Feinberg L.J. The Young Leonardo: Art and Life in Fifteenth-Century Florence
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28. Leonardo and the Sforza Court 187
Yet so long as he was able to stay on good terms with Il Moro,
Leonardo knew that he could enjoy a rich existence in Milan. Word
of his ignoble birth and his reputation had not preceded him there,
and, within the bounds of a society more rigidly stratified than that
of Florence, he was free to reinvent himself. Leonardo could try his
hand at most every creative occupation – from architect, to engineer,
to costume and pageant designer, to bard, to painter and sculptor – in
the city and in Sforza’s court, which was then far more advanced in
its protocols and ceremonies, more sophisticated in its entertainments,
and more savvy in its propaganda than its Medici counterpart. Milan
would lead not only to unimaginable triumphs for Leonardo but
also, ultimately, to a measure of equity or justice. Although Il Moro
would die alone and in misery, a prisoner in the French castle of
Loches, Leonardo would expire not, as the legend holds, in the arms
of Francis I but, almost as gloriously, in Amboise in the Palace of
Cloux, as the first painter, engineer, and architect to the French king.
His long journey there represented one of the greatest professional
and social ascents of the Renaissance and acknowledged perhaps the
highest flights of imagination the world has ever seen.
Bibliography with Endnotes
LEONARDO MANUSCRIPTS – ABBREVIATIONS AND LOCATIONS
MS A Institute de France, Paris
Ash I and II MS Ashburnham Institute de France, Paris
MS B InstitutedeFrance,Paris
B.L. (formerly known as Arundel MS) British Library, London
MS C InstitutedeFrance,Paris
Codice Atlantico Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan
MSs D thru F Institute de France, Paris
Forster I–III Victoria and Albert Museum, London
MSs G thru M InstitutedeFrance,Paris
Madr id I and II Biblioteca Nacional MS, Madrid
Tr i v. (Trivulzio MS) Biblioteca Trivulziana, Castello Sforzesco,
Milan
Tu r i n (Flight of Birds MS) Biblioteca Reale, Turin
Urb. (Codex Urbanas and Libro A)
W. Royal Library, Windsor Castle
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Carmen Bambach et al., Leonardo da Vinci. Master Draftsman, exh. cat., Metropoli-
tan Museum of Art, New York, New Haven, and London, 1993
David Alan Brown, Leonardo da Vinci. Origins of a Genius, New Haven and
London, 1998
Kenneth Clark, Leonardo da Vinci. An Account of His Development as an Artist,
Cambridge, 1939; rev. ed., Harmondsworth, 1967
Kenneth Clark, The Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci in the Collection of Her Majesty
the Queen at Windsor Castle, 3 vols., London, 1938,rev.ed.,1968
Cecil Gould, Leonardo. The Artist and the Non-Artist, Boston, 1975
189
190 Bibliography with Endnotes
Martin Kemp, Leonardo da Vinci. The Marvelous Works of Nature and Man, London,
Melbourne, and Toronto, 1981; rev. ed. Oxford, 2006
Martin Kemp, ed., Leonardo on Painting, New Haven and London, 1989
Edward MacCurdy, ed., The Notebooks of Leonardo, London, 1906, rpt., Old
Saybrook, CT, 2003
Augusto Marinoni, Leonardo da Vinci. Il Codice Atlantico della Biblioteca
Ambrosiana di Milano, 3 vols., Florence, 2000
C. O’Malley and J. Saunders, Leonardo da Vinci and the Human Body,NewYork,
1952
Carlo Pedretti, Leonardo. A Study in Style and Chronology, London, 1973
J. P. Richter, The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci, 2 vols., London and New
Yo r k , 1970;withCommentary by Carlo Pedretti, Oxford, 1977
Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, & Architects,tr.Gaston
du C. de Vere, ed., Kenneth Clark, 3 vols., New York, 1979.
Giorgio Vasari, Le opere, 9 vols., ed. Gaetano Milanesi, Florence, 1998
NOTES BY CHAPTER
i. Leonardo was born on Saturday, 15 April, and Leo’s feast day fell on
11 April – the only festa for a male saint that week. Gene Brucker
offers examples of how polite society dealt with illegitimate births in
Renaissance Italy – see The Society of Renaissance Florence. A Documen-
tary Study, New York, 1971,pp.40–42 and, especially, pp. 218–22.For
the vernacular curriculum in fifteenth-century Florence, see Paul F.
Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy. Literacy and Learning, 1300–1600,
Baltimore and London, 1989,pp.275–329. Source of Leonardo quota-
tions: “Benedetto de l’abbaco” Codice Atlantico 320 verso; “I am fully
aware...”and“ifindeedIhavenopower...”CodiceAtlantico,327
verso.
It has been suggested that the reference to “Benedetto de l’abbaco” refers
to a textbook; this seems unlikely, because the name appears on a list of
contemporary persons, including the physician Paolo Toscanelli, the notary
Benedetto Cieperello, and the artist Domenico di Michelino. There is no
evidence that Leonardo was ever maligned for his use of the “sinister” hand,
but other left-handed individuals were sometimes singled out for persecu-
tion in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, particularly by the Inquisition,
because that orientation was associated with the practice of necromancy.
From the Renaissance, through the period of the witchhunts of English
King James I, beginning in 1604, and until the famous witchcraft trials in
Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, left-handedness was often regarded a sign of
demonic possession or, at least, allegiance with the devil. In Western Europe,
prejudices in favor of the right-handed and against the left-handed find their
origins primarily in the Bible – see, for example, Deuteronomy 33:2, Psalms
45:10, and Matthew 25:31–34.
Bibliography with Endnotes 191
ii. The Florentine scholar Giannozzo Manetti finished his treatise On the
Dignity and Excellence of Man in 1452 or 1453. The most influential
and eloquent Renaissance treatise on the nobility of the individual was
Pico della Mirandola’s Oration on the Dignity of Man, written in 1486.
For Cosimo il Vecchio’s personality and sense of humor, see Dale Kent,
Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance. The Patron’s Oeuvre,New
Haven and London, 2000,pp.15–68; and Alison Brown, “Cosimo de’
Medici’s Wit and Wisdom” in Cosimo “il Vecchio” de’ Medici, 1389–1464.
Essays in Commemoration of the 600th Anniversary of Cosimo de’ Medici’s
Birth, ed. Francis Ames-Lewis, Oxford, 1992,pp.95–113. Cosimo’s
library is discussed by A. C. de la Mare in “Cosimo and His Books,”
in Cosimo “il Vecchio” de’ Medici,pp.115–56. Cosimo’s lament over his
son’s death recalls Euripides’ Phrixus (fifth century b.c.): “Who knows
but life be that which men call death. And death what men call life.”
Niccol
`
o Machiavelli relates that the first of the expanded Adoration of
the Kings festivals, which “kept the whole city busy for many months,”
was an attempt on the part of its citizens to “cheer themselves up” after
Cosimo’s death in 1464 – see Niccol
`
o Machiavelli, Florentine Histories,
tr. Laura F. Banfield and Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr., Princeton, 1988,
pp. 289–90.
iii. For Cosimo’s artistic patronage, see Kent, Cosimo de’ Medici. Lippi’s
pictures are treated in Megan Holmes, Fra Filippo Lippi. The Carmelite
Painter, New Haven and London, 1999,pp.122–28 and 174–82;and
Jeffrey Ruda, Fra Filippo Lippi, London, 1993,pp.224–33,no.51,
pp. 447–48,no.58,pp.
465–66.
An account of Piero de’ Medici’s life
as well as his literary and artistic pursuits is given in Francis Ames-
Lewis, The Library and Manuscripts of Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici,New
York and London, 1984. Lorenzo de’ Medici has been the subject of
countless studies, see among them: F. W. Kent, Lorenzo de’ Medici and
the Art of Magnificence, Baltimore, 2004; Michael Mallett and Nicholas
Mann, eds., Lorenzo the Magnificent. Culture and Politics, London, 1996;
and Cristina Acidini Luchinat, ed., Renaissance Florence: The Age of
Lorenzo de’ Medici, 1449–1492,Milan,1993. For a thorough, recent
study of Lorenzo’s holdings of antique art, see Laurie Fusco and Gino
Corti, Lorenzo de’ Medici, Collector and Antiquarian,Cambridge,2006.
For Verrocchio’s sculpture, see Andrew Butterfield, The Sculptures of
Andrea del Verrocchio, New Haven and London, 1997. Uccello’s Battle of
San Romano and his works for the Medici are discussed and reproduced
in Franco and Stefano Borsi, Paolo Uccello, tr. Elfreda Powell, New York,
1994,pp.207–31.no.14,pp.307–12,no.27,pp.330–31.
Leonardo’s lost design of a Lion Fighting a Dragon for the French king may
be reflected in a drawing, attributed to his student, Francesco Melzi, in the
St
¨
adel Museum, Frankfurt, reproduced in C[arlo] P[edretti], “Leonardo at
the St
¨
adel Museum” in Achademia Leonardi Vinci (ALV). Journal of Leonardo
192 Bibliography with Endnotes
Studies & Bibliography of Vinciana, vol. II, 1989,fig.3. Leonardo may have
regarded the lion as a personal mascot or signature of sorts, because of the
connection of its Latin name, leo,tohisown.
For the Platonic Academy, see Arnaldo della Torre, Storia dell’Accademia
Platonica di Firenze, Florence, 1902; and Arthur Field, The Origins of the Platonic
Academy of Florence, Princeton, 1988.
Leonardo’s views about the metaphysics of the Platonists and Neoplaton-
ists are expressed in a brief preamble he wrote to some of his notes on optics:
“What trust can we place in the ancients who tried to define what the Soul
and Life are – which are beyond proof – whereas those things that can be
known and proved by experience remained for many centuries unknown or
falsely understood [?]” (Codice Atlantico 327 verso). For legitimation pro-
cedures and an overview of the problems of the illegitimate in Renaissance
Florence, see Thomas Kuehn, Illegitimacy in Renaissance Florence, Ann Arbor,
2002,esp.pp.167–205. Source of Leonardo quotation: “bestow much more
attention . . . ” British Museum 212 verso.
iv. For Vasari’s report on the activities of the young Leonardo, see Vasari–
de Vere, vol. II, p. 781. The Codice Atlantico is fully reproduced,
with scholarly commentary, in Leonardo da Vinci. Il Codice Atlantico
della Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano, 3 vols., ed. Augusto Marinoni,
Florence, 2000. The story of the luckless giraffe is recounted in Marina
Belozerskaya, The Medici Giraffe, and Other Tales of Exotic Animals and
Power,NewYork,2006. Source of Leonardo quotation: “the goldfinch
willcarryspurge...”MSH63 (15)verso.
For Lorenzo’s poetry, see Poesie del Magnifico Lorenzo de’ Medici, Bergamo,
1763, especially pp. 2–3 (sonnets II and IV) and pp. 121–66 (Canto di Pan)
for examples of pastoral verses, and Guglielmo Gorni, “Su Lorenzo poeta:
Parodia, diletti e noie della caccia,” in Lorenzo il Magnifico e il suo mondo.
Convegno internazionale di studi, ed. Gian Carlo Garfagnini, Florence, 1994,
pp. 205–23; for Lorenzo’s musical talents, see Frank A. D’Accone, “Lorenzo
the Magnificent and Music” in Lorenzo il Magnifico e il suo mondo,pp.259–90.
v. For a discussion of the Tobias and the Angel,seeDavidAlanBrown,
Leonardo da Vinci. Origins of a Genius, New Haven and London, 1998,
pp. 47–55.
A comprehensive study of the lives and careers of the Pol-
laiuoli is provided in Alison Wright, The Pollaiuolo Brothers. The Arts
of Florence and Rome, New Haven and London, 2005. For the Pol-
laiuolo Annunciation,intheGem
¨
aldegalerie, Berlin, see Wright, Pol-
laiuolo Brothers,pp.300–6 and p. 525,no.58,fig.245.
vi. For Leonardo’s early machine designs, see Paolo Galluzzi, “The Career
of a Technologist,” in Leonardo da Vinci. Engineer and Architect, ed. Paolo
Galluzzi, exh. cat., Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, 1987,
pp. 41–63. For Francesco di Giorgio Martini, see Giustina Scaglia,
Francesco di Giorgio: Checklist and History of Manuscripts and Drawings in
Bibliography with Endnotes 193
Autographs and Copies from ca. 1470 to 1687 and Renewed Copies (1764–
1839), Bethlehem, PA, and London, c. 1992; Massimo Mussini, Il trattato
di Francesco di Giorgio Martini e Leonardo. Il Codice Estense restituto,Parma,
1991; and Ralph Toledano, Francesco di Giorgio Martini: pittore e scultore,
Milan, c. 1987. Indicative of Leonardo’s “organic” theory of architecture
is a comparison he makes on a sheet in the British Library (B.L. 138
recto) between stress on a vault or dome and the effects of pressure on
the skin of an orange or pomegranate. Sources of Leonardo quotations:
“it is necessary to have a coat ...” MS B 81 verso; “why something
seen in a mirror...” “what sort of a mirror...” Codice Atlantico
1004 recto; “why a dead woman floats face downward . . . ” MS H 31
verso; “the nephew of Gian Angelo . . . ” Codice Atlantico 611 recto;
“the brother of Sant’ Agosta . . . ” Codice Atlantico 966 verso; “among
the great things...” Codice Atlantico 1109 verso; “the body of the
earth...” MS A 55 verso, Codice Atlantico 543 recto, and MS F 62
verso. Leonardo would have been familiar with the use of breathing
tubes because Verrocchio almost certainly employed them in making
life masks and casts of the whole (and upper part of the) body from live
models.
The cross-section illustration of sexual intercourse is on Windsor Castle
sheet no. W. 19097 recto. On one manuscript (Forster III 75 recto), Leonardo
wrote “Hippocrates says the origin of semen is derived from the brain.”
vii. Metalpoint, a medium popular in the fifteenth century, employed a
sharp instrument, or stylus (see note xiv), fabricated from silver, lead,
or copper. Used on specially prepared paper, the instrument created a
fine, delicate line (or ribbon) of metal. In the sixteenth century, the
metalpoint technique was almost completely abandoned in favor of red
and black chalk. For Verrocchio’s lost relief, see Butterfield, Sculptures
of Verrocchio,pp.156–57; and Brown, Leonardo,pp.68–73.Corvinus’
Palace of Visegr
´
ad was intact in 1535 but captured soon thereafter, and
his palace in Buda was seized by the Turks in 1541.Thedrawingof
Va l d
´
ez (Windsor 12484), so similar stylistically to those by Leonardo,
may copy one of his lost studies. For Lorenzo de Medici’s lost antique
cameo of Athena, see Fusco and Corti, Lorenzo de’ Medici,pp.102–
3. Source for Leonardo quotation: “when you – draw a face from
memory...”Ash.II,26 verso.
viii. The two Medici jousts are discussed in Paola Ventrone, Le tems revient
’l tempo si rinuova. Feste e spettacoli nella Firenze di Lorenzo il Magnifico,
exh. cat., Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Florence, 1992,esp.,pp.167
–205.
F
or Verrocchio’s Sleeping Youth, see Butterfield, Sculptures of Verrocchio,
pp. 86 and 215, where it is illustrated as fig. 108. For Botticelli’s stan-
dard, see Ronald Lightbown, Sandro Botticelli. Life and Work, London,
1978, vol. I, pp. 42–44, vol. II, pp. 58–60,D15,pp.166–67.Plato’s
194 Bibliography with Endnotes
explanation of the two Aphrodites can be found in Plato, The Sympo-
sium, tr. Walter Hamilton, Middlesex and New York, 1951, pp. 45–47;
and Ficino’s exegesis in his Convivium Platonis Commentarium in Mar-
silio Ficino, Opera, Basel, 1576, 11, 7. Also, see Erwin Panofsky (Studies
in Iconography. Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance, Oxford,
1972,pp.141–61) for an overview of the twin-Venus theme in art.
Luca Pulci’s Il driadeo d’amore was finally published in 1489,whenit
was attributed, in error, to his brother, Luigi. For the quoted verse
concerning Amor and the sleeping nymph, see Luca Pulci, Il driadeo
d’amore, ed. Paolo E. Giudici, Lanciano, 1916,p.31.
ix. See Brucker (Society of Renaissance Florence,pp.204–6) for the pun-
ishment of sodomy in the Renaissance. For Freud’s superannuated
interpretation of Leonardo’s “dream,” see Sigmund Freud, Leonardo
da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood, tr. Alan Tyson, New York,
1964; and for recent studies of Freud’s analysis of the artist, see Wayne
V. Andersen, Freud, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Vulture’s Tail. A Refreshing
Look at Leonardo’s Sexuality, New York, 2001; and Bradley I. Collins,
Leonardo, Psychoanalysis, and Art History, Evanston, IL, 1997. Presumably
based on information passed to him from Leonardo’s good friend and
shop assistant Francesco Melzi, the Milanese writer and painter Gio-
vanni Paolo Lomazzo authored, around 1560, an imaginary dialogue
between Leonardo and the ancient sculptor Phidias, which included
the following lines:
Leonardo: “[Salai was] the man whom in life I loved more than all the
others, who were several.”
Phidias: “[did you] play the game in the behind that the Florentines
love so much?”
Leonardo: “And how many times! Keep in mind that he was a most
beautiful young man, especially at about fifteen.”
For Lomazzo’s dialogue, see Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, Scritti sulle arti,
ed. Roberto Paulo Ciardi (Florence, 1973–74), vol. I, lxxxi, p. 104,and
Collins, Leonardo,pp.80–81. Sources of Leonardo quotations: “the act of
procreation . . . ” W. 19009 recto; “the painter sits in front of his work . . . ”
Urb.
20 r
ecto; “a painter was asked why . . . ” MS M 58 verso; “a man
wishingtoproveonauthority...”MSM58 verso; “O cities of the sea . . . ”
Codice Atlantico 393 recto; “the high walls . . . ” Codice Atlantico 1033
recto; “a woman crossing . . . ” W. 12351 recto; “the kite would seem to
be . . . ” Codice Atlantico 186 verso; “keeps them without food . . . ” MS H
5 verso.
As Collins (Leonardo and Psychoanalysis,pp.76–77,andesp.p.204, notes
12 and 13) points out, the evidence concerning the nature of Leonardo’s
relation with his father is mixed. In one letter, the artist addresses Ser Piero
with great concern and affection. However, Leonardo’s bizarre response to
Bibliography with Endnotes 195
his brother Domenico, after learning of the birth of the latter’s son, casts
dispersions on the filial–paternal bond:
Now in so far as I had judged you to be possessed of prudence
I am now entirely convinced that I am as far removed from
having an accurate judgment as you are from prudence; seeing
that you have been congratulating yourself in having created
a watchful enemy, who will strive with all his energies after
liberty, which can only come into being at your death.
x. Reproductions of Benedetto da Maiano’s sculpture of the Baptist can
be found in Glenn Andres, John M. Hunisak, and A. Richard Turner,
The Art of Florence, New York, 1988, vol. II, pls. 435 and 436;and
Lippi’s Adoration for Lucrezia is illustrated in Holmes, Fra Filippo Lippi,
as fig. 171 on p. 175.InhisTreatise on Painting (Urb 46 recto), Leonardo
is adamant that the silhouettes of figures should be blurred, and that
painters should not draw outlines around figures, as had been the Flo-
rentinepractice.SourceofLeonardoquotation:“pooristhepupil...”
Forster III, 66 verso.
xi. For Vasari’s remarks about Perugino’s repetition of figures and his venal-
ity, see Vasari–de Vere, vol. I, pp. 741–42. For documentation and spec-
ulation on Ser Piero’s involvement with the Annunciation commission, as
well as many others, see Alessandro Cecchi, “New Light on Leonardo’s
Florentine Patrons” in Leonardo da Vinci. Master Draftsman,ed.Carmen
C. Bambach, exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2003,
pp. 120–39. For Credi’s Madonna di Piazza predella and the rest of his
oeuvre, see Gigetta Dalli Regoli, Lorenzo di Credi, Cremona, 1966.For
the Madonna that Credi made for Spain, see Vasari–deVere, II, p. 983.
SourceofLeonardoquotation:“thegreatestfaultofpainters...”Urb.
44 recto.
xii. For Leonardo’s concern with the theme of vision in his early Madon-
nas, see Larry J. Feinberg, “Sight Unseen: Vision and Perception in
Leonardo’s Madonnas,” Apollo, vol. CLX, July 2004,pp.28–34. Ficino’s
views and other Renaissance beliefs about the supposed, curative pow-
ers of precious and semiprecious stones can be found in Marsilio Ficino,
The Book of Life, ed. and tr. Charles Boer, Woodstock, CT, 1996,pp.19,
25, 28, 62–63, 120, 123,and153; George Frederick Kunz, The Curious
Lore of Precious Stones, New York, 1913; and Larry J. Feinberg, “The
Studiolo of Francesco I Reconsidered” in The
Medici, Michelangelo, and
the Art of Late Renaissance Florence, exh. cat., Palazzo Strozzi, Art Insti-
tute of Chicago, and Detroit Institute of Arts, New Haven and London,
2002,pp.46–65.
xiii. For Leonardo, Alberti, and the optics and neurology of sight, see Fein-
berg, “Sight Unseen,” pp. 28–32.
196 Bibliography with Endnotes
xiv. For more on the Verrocchio Boy with Dolphin, including views from
various angles, see Butterfield, Sculptures of Verrocchio,pp.127–135,figs.
164–65,and175a–d. Created at about the same time as the Child
and Cat studies, a drawing by Leonardo of a Young Woman Bathing an
Infant (Oporto, Academia de Belas Artes) also may record the artist’s
immediate reaction to a contemporary work, Antonio Pollaiuolo’s relief
of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist (c. 1478–80) for the altar of the
Florentine Baptistery. Unusually, Leonardo portrays the nursemaid with
long, flowing hair, immodestly uncovered, and directing her attention
to the baby’s feet. In her hairstyle and foot-washing activity, the girl
evokes Mary Magdalene and causes one to wonder if Leonardo has
invented a new pictorial episode in her (and Christ’s) early life. For
the Oporto drawing, see Leonardo da Vinci. Master Draftsman,no.21,
pp. 300–3, ill.
In the Renaissance, the sharp tool known as a stylus was used in the
metalpoint technique (see note vii) or lightly to incise lines into paper. In
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, artists often drew their designs in stylus
before employing chalk or pen. This procedure permitted them to make
many alterations to their drawing before applying indelible media.
xv. The most recent account of the Pazzi plot and its intrigues is Lauro
Martines’ April Blood. Florence and the Plot against the Medici, Oxford and
New York, 2003. See also Macchiavelli, Florentine Histories,pp.319–30;
and Christopher Hibbert, The House of Medici. Its Rise and Fall,New
Yo r k , 1974,pp.128–43. As pointed out in note ix, above, Lomazzo’s
primary source for information on Leonardo was the latter’s follower
and friend, Francesco Melzi. For the passage on Leonardo’s drawings
of the condemned, which appears in Lomazzo’s treatise on the arts,
see Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, Trattato dell’arte della pittura, scoltura, et
architettura, Milan, 1585,p.107.
Sources of Leonardo quotations: “I recently saw an Annunciation . . . ”
Urb. 32 verso; “Botticelli said that such study...” Ash. II, 22 recto; “Tell
me if anything . . . ” B.L. 251 verso. For Leonardo’s comments to an absent
Botticelli, see Codice Atlantico 859 recto.
xvi. For additional information, see Brown’s (Leonardo,pp.101–21)inter-
esting discussion of the Ginevra de’ Benci. Leonardo would also devote
considerable thought and ink to the paragone between painting and
sculpture; for Leonardo and the
paragone,
see Claire J. Farago, Leonardo
da Vinci’s Paragone: A Critical Interpretation with a New Edition of the
Text in the Codex Urbinas, New York, 1992. The x-radiograph of the
Metropolitan Museum’s Portrait of a Lady is reproduced in John Walker,
“Ginevra de’ Benci by Leonardo da Vinci” in National Gallery of Art.
Report and Studies in the History of Art 1967, Washington, D.C., 1967,