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Leonardo Da Vinci Society Newsletter

Leonardo Da Vinci Society Newsletter

Leonardo .; ~~ - - . Society Newsletter

editor: Francis Ames-Lewis

Issue 3, November 1993 Leonardo - A Portrait of Love As announced in Issue 2 last May, a musical Recent and forthcoming entitled 'Leonardo - A Portrait of Love' opened at events the Strand Theatre on 3 June 1993. Not surprisingly, in the Editor's view, it closed a few 1993 Annual Lecture weeks later. The music was at best indifferent; the singing was for the most part frankly weak; The Society's 1993 Annual Lecture, entitled and the acting was not of high standard. ' and the concept of the ben Leonardo da Vinci Society members will, finito cartoon', was given on Friday 28 May however, be primarily interested to hear about of 1993 by Professor Carmen Bambach Cappel, of the reconstruction of Leonardo's life and loves Fordham University, New York. Patricia Rubin proposed in the scr.ipt. While Lisa sits for him for (Courtauld Institute of Art) writes: a now-lost betrothal portrait made very early in his career, Leonardo falls in love with her, and - In a fascinating and scrupulously documented it later transpires - she produced a daughter by talk that combined microscopic scrutiny of detail him. In despair at the loss of his beloved when with macroscopic vision of the general questions, she married Signor Giocondo, Leonardo flees Carmen Bambach Cappel outlined the for - as good an explanation, developments in the use of pricked cartoons in perhaps, as any yet offered by art historians for Central drawing practice. She his move north? Returning to Rorence (as indeed examined Leonardo's creative procedures within he did) some 18 years later, Leonardo witnesses the Florentine workshop tradition that both his beloved's death at the hands of her husband formed him and which he subsequently he fights a duel (with his sword in his left hand, i transformed. She showed how there came to be was pleased to see) with Signor Giocondo, and two types of carloni: a functional cartoon, with in an emotional final scene he recreates the coarse outlines, whose purpose was that of portrai t of Lisa as a composite fantasy transferring a design to a final surface and which synthesised from the Ambrosiana Portrait of a perished or was discarded, and a ben finito or Musician (here claimed as a self-portrait) which finished cartoon, much praised in 16th-century he overpaints with his romanticised art theory and valued by collectors as expressing memory/vision of his sitter. Hence of course the the ideal of disegno. Not necessarily part of the - but how come the working process, finished cartoons could serve Ambrosiana portrait survives? as demonstration pieces. Among such cartoons, The irrelevant sub-plots included Giovanni Professor Cappel argued, was Leonardo's for the (not Francesco, inexplicably) Melzi whose Battl~ of Ang~iari - an ambitious and costly characterisation was a tasteless parody of the ?r~wIng possIbly produced entirely at the devoted but querulous, hypochondriac InSIstence of Leonardo's patrons, the Signoria of homosexual. The lyrics and the staging were full Aorence, as a form of manifest guarantee of the of absurd anachronisms. A very early reference design for their Council Hall. Examination of the to Donatello's Doors of Paradise was an ominous underdrawings on panels and of the wall surfaces hint at what might be to come. At one poi nt we of .Leonardo's surviving works so far has yielded heard. that Leonardo 'only did big pictures - eVIdence of cartoon transfer only on portraits. altarpIeces, murals, that sort of thing', and true to Professor Cappel suggested that for Leonardo this claim the appeared and for other artists the orderly model of sketch divided into two square canvases each about 9' to cartoon propounded in texts was subject to high. The stage set for Aorence Duomo ca. 1480 variations resulting from the contexts both of a included a replica of 's staircase in painting's execution and of a painter's reputation. the Biblioteca Laurenziana vestibule. Most surprising of all was the scene in Leonardo's bottega when he was visited by the Abbot of San Leonardesque News Donato a Scopeto who was getting anxious about the delays in completion of his Adoration of the Magi. He entered to find Leonardo on a mural­ painter's scaffolding working on a canvas some four times the size of the Uffizi panel. But the A new museum at Vinci most remarkable hypothesis advanced by the writers of the musical was that work was also in A new private museum, the Museo Ideale progress at this same time on chasing and Leonardo da Vinci di Arte Utopia e Cultura della finishing two large sections of the Sforza Horse. Terra, has recently opened at Vinci. This is an We now gather that the Horse was cast in bronze entirely new initiative, spearheaded by after all, despite rumours to the contrary - and, Alessandro Vezzosi: it is in no respect a indeed, was cast several years before it was reconstruction of the Museo Leonardiano commissioned! Comunale, which remains unchanged. It has However, readers will be pleased to know been established in the former Gallery and Cellars that there is one benefit to be gained from the of the medieval Castello of Vinci. musical: as part of the publicity package, Alitalia The primary objectives of the new are offering £50 towards any flight ticket to museum are to demonstrate the complexity of for travel before 31 March 1994. Please apply to Leonardo's work and hi s relationship with Vinci the Editor for a voucher if you wish to take up and the surrounding area, and to explore the this offer. relationships between both Renaissance and contemporary art forms. It is a multi-media museum that includes data banks, computerised images and a video library as well as exhibitions 'Art and Science in the of original works of art, models and holograms, paintings, drawings, manuscripts, replicas of Renaissance' Symposium sculptures and fountains, and archaeological and other artefacts. The intention is to create an The next in the series of joint Leonardo da Vinci innovative interdisciplinary and avant-garde Society and Society for Renaissance Studies international centre, covering a broad range of symposia on the general theme of 'Art and subjects from the arts and sciences to agriculture. Science in the Italian Renaissance' will be held on It will work to protect and enhance cultural and Friday 28 January 1994, at the Warburg Institute, environmental assets; to promote study and . The subject will be 'Proportion'. The experiment in the fields of contemporary art and speakers will include: lain Fenlon (University of design and technological and educational Cambridge), on 'A question of proportion: Dufay innovation; to rediscover local hi storical and Brunelleschi revisited', J.V. Field (Birkbeck traditions; to implement and expand artistic crafts; College, London), on ''s De divina to give new impetus to agricultural art and the proportione', A. Keller (University of Leicester) 'culture of the earth'; and to raise the level of on 'The science of weighs in machinery ca. 1350 tourism. Alessandro Vezzosi hopes to develop to ca. 1600', Martin Kemp (University of St contacts between the new museum and the Andrews), on 'Leonardo and the universality of Leonardo da Vinci Society, to which end Martin proportions', and Robert Tavemor (University of Kemp has been invited to join the museum's Edinburgh) on 'Alberti, and concinnitas in comitato d'onore. We offer the museum all good practice'. wishes for its immediate success and future development.

Leonardo da Vinci Society Annual Lecture 1994 Leonardo's Vatican St Jerome

The 1994 annual lecture will be given by Dr Paul The unfinished St Jerome has recently been Hills (University of Warwick) on Friday 6 May cleaned at the Vatican: the treatment involved 1994 at 6.30 pm. His title will be 'The Adoration principally the removal of a substantial and of the Magi for San Donato a Scopeto'. As usual darkened layer of varnish. The panel is included the lecture will take place at the Italian Cultural in an exhibition of works of art in the Vatican Institute, 39 Belgrave Square, London SW1 , collections which has recently opened in Japan. immediately after the Society's AGM at 5.30 pm. Bull, , 'Two portraits by Leonardo: Recent Publications Ginevra de'Benci and the ', Artibus et Historiae, 25, 1992, 67-84. Books, dissertations and exhibition CaIne, D.B ., et.al., 'Did Leonardo describe catalogues Parkinson's disease?', New England Journal of _ Medicine, 320, 1989, 594. Clayton, Martin, Leonardo da Vinci: the Christensen, Peter G., 'Merezhkovsky and Anatomy of Man. Drawings from the collection Leonardo on the meaning of the creative act', of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Exh. cat., Symposium, 45/3, 1991, 172-82. Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, 1992. Farago, Claire, 'On Leonardo da Vinci's Eissler, Kurt, Leonardo da Vinci: defense of painting against poetry and music and Psychoanalytische Notizen zu einem Ratzel, the grounding of aesthetic experience', Italian Basel/Frankfurt am Main, 1992 (translation of Culture, 9, 1991, 153-70. 1961 study, with revised bibliography). Gould, Cecil, 'Leonardo's Madonna of the Grabski, Josef, Leonardo da Vinci: Lady Yarnwinder: Revelations of reflectogram with an Ermine, Vienna, 1992. photography', Apollo, 136, 1992, 12-15. Green, Andre, Revelations de Grinberg, Leon, and Cecilio Paniagua, l'achevement: A propos du carton de Londres de 'The attraction of Leonardo da Vinci', Leonard de Vinci, , 1992. International Review of Psychoanalysis, 18/1, Kemp, Martin, ed., Leonardo da Vinci: the 1991, 1-10. Mystery of the Madonna of the Yarnwinder, exh. Holly, Michael Ann, 'Writing Leonardo cat., Edinburgh, 1992. backwards', New Literary History, 23, 1992, Leonardo & Venice, exh. cat., Milan, 173-211. 1992. Joannides, Paul, 'Creative distortion in the Migliore, Sandra, Tra Hermes e Prometeo: Renaissance: Lippi, Leonardo and Parmigianino', if mito di Leonardo nel Decadentismo europeo, Apollo, 136, 1992, 239-246. diss., University of Turin, 1992 (to be published Jones, Pamela, ''s by Olschki) . Magdalene from the Collection of Federigo Maiorino, Giancarlo, Leonardo da Vinci: Borromeo: religious contemplation and the Daedalian mythmaker, University Park, iconographic sources', Studies in the History of Pennsylvania, 1992. Art, 24, 67-74. Pedretti, Carlo, I Codici Forster del Nathan, Johannes, 'Some drawing Victoria and Albert Museum di Londra, Aorence, practices of Leonardo da Vinci: New light on the 1992- (facsimile edition). St Anne', Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Pedretti, Carlo, Leonardo da Vinci: fa Institutes in Florenz, 36, 1992, 85-102. Battaglia di Anghiari e le armi fantastiche, Paulicelli, Eugenia, 'La poetica visiva nella Aorence, 1992. scri ttura di Leonardo da Vinci', Romance Reti, Ladislao, The Unknown Leonardo, Languages Annual, 3, 1991,293-98. New York, 1991 (reprint of 1974 ed.) Reynolds, Juliet, 'Did Leonardo visit Shell, Janice, Leonardo, London and New India?', Spectator, 269, 19 December 1992, 79- ' York, 1992. 8l. Todd, Edwin M., The neuroanatomy of Rodini , Robert J., 'The weight of the Leonardo da Vinci, 2nd ed., Park Ridge, Illinois, words: Leonardo da Vinci and the anxiety of 1991. language', Philological Quarterly, 70, 1991, 277- Vezzosi, Alessandro, Leonardo da Vinci: 87. arte e cultura della terra, exh. cat., Florence, Shell, Janice, and Grazioso Sironi, 'Cecilia 1991. Gallerani: Leonardo's Lady with an Ermine', Wasserman, Jack, Leonardo da Vinci, Artibus et Historiae, 25, 1992, 47-66. London, 1992 (World of Art series). Spector, Jack, 'Duchamps' androgynous Leonardo: "Queue" and "cuI" in L.H.O.O.Q.', Articles and essays Source: Notes in the History of Art, 11, 1991, 31-35. B a I d i hi, U m be r to, , L a grande Tanaka, Hidemichi, 'Leonardo da Vinci: "Incompiuta"', Criticadell'arte 6 ser., 56, 1991, architect of Chambord?', Artibus et Historiae, 22-37. 25, 1992, 85-102. Barolsky, Paul, 'Leonardo's Epiphany', Toren, Chri stina, 'Leonardo's "Last Source: Notes in the History of Art, 11, 1991, Supper" in Fiji', in ed. Susan Hiller, The Myth 18-21. of Primitivism . Perspectives on Art, Bell, Janis, 'Zaccolini's theory of color London " ~ ew Yor~. , 1991,35-47. ', Art BuiLetin, 75,1993,91-112. Turco, Ronal d N., 'Freud's Leonardo da Vinci: an Italian perspective', Bulletin of the American Society of Psychoanalytic Physicians, Edoardo Majno, 'Ricordo di Luigi Belloni'. 81, 1993,35-47. Summaries of volumes I-XXII, and Index of Zollner, Frank, 'Leonardo's portrait of Authors from volumes I-XXII. Mona Lisa del Giocondo', Gazette des Beaux­ Arts, 121, 1993, 115-38. Book and exhibition reviews Martin Kemp and Jane Roberts, Leonardo da Vinci: artist-scientist-inventor, London, 1990, Raccolta Vinciana and Martin Kemp, ed., Leonardo On Painting , New Haven, 1990, reviewed by Francis Ames­ The Raccolta Vinciana issued its 23rd volume in Lewis, Master Drawings, 28, Spring 1990, 80-3, 1989. It can be obtained from Prof. Augusto by Hubertus Raben, Pan 1984/4, 114-18, and by Marinoni, II presidente, Ente Raccolta Vinci ana, Frank Zoellner, Kunstchronik ,42/6, June 1989, Castello Sforzesco, 20121 Milano, Italia. The 285-7. contents are: Various books on Leonardo, including the catalogue by Martin Kemp et al. of the Leonardo Rosalba Tardito, 'II Cenacolo di Leonardo da Vinci: artist-scientist-inventor exhibition, and e il suo recente restauro'; Martin Kemp ed ., Leonardo On Painting Gisberto Martelli, 'Restauri al "Cenacolo reviewed by Charles Hope, The New York Vinciano" dal 1978: rechiamo di testimonianze Review of Books, 36, 17 August 1989, 16. vecchie e nuove'; The Leonardo da Vinci Museum of Science David Alan Brown, 'Some observations and Technology, Milan, reviewed by Ross about the exhibition Disegni e dipinti Herman in The New Scientist, 130, 8 June 1991 , daLLe coLLezioni milanesi"; 50. Pietro C. Marani, 'Per il : Edwin M: Todd, The neuroanatomy of nuove analisi nella e un Leonardo da Vinci, reviewed by Peter Black, grande inedito'; .. . Journal of the American Medical Association, Maria Teresa Fiorio, 'Un rehevo refenblle a 267, 17 June 1992, 3215, and by Nancy J. Bambaia e qualche osservazione sull'incidenza Newman, New England Journal of Medicine, della pittura leonardesca sulla scultura lombarda'; 327, 23 July 1992, 288-9. Giulio Bora, 'Da Leonardo all'Accademia Serge Bramly, Leonardo, London 1991, della Val di Bregno: Giovan Paolo Lomazzo, reviewed by David Chambers, History Today, e i disegni degli accademici'; 43,58, and by Martin Kemp, Spectator, 269, 12 Janice Shell and Grazioso Sironi, September 1992,39. 'Documents for copies of the Cenacolo and the Leonardo da Vinci: The Mystery of the '; Madonna of the Yarnwinder, exhibition, ibid.,'The Resurrection of Christ Edinburgh 1992, reviewed by Michael Bury, with Sts Leonard and Lucy'; ApoLLo, 136, September 1992, 198-9, by ibid.,'Some documents for Francesco Galli Murdoch Lothian, Arts Review, 244, January "Dictus Neapolus"'; 1992,288-9, and by Nicholas Penny, Burlington Alberto C. Carpiceci, 'Per una Magazine , 134, 1992, 542-4. "Schedatura" dei disegni archi tettonici di Leonardo'; Enrico Cabella, 'Leonardo nelle carte del The Leonardo da Vinci Society "Fondo Bossi" all'Ambrosiana'; Enzo Macagno, 'Experimentation, analogy President: Professor Martin Kemp, and paradox in Leonardo da Vinci'; Department of Art History, University of St Augusto Marinoni, 'II "Trattato delle sei Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, Scotland, quantita"'; KY16.9AL. ibid., 'Le proporzioni secondo Leonardo'; Vice-President: Dr Francis Ames-Lewis, ibid., 'Noterella geometrico-linguistica (con Departmentof History of Art, Birkbeck College, appendice) "Lunona"?'; 43 Gordon Square, London WC1H.OPD, UK. ibid., 'The Place of the Codex Hammer in SecretarylTreasurer: Dr Richard Schofield, the development of Leonardo's thought'; Department of Art History, University of Vittorio di Girolamo Carlini, 'La ciudad de Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 Leonardo en la exposiciones de Chile'; 2RD, UK. Mauro Guerrini, 'Bi bliografia leonardiana Please send items for publication to the 1986-89'; editor of the Leonardo da Vinci Society Kim Veltman, 'In memoriam K.D. Keele, Newsletter, Francis Ames-Lewis, Department of M.D., F.R.c.P.; History of Art, Birkbeck College, 43, Gordon Augusto Marinoni, 'Bern Dibner'; Square, London WC1H.OPD, UK.

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