Italy Honors Leonardo da Vinci 500 Years After his Death
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May 2, 2019, Italy and the world honor the day, 500 years ago, when
Leonardo da Vinci died. A host of exhibitions offered in Italy will last
much of the year.
ROME --
On May 2, 2019, Italy and the world honor the day, 500 years ago, when
Leonardo da Vinci died. In fact, a host of celebrations are planned here
and will last much of the year. In March the celebration committee
created by the Ministry for Culture and Tourism elected Prof. Paolo
Galluzzi, who is director of the Galileo Museum of Florence, its
president. Other committee members include Prof. Vincent Deleuvin,
curator of Italian 16th C. painting at the Louvre; Prof. Luke Syson,
curator of European sculpture and decorative arts at the Metropolitan of
New York, and Pinin Brambilla Barcilon, restorer of "The Last Supper."
"The death of Leonardo," Ingres, 1818
One
of the main events of the 500th anniversary of his death begins this
October at the Uffizi Galleries of Florence, with the exhibition "The
Leicester Codex of Leonardo da Vinci: Water as Microscope of Nature."
Leicester Codex, Florence (on loan from Bill Gates)
When
Leonardo's patron Giuliano de'Medici died, Leonardo quit Italy for
France in 1516, when he was 64, to live in a fine manor house at
Clos-Luce near Amboise. He was unwell and his hand too crippled to
paint, but he and his admiring new patron, Francis I, the youthful king
of France, became close friends who discussed everything from philosophy
to art, architecture and engineering. Writing in 1550, Giorgio Vasari,
in his Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and
Architects, recorded that Leonardo actually died in the king's arms,
with the king "supporting his head to give him such assistance and do
him such favour as he could, in the hope of alleviating his sufferings."
Vasari's account inspired artists like Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
to paint, that death scene with the king in 1818 (see >>)
This
touching scene of the king cradling the artist's head is unproven but
is possible albeit, "With Leonardo, nothing is so simple," writes Walter
Isaacson in his carefully researched Leonardo Da Vinci, The
Biography (Simon and Schuster, 2017). Leonardo was buried in the
cloister of the Church of Saint Florentin at Amboise, "but the current
location of his remains is another mystery," writes Isaacson. The church
was demolished in the early 19th C., and, although excavation decades
later revealed bones, they are cautiously described as Leonardo's
"presumed remains."
One
of the main events of the 500th anniversary of his death begins this
October at the Uffizi Galleries of Florence, with the exhibition "The
Leicester Codex of Leonardo da Vinci: Water as Microscope of Nature."
The 72-page Codex, which discusses the movement of water, fossils, and
moonlight (among other topics) is being loaned by Bill Gates, who
purchased it in 1990 for over $30 million. Already on view in Turin at
the Biblioteca Reale is the famous self-portrait of Leonardo after two
years of restoration. Works on view with the self-portrait will be
Italian Renaissance drawings called "Intorno a Leonardo, Disegni
italiani del Rinascimento," from July 8 through Sept 15. "For 2019 we
are planning to open a permanent display of the 13 Leonardo drawings
which we own, in addition to the Codex of the Flight of Birds," says
director Enrica Pagella.
In
Milan after Feb. 7 a pavilion at the Borsa Internazionale del Turismo
(Bit) travel fair will, in the words of the Bit organizers, "illustrate
Leonardo's works through contributions from the major cultural venues
associated with him: the Sforzesco Castle, the Museum of the Vinciano
Cenacolo, the Ambrosiana Library and Art Gallery, the da Vinci National
museum of Science and Technology and the Stelline Foundation."
Reproductions of some of the machines invented by Leonardo will be on
view. As an aside, tourism in Milan has increased notably, thanks partly
to a 20% increase in youngsters under 18. (For information, see: Borsa Internazionale del Turismo)
