“1452
A grandson was born to me, the son of my son Ser Piero on the day of April 15, a Saturday, at the third hour of the night. He was named Leonardo. He was baptised by the priest Piero di Bartolomeo da Vinci. The godparents were: Messrs Tonino Piero di Malvoltto and Venzo Arrigho di Giovanni Tudescho; Mistresses Monna Lisa de Domenicho di Brettone, Antonia di Juliano and Maria Figliuolo di Nanny di Venzo.
Signed Antonio da Vinci n°389.”
The visitor to the museum of the town of Amboise will find this wording on what is considered the official certificate of baptism of Leonardo da Vinci. It was presented to Amboise in 1978 as a gift from the Tuscan town of Vinci with which Amboise is twinned. Amboise in Touraine, where Leonardo da Vinci, the most renowned Italian artist of the Renaissance, painter, scholar and inventor, died at Clos Lucé on May 2, 1519.
A century after his birth, this is what Giorgio Vasari had to say in his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, from Cimabue to Our Times, often abridged simply to Lives:
“The greatest gifts are often seen, in the course of nature, rained by celestial influences on human creatures (…) beauty, grace and talent are united beyond measure in one single person.”
We will come back to this. Vasari (1511-1574) could not have met Leonardo da Vinci, this man he admired so much and associated with the height and perfection of the Renaissance, with Fra Bartolomeo, Raphael and Michelangelo. But he was quite accurate when he wrote: “The fame of his name so increased, that not only in his lifetime was he held in esteem, but his reputation became even greater among posterity after his death.”
There is perhaps no better way to summarise who Leonardo da Vinci became after his death and especially today: a myth, a legend and a rock star (all recent exhibitions dedicated to him have drawn record-breaking crowds). Is there any need to mention the unprecedented worldwide success of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code?
No. The whole world knows the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, the sketches of Leonardo’s “inventions” and so they know the artist, the genius, the man of science and the universal man.
But in all truth who was this man, or this child da Vinci to borrow the title of a novel by Gonzague Saint Bris (whose family owns and looks after Clos Lucé)? Who was he really? In fact few historians have shown much interest in Leonardo da Vinci. Napoleon, Jean Cocteau, Sigmund Freud yes, art historians such as Daniel Arasse, Carlo Pedretti, Kenneth Clark yes, writers like Serge Bramly and Sophie Chauveau, but very few “classic” historians despite the resurgent academic interest in the biographical genre (at random, we could cite the remarkable and much remarked upon biographies of Saint-Louis or Clemenceau etc…)
So returning to Vasari, the eulogy soon proves to contain nuances. “So variable and unstable,” Vasari says da Vinci lacks diligence: “...he set himself to learn many things, and then…abandoned them.” Vasari even backs up his argument by citing Pope Leo X’s famous: “Alas! This man will do nothing at all since he is thinking of the end even before he has made the beginning.”
Leo X, born Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici, the second son of Lorenzo de’ Medici known as Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-1492), the archetype of a Renaissance prince and a patron of the arts, he who made Florence a universally-renowned capital of arts, letters and humanism. Symbolically, a certain Jack Lang is the author of a book entitled Lorenzo the Magnificent.
It was Leo X’s brother, Giuliano, who brought Leonardo da Vinci to Rome in 1513. It was at this point that he wrote in his journals one of his most famous lines: “The Medici made me and the Medici destroyed me.” (Codex Atlanticus, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan). Experts interpret this in two ways: either Leonardo was unhappy in Rome or the words refer to his doctors while he was ill.
And yet this sentence is the basis for our theories. We have taken it as a premise, as a starting point and so we have taken it “literally”. Like any premise, the aim of our research into the man, his life, his times, his works and his journals – a rare and exceptional record – while, of course, not forgetting to place Leonardo in context, is to confirm or refute it.
Was Leonardo da Vinci a Medici?
Let us first put this in its historical context. If Leonardo was a Medici, not recognised of course, he was the son of Piero de’ Medici, or Piero the Gouty (1416-1469), himself the son of the “father of the dynasty” Cosimo de’ Medici (1389-1464) who established his family, once and for all, as the source of power in a long-time hostile Florence. Leonardo, born in 1452, found himself between Lorenzo born in 1449 and Giuliano, born in 1453 but assassinated in 1478 during the Pazzi Conspiracy from which Lorenzo miraculously escaped. The conspiracy failed and the plotters were hanged. The only drawing depicting this hanging is the work of one Leonardo da Vinci, then aged 26. He left Florence abruptly for Milan four years later in 1482, in the middle of working on Adoration of the Magi. This was the same year in which Piero de’ Medici’s wife, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, died.
The “official” biography of Leonardo da Vinci
From Freud to Bramly via Wikipedia, there are few differences in the accounts of Leonardo’s birth and childhood. Let us take a look at that offered by the “father of psychoanalysis”: “He was born in 1452 in the little town of Vinci [in fact Anchiano] between Florence and Empoli; he was an illegitimate child which was surely not considered a great popular stain in that time. His father was Ser Piero da Vinci, a notary and descendant of notaries and farmers (…) his mother, a certain Caterina, probably a peasant girl, who later married another native of Vinci.”
Freud’s book is dated 1910; that of Carlo Vecce, published in France in 2008 and very well documented, contains the same assertions.
Leonardo grew up in Vinci, close to nature, close to his grandparents until the death of Antonio da Vinci between 1457 and 1465; 1457 matches the date he was declared in the register, a document that lists the “mouths to feed” (sic). Ser Piero, a notary in Florence, then had to look after his family including Leonardo. The move to Florence would herald Leonardo’s famous apprenticeship at the studio (bottega) of Andrea del Verrochio who apparently laid down his brushes at the sight of his pupil’s genius (Vasari)…
Leonardo learned much, produced his first works, earned his first commissions and was denounced as a homosexual which traumatised him, but then abruptly left Florence while he was working on the Adoration of the Magi (now in the Uffizi museum). He headed to Milan, run by Ludovico il Moro, remained there for 18 years, began writing his journals and finished The Last Supper but not the famous bronze horse. The subsequent period was not the easiest in Leonardo’s life as he alternated between Venice, Florence and Rome. His life ended in France, in Amboise, at the Manoir du Clos Lucé under the protection and friendship of the young King François I. Leonardo bequeathed all he had to his disciple Francisco Melzi, the dispersion would come later.
This brief résumé is not intended to be exhaustive – simply to remind the reader of the academic elements of Leonardo da Vinci’s life.
It would now be appropriate to come back to our premise-question which is deliberately “oxymoronic”: Was Leonardo da Vinci a Medici?
Leonardo da Vinci?
Let us go back to Carlo Vecce, an internationally-renowned Leonardo da Vinci expert: “The birth of the child could not have gone unnoticed; Leonardo was the first child of Ser Piero da Vinci, a young notary from Florence who had recently returned from Florence, and, furthermore, the child was illegitimate” At first glance, the sentence seems contradictory just as does what follows: “In any event, Antonio da Vinci, the father of Ser Piero, welcomed him into the family straight away. He greeted the arrival of the child by (…) writing a “souvenir” in a book passed on from father to son as if it were material proof of the real continuation of the bloodline.”
The attentive reader will have picked up on the contradictions so let us move on to the baptism. Leonardo was baptised at Santa Croce in Vinci, “in the presence of numerous godparents although the child was born out of wedlock”. But, and here we are getting to the core of the matter, “neither Leonardo’s mother nor father attended the baptism.” This is very surprising as the baptism was attended by many people and godparents, some of them well-off and well-known (the priest came from a family of notaries and the second godparent was one Monna Lisa, the widow of a rich landowner) yet the parents did not come, not even the mother, although neither of them were married. So the contradiction lies in the fact that the baptism was not a “shoddy affair” for anyone except the legitimate parents. Only one person seemed happy and proud to organise event – the grandfather!
Let us continue our study of the life of Leonardo by holding onto our premise. Let us return briefly to the Vincis and the “surprising” elements about them. Vecce again: “As far as one can go back, [the Vinci family] seems to have always been linked with the notary profession and had a direct involvement in Florentine civic life.” In his work as remarkable as that of Vecce, Bramly does not deviate from this line. All the Vincis then were notaries or chancellors of the Florentine Republic from the beginning of the 14th century (the time of Dante) right through to Piero da Vinci who died in 1504. All, except Antonio! The coincidence is a striking one – especially given that historically Antonio lived during those years in which the Medici’s power was being gradually, and not without difficulty, imposed upon Florence.
However, the coincidences do not stop there. We can go on to assert that Leonardo may be a child born out of wedlock but he is not illegitimate. Leonardo was in fact born of parents who were not married so he is not illegitimate in the true meaning of the word. In any case, the circumstances of his birth could not but affect him throughout his life. His first name is also surprising. One of the biographies on Leonardo claims that he was named indirectly through the man who married Caterina, indirectly because her husband’s family had land neighbouring that of one Antonio di Leonardo… But this still lacks coherence; Antonio da Vinci was very proud at the birth of his grandson – the baptism was proof of that – but the child’s first name is not linked to any family tradition. Might it be useful at this point to remind ourselves of the patriarchal nature of Mediterranean societies?
Leonardo, already more or less rejected by his “real” father, Piero da Vinci, must have suffered greatly throughout his existence. It is certainly something that is difficult to quantify but we would not be mistaken in saying that the artist was exceptionally sensitive. As for Ser Piero, his relations with his son were frosty throughout. While such an attitude may have been understandable at the beginning, there is no explanation as to why, on his death in 1504, Ser Piero explicitly left Leonardo out of his will. Was not this child born out of wedlock already renowned throughout Europe? Many of his masterpieces were already admired by all, maintaining his legend and his mystery…
His work
We will not examine all of Leonardo’s works, only the most surprising and the most revealing. Freud stated on several occasions that Leonardo seemed to have two mothers in his paintings (the Virgin Mary and Saint Anne), Leda has a disturbing twins theme but other works deserve more attention…
The city of Florence in Tuscany hosts an incredible number of masterpieces, many of them held at the Uffizi, a museum which boasts two of the most important da Vincis, works that contain the errors of youth say the experts: The Annunciation and Adoration of the Magi. The religious theme was very common in the Middle Ages, a sort of obligatory phase for artists at the time. But Leonardo, so rebellious when it came to conventions, could not merely copy his predecessors.
The Annunciation contains a number of disturbing details, three to be precise (numerology fans will associate this number with the number of sons of Piero de’ Medici if you include Leonardo): the angel on the left is holding a lily (the symbol of the Medicis, Piero having obtained from Louis XI the right to upgrade the family crest from two to three lilies). The second element is the little chest or lectern in front of Mary; it is very much inspired by the tomb of Piero de’ Medici. Finally and even more surprisingly, Mary appears to have three legs! The experts interpret this as an error by the young Leonardo, but simply observation proves the representation is perfectly deliberate.
The second painting is The Adoration of the Magi, the work Leonardo left unfinished in 1482 when he left so suddenly for Milan. Once again let us return to the “academic” biographies of Leonardo. One asserts that Joseph is not clearly identifiable, others that the father is swallowed up in the periphery (or completely inexistent in Virgin of the Rocks). Leonardo, it is said, represents himself as the young man behind the tree. In any event, his work seems to us to be the negative, (in a photographic sense) of the more striking work by Gozzoli, Procession of the Magi, an ensemble of magnificent murals painted in 1459 glorifying the wealth, the power and the prestige of the Medicis, Cosimo, Piero, Lorenzo and Giuliano.
Let us conclude with Leonardo’s two most famous works: The Last Supper and Mona Lisa.
The dagger in The Last Supper, which inspired one of the key scenes in Dan Brown’s book, is in the hand not of Judas but of Peter.
Mona Lisa, at last. Vasari was the first to claim categorically that the source for this painting was a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo. But Vasari was not a contemporary of Leonardo! There is a little-known testimony that is somewhat closer to the events that concern us. Entitled Anonimo Gaddiano, this document makes it clear that the Mona Lisa was a commission from Giuliano de’ Medici. A humanist from that era even wrote that Giuliano de’ Medici treated Leonardo da Vinci “like a brother”!
The cynical or wary reader, faced with the deluge of so many revelations about Leonardo in recent years, might retort that we are simply compiling coincidences or interpreting incidences that are certainly numerous but still insufficient. Another contradiction would be to ask a simple question: why was Leonardo never acknowledged? Jealousy? It transpires that Lorenzo the Magnificent never commissioned a really important work from Leonardo. Bramly even wonders: “Could there have been between them one of those quarrels that are so minor and yet heavy with consequences that history rarely records?”
Let us conclude our summary presentation with words from Leonardo’s own journals, an intimate document par excellence…
The Manuscripts (or journals) of Leonardo da Vinci
Begun in 1480 and ending at his death, more than his works these 40 years of notes are an invaluable record of the life of Leonardo da Vinci.
On his place of birth: Leonardo wrote the name of his native village, Anchiano, once – only to cross it out…
On his “father”, Piero da Vinci: Leonardo mentions his death twice (disturbed?), but in a cold, terse manner. The first entry does not make it clear that Ser Piero was his father, which is understandable, but the second entry does, with hesitation and a significant gap between “my father” and “Ser Piero”.
On his “mother”: Even more troubling, Leonardo is believed to have received her at the end of her life but no expert is sure on this point. As for Leonardo, in his journals he only mentions the costs met for her burial!
The journals also include a short paragraph mentioning “Piero di Cosimo”, and a little later “go to the Pazzi’s”…
The following sentence is also disturbing: “If freedom is dear to you, do not reveal that my face is the prison of love.”
Let us conclude then with our title-phrase: “The Medici made me and the Medici destroyed me.” No explanations offered in the biographies of da Vinci have convinced us. Leonardo could not be so categorical over a simple illness, a simple birth or simply through bitterness. The debate has been started; it seems to us that the memory of one of the greatest artists in history deserves as much…
Belisair ( translation by Samantha King)
Feyrefis 