsi, “Riflessi düreriani e tedeschi nella Sala delle Asse del Castello di Milano,” in Dürer e il Rinascimento: tra Germania e Italia, ed. Bernard Aikema and Andrew John Martin (Milan: 24 Ore Cultura, 2018), 115–123; Michela Palazzo and Francesca Tasso, eds., Leonardo da Vinci: La sala delle Asse del Castello Sforzesco, La diagnostica e il restauro del Monocromo/ Leonardo da Vinci: The Sala delle Asse of the Sforza Castle, Diagnostic Testing and Restoration of the Monochrome (Milan: Silvana Editoriale, 2017); Carlo Catturini, “Leonardo da Vinci nel Castello Sforzesco di Milano: una citazione di Luca Pacioli per la ‘Sala delle Asse’ ovvero la ‘camera dei moroni’” Prospettiva 147/148 (2012): 159–166; Maria Teresa Fiorio and Anna Lucchini, “Nella Sala delle Asse, sulle tracce di Leonardo,” Raccolta Vinciana 32 (2007): 101–140; Maria Teresa Fiorio, “‘Infra le fessure delle pietre’: la Sala delle Asse al Castello Sforzesco,” in Il codice di Leonardo da Vinci nel Castello Sforzesco, ed. Pietro C. Marani and Giovanni M. Piazza (Milan: Electa, 2006): 21–29; Maria Teresa Fiorio, in “‘Tutto mi piace’: Leonardo e il castello,” in Il Castello Sforzesco di Milano, ed. Maria Teresa Fiorio (Milan: Skira, 2005), 163–179; Patrizia Costa, “The Sala delle Asse in the Sforza Castle in Milan” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 2006); Patrizia Costa, “La Sala delle Asse di Luca Beltrami,” Archivio Storico Lombardo 127 (2001): 195–217; Dawson Kiang, “Gasparo Visconti’s Pasitea and the Sala delle Asse,” Achademia Leonardi Vinci 2 (1989): 101–9. 2 In the center of the vault is a large armorial shield bearing the joint stemmi of Ludovico Sforza and Beatrice d’Este, including the eagle of the Este and the viper of the Visconti (the ruling predecessors of the Sforza). This desire to promote the union could have been strengthened through the sudden death of Ludovico’s young wife Beatrice. Furthermore, this Sforza-Este device was surrounded by four painted plaques, adorning the central axis of each of the four supporting sides of the vault, each describing important events in the 1490s. One importantly glorified the Sforzas’ new alignment with Emperor Maximilian of Habsburg—attained

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“under The Shade Of The Mulberry Tree” 169

through the political guile of Duke Ludovico, who hoped the alliance would strengthen his fight against the encroaching French. Ludovico solidified the alliance through the marriage of the duke’s niece Bianca Maria Sforza to Emperor Maximilian in 1494, a union described on one of the plaques. For more information, see Evelyn S. Welch, Art and Authority in Renaissance Milan (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), 233. Another plaque mentions the legitimate right of the Sforza to inherit the duchy after the death of Filippo Maria Visconti and describes the proclamation of this event by Maximilian in 1495. Kemp interestingly sug- gests that the Roman capitals on the inscriptions on the plaques may have been inspired by Luca Pacioli’s writings on the formation of Roman lettering in his De divina proportione (1497). See Martin Kemp, Leonardo da Vinci: The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man, rev. ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 169. Yet another plaque has been defaced, leaving us only to speculate on its original contents, while a final plaque describes Ludovico’s 1495 victory against the French at the Battle of Fornovo. See Kemp, Marvellous Works (2006). Notably, all three remaining inscriptions bear reference to Ludovico’s new ally Maximilian I, perhaps not surprisingly as the Milanese defense against the quickly advancing French relied almost en- tirely on Sforza relations with the Habsburg emperor. Kemp has also pointed out that the motif of a tree with roots was one of Ludovico Sforza’s personal imprese, which represented strength and security due to the tree’s unfaltering presence even in adverse conditions. It was used twice in the roundels in the Piazza Ducale in Vigevano, but unfortunately their inscrip-