Da Vinci Experience, exhibition's catalog

ex p er i e n c e and his real machines Catalog of the exhibition

ex p er i e n c e and his real machines

Da Vinci Experience........................................................................ 5 Art in digital format........................................................................6 Technology.........................................................................................7 Leonardo’s life..................................................................................10 The Painter.......................................................................................17 The Engineer...................................................................................27 Exhibition setup: Machines.....................................................36 The Anatomist.................................................................................41 The Architect...................................................................................47 The Codices..................................................................................... 53 Exhibition setup: Codices and Drawings............................ 60 Exhibition setup: Da Vinci Oculus VR experience ............62

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Da Vinci Experience The world of immersive shows is now quite active: an increasing number of actors crowds the market with different standards of quality and product. Crossmedia Group was one of the first in Italy to invest in this cultural area, obtaining excellent results in terms both of attendance and critical acclaim. The past formats – Incredible Florence and Klimt Experience – came to the attention of people working in this area and soon became a recognizable model. With this third show we sought to realize all our ambitions in what soon proved to be a great challenge: creating an experience that could describe Leonardo’s genius, dealing with his manifold works using the appropriate language. A sort of story telling in images – spectacular, involving, complete – of the heart of da Vinci’s world. The narrative proceeds thanks to the giant multiple projections on the surfaces as well as on the magnificent architectural structure of the venue: hundreds of high definition digitalized images and full HD videos, accompanied by a soundtrack played in 360° Dolby Surround.

But Da Vinci Experience is much more than this. The show is in fact enhanced by many models of Leonardo’s machines – both full size and in scale – reproduced by the Florentine workshop Martelli in great detail based on the original projects. Among these, the large wing for human flight hanging in the middle of the immersive room has a spectacular impact.

The show’s aim is, as always, the emotional involvement of a public young and old: wonder and bewilderment as keys to access knowledge of the man and the artist, the understanding of his works and his boundless fields of interest.

Leonardo da Vinci, like Michelangelo Buonarroti, represents the apex and the end of the golden age of Italian culture. He, like few others, embodied the anthropocentric ambitions of humanism, applying his genius to many fields: during his life Leonardo was painter, architect, sculptor, engineer, poet, and musician. At his death, his art became legendary.

Translating all this in a digital show was the challenge our team faced – editorial professionals, video makers, art historians, computer engineers, and sound technicians. A rich didactic area introduces the multimedia show, with analog and virtual information devices. The result we submit to the test of your enjoyment – you are our incontestable judge and our final objective.

Once again: good “immersion to all”

Federico Dalgas President of Crossmedia Group

On pages 2 and 3: a moment from Da Vinci Experience, in which images of the genius’s works are combined with sound and a light show, creating an inebriating and enveloping atmosphere.

Left: a detail of La Belle Ferronière (oil on walnut panel, 1493-1496 circa) reproduced in Da Vinci Experience.

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Art in digital format Da Vinci Experience is presented to the public in proximity to the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death, which will be in 2019.

It was undoubtedly a relevant circumstance for us as we undertook the drafting of the concept and the directing of this multimedia experience dedicated to the genius from Vinci.

An immersive production, it is the heart of a show designed to be distributed internationally over the following years. During his life, Leonardo dealt with a variety of art forms and areas of knowledge, carrying out – all at once and seamlessly – an impressive volume of studies and works with an eclecticism unparalleled to this day.

For this reason we chose to follow the narrative of the great themes of Leonardo’s work, rather than the chronological sequence of his biography: in our opinion this is the best criteria to build a narrative of digitalized images that would be at once coherent, educational, and engrossing.

Thus in the Da Vinci Experience we attempted to allot the same amount of space and dignity to the poetical moments devoted to female portraits such as that of Cecilia Gallerani alias the Lady with an Ermine, to the Belle Ferronière, and to Ginevra de’ Benci, alongside the spectacular scenes with war machines devised by Leonardo, mostly set at the center of idealized battles. We then paid fitting homage to da Vinci the painter, showing his most famous works, such as the Last Supper, the Virgin of the Rocks, the Annunciation, and the Mona Lisa; and to da Vinci the scholar and scientist, whose revolutionary works on nature, architecture, anatomy, hydraulics, mechanics, and flying machines in all their possible forms have been passed down through the generations.

Finally, we hope our Da Vinci Experience will be an engrossing experience of images and sound, an immersive representation following Leonardo’s genius through the various fields of art and knowledge that will give the public a contemporary vision of the man, both informative and entertaining.

Marilena Bertozzi, Vincenzo Capalbo Art Media Studio Firenze

Left: the videomapping process was perfected thanks to MATRIX X-DIMENSION® proprietary technology to enhance the immersive experience and make the audience marvel before the triumph of art.

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Technology It is mainly thanks to the innovative MATRIX X DIMENSION® technology, developed by Crossmedia to be competitive in the world of multimedia shows, that it was possible to create an immersive experience of Leonardo’s works.

45 minutes of images, lights, colours, music, and sound envelop the audience and are perfectly integrated with the surrounding spatial context. A fusion of technology and architecture is achieved, creating the illusion of being carried on an incredible journey into da Vinci’s works.

18 laser projectors transmit over 40 million pixels on the surfaces of the exhibition setup, reproducing images with a resolution greater than Full HD and generating 3D effects that emphasize the location’s structure.

One projector is dedicated entirely to visual games made by applying the video mapping technique to the gigantic mechanical wing model; projections on the floor and architectural elements complete the impression, in synchronic harmony with the narrative rhythm and the emotional accents of the show. A 3D state of the art sound system broadcasts sounds and the superb soundtrack.

The set up required extensive work and adaptation.

A complex endeavor, designed and completed coherently with the basic principle of representation via multimedia means: technology should never be an end to itself, but functional to enhancing the content of which it is an instrument.

Left and on page 6: details of the second version of the Virgin of the

Rocks (oil on poplar panel, 1491-1493 reworked in 1506-1508), reproduced in Da Vinci Experience.

On page 8 and 9: detail of the angel in the Annunciation (tempera and

oil on poplar panel, 1472-1474 circa), reproduced in Da Vinci Experience.

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Leonardo’s life 1452

Leonardo is born on April 15th in Vinci, a dominion of the Florentine Republic, halfway between Florence and Pisa. Illegitimate but first-born son of the notary Ser Piero and of Caterina, a local peasant woman, he receives a good education in accordance with his father’s wishes. Ser Piero later has other children (nine boys and two girls) from his third and fourth marriages, but when they are born Leonardo is already an adult.

1469

Leonardo moves to Florence along with his father’s family.

1472

He is registered as one of the painters of the San Luca company: “Lyonardo son of Ser Piero from Vinci, painter, is owed for the month of June, 1472 six coins having been graced of all debt he might have had until the first day of July, 1472 […] and owes for the entire month of November, 1472 five coins for the post held till October 18, 1472”. This document makes it possible for us to state that at that time his formation had been completed, and that Leonardo was already acknowledged as an artist.

1473

August 5th is the date of his first confirmed work, Landscape with River, a drawing with bird’s-eye view of the Arno Valley, found today at the Uffizi’s Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe. Particular care for an authentic depiction of the natural world was a constant in Leonardo’s world, especially evident in his early years.

1475

He completes the Annunciation, today on display at the Uffizi, one of his most famous works, the paternity of which was the object of debate for a long time until two preparatory drawings were found making scholars unanimously concordant.

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April 8 1476

An anonymous complaint is presented against several people, among whom Leonardo, for the sodomy of a young Florentine man. Along with Leonardo, a goldsmith Bartolomeo di Pasquino, a tailor, and above all Leonardo Tornabuoni, the young heir of a very powerful family related to the Medicis, are also under investigation. Tornabuoni’s involvement favors the accused: in fact the charges are dismissed and the accused are all acquitted pending further charges.

1480

He frequents Lorenzo il Magnifico’s circle, which meets in the San Marco Gardens.

1481

The friars of San Donato in Scopeto commission the unfinished Adoration of the Magi as an altarpiece, to be finished within thirty months. It is the most important assignment obtained so far by the young artist, probably aided by his father Ser Piero, who was a notary for the friars.

1482

Between the spring and the summer of this year he is in Milan, one of the few cities in Europe that has more than one hundred thousand inhabitants. The artist’s trip is part of Lorenzo il Magnifico’s diplomatic policy towards the other Italian Signorie, where artists are sent as “ambassadors” of Florentine cultural prestige. Leonardo has to present Duke Ludovico il Moro with a musical instrument of his invention.

He thus takes part in a musical challenge at the Sforza’s court and with his instrument he conquers all present. He wins over the Milanese Prince, putting his genius at his service.

1483

Bartolomeo Scorlione, prior of the Confraternita dell’Immacolata Concezione, commissions what will be later recognized as one of Leonardo’s most important masterpieces: the Virgin of the Rocks, now on display at the Louvre in Paris.

1485

Leonardo’s work for Ludovico il Moro ranges from architecture to engineering and military strategy. He also carries out studies on mechanical flight, theater, and music. A letter from those years however attests to the artist’s dissatisfaction for the payment he’s receiving.

1490

At Ludovico’s court he completes the Lady with an Ermine, a portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, the Duke of Milan’s lover. The beginning of this work is dated back to 1488, when Ludovico il Moro receives the title of Knight of the Ermine Order from the King of Naples. But the symbolic function of the animal doesn’t end here: the ermine, in fact – in Greek galḗ (γαλή) – is also reminiscent of the young woman’s last name.

1493

Leonardo completes the clay model of the large equestrian statue dedicated to Francesco Sforza, founder of the dynasty and father of Ludovico il Moro. It was supposed to be the largest statue of a man on horseback in the world, but it was never completed, and in 1499, when the French soldiers occupied the Milanese duchy, the model was used as a shooting target and was destroyed.

1495

He begins working on The Last Supper in the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. This work relieves him from his imminent economical problems stemming from the interruption – caused by the war with France – of the construction of Francesco Sforza’s equestrian statue. Thus he pours into the project all the studies he has carried out in the past years as if it were a summa of his art: he does not love the fresco technique, because the speedy drying of the plaster requires a quick brushstroke, not compatible with his lengthy studies and refined stroke. For this reason Leonardo devises a new pictorial technique that makes it possible for him to obtain the effects he likes. The work is completed in 1498, but the experiment turns out to be dramatically unsuited to the damp environment of the refectory next to the kitchens.

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Leonardo’s life 1499

On October 6th Luis XII king of France conquers Milan and on December 14th Leonardo deposits 600 florins at the Ospedale di Santa Maria Nuova in Florence to return to the Tuscan city.

1501

From a letter by Carmelite friar Pietro da Novellara, we discover that Leonardo is in Florence, full of commissions, and is working on a “little painting” for the secretary of the French King, Florimond Robertret. It is certainly the Madonna of the Yarnwinder.

1502

Cesare Borgia hires Leonardo as architect and military engineer with his troupes. The two had met in Milan in 1499.

The son of Pope Alexander VI, he is one of the fiercest tyrants of the time and when he reaches Cesena he employs Leonardo in various tasks related to his uninterrupted military campaigns, such as measuring and updating the fortifications of the cities conquered in Romagna. For Borgia, the genius from Vinci invents a new blend of gun powder, he studies flying machines and instruments for underwater war. He inspects the Lombard fortresses and draws detailed maps to help with the army’s strategic decisions.

1503

He begins working on the Mona Lisa, the most famous work in the history of painting. Today displayed at the Louvre, the Gioconda is remarkable not only in the perfection of its execution, in which it is impossible to glimpse the tiniest brushstroke thanks to the use of a very soft sfumato, the impeccable rendering of the atmosphere, which links the subject on the foreground to the background, and its very deep psychological introspection. The work depicts Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo. Very attached to the painting, Leonardo takes it to France himself in 1516. The work may later have been bought, together with others, by Francis I.

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1504

He is paid for the work carried out the previous year in the Salone dei Cinquecento in Palazzo Vecchio (Florence) depicting the Battle of Anghiari. Impatient with the little time allowed by the fresco technique, Leonardo revisits the ancient Roman technique of encaustic painting. As with The Last Supper, this choice also proves dramatically unsuited when it is too late. The size of the painting in fact makes it impossible to reach a temperature that will allow the pigments to dry, and these trickle down the plaster, fade, or entirely disappear. In December 1503 the transfer of the painting from the cartoon to the wall is interrupted because of the obvious failure of the technique.

1508

After a courtship of two years on the part of the King of France, Louis XII, Leonardo accepts to return to Milan, putting himself at the service of the French crown. His second Milanese sojourn lasts till 1513 and is a very productive period: he paints Saint Anne and the Virgin and Child with the Lamb; he completes, with the help of De Predis, the second version of the Virgin of the Rocks; and he devotes himself to geological, hydrographic, and city planning issues. He designs, among others, an equestrian statue in honor of Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, responsible for the French conquest of the city.

1514

On September 24th Leonardo leaves for Rome with two of the students closest to him: Melzei and Salaì. Here Giuliano de’ Medici, brother of Pope Leo X, grants him his favor and procures him living quarters in the Vatican, where the artist devotes himself to his scientific, mechanical, optical, and geometric studies. He works on the draining of the Pontine Marshes and the relocation of the port in Civitavecchia.

With Giuliano and the Pope he travels to Bologna where he personally meets Francis I of France.

1517

Leonardo accepts Francis I’s invitation to move to the French court. He arrives in the month of May with Francesco Melzi and his servant Battista de Vilanis: he is accommodated by the King in the castel of Clos-Lucé, near Amboise, and honored with the title of premier peintre, architecte, et mecanicien du roi, and a pension of 5,000 ecu. Francis I is a cultured and refined sovereign who loves Italian art. The years spent in France are the most peaceful period of Leonardo’s life: though much weakened by old age, with the assistance of his two faithful students, he can comfortably carry on his studies and scientific research with passion.

1518

The last date on a Leonardo manuscript is in the month of June: engrossed in his geometry calculations, his studies are abruptly interrupted with “etcetera, the soup is getting cold.”

It is a rare instinctive annotation of everyday life in which we perceive a human side of the man who, responding to someone’s call, must interrupt his concentration to eat.

1519

Having survived a heart attack two years earlier, on May 2nd Leonardo dies in his home in Clos-Lucé in Amboise. Legend has it that he died with Francis I holding his head. He is buried in the cloister of Saint Florentin in Amboise. On April 23rd he had registered his will with a notary, leaving Melzi all his books and his papers.

On page 10: Leonardo da Vinci, Self Portrait (sanguine on paper, 1515-1516 circa), detail, Turin, Biblioteca Reale.

Right: Leonardo da Vinci, Heads of an Old Man and a Youth (sanguine on paper, 1495 circa), detail, Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe, Uffizi.

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The Painter The painter who depicted what is universally considered to be the most famous painting in the world was above all a great innovator: to him we owe the introduction of aerial perspective, which radically revolutionized the concept of perspective space.

Supreme incarnation of humanistic ideals, Leonardo da Vinci applied his intelligence in a number of fields, though the foremost and most complete of his endeavors was painting.

Masterpieces such as the Annunciation, the Virgin of the Rocks, the Adoration of the Magi, the Lady with an Ermine, the Last Supper, the Battle of Anghiari, or the Mona Lisa, even when unfinished or lost, marked the collective imagination of entire generations of art enthusiasts. Possibly the German painter Paul Klee best described Leonardo’s contribution to the art world, noting in his diary: “Once you’ve seen Leonardo, you don’t consider the possibility of making much progress.” But you can’t understand da Vinci’s painting if you don’t observe his speculative dimension. In fact, he devoted much of his work to the problems of painting: his notebooks are full of notations regarding the issue of real life painting, published posthumous under the title Treaties on Painting.

This work is useful to better understand the master’s point of view, concerned above all with the practice of a “visual philosophy,” i.e. the ability to perceive Nature’s image. Every aspect is in fact traced back to the systematic comprehension of the physical, mathematical, and geometrical phenomena that determine visual perception. According to Leonardo the application of

logic, of math and geometry, of anatomy and optics ennobles painting to the point that it elevates it to the level of other liberal arts, such as philosophy, poetry, and theology. Painting is science: it is universal, for the eye conveys a form of communication that, unlike the spoken word, is not subject to linguistic variation, so “it has no need for interpreters […] as does literature.”

His research leads him to introduce the so-called aerial perspective, excelling in its use. This idea of painting is founded on the discovery that air is not an entirely transparent medium and in fact, as the distance of the observation point increases, contours become more indefinite, and colours become less pure and tend towards blue.

Thus he attempts to adapt to this assumption: carrying out a “blueing of the far away,” where outlines are lost in the distance and are clear only in the foreground. Leonardo radically renovates the concept of perspective space inspired by the studies of Arab scientist Alhazen, according to whom from every minuscule particle of an observed object luminous information detaches, traveling through the air until it reaches the observer’s retina. It is a radical turning point: the study of depth, until then viewed in the terms of the linear Florentine perspective, is now conceptualized following more abstract, no longer exclusively geometrical, criteria.

On pages 14 and 15: a moment in Da Vinci Experience, the immersive narrative in a panoptical display of some of the sweetest faces ever drawn by Leonardo.

Left: detail of the Portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci (tempera and oil on poplar panel, 1474-1475 circa) reproduced in Da Vinci Experience.

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The Baptism of Christ

Andrea del Verrocchio, Leonardo da Vinci and workshop, 1470-1473 tempera and oil on poplar panel, 179,5 x 152,5 cm Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi

This work was produced when Verrocchio’s workshop was the most famous in Florence. The composition and the two main figures, the Christ and the Baptist, were painted by the master. Three collaborations have been verified: a more mediocre one for the schematic figure of the palm to the left and the rocky landscape to the right; another (possibly a young Botticelli) for the face of the front-facing angel; and the contribution of Leonardo, at the time an apprentice of the workshop.

His is the profile of the angel on the left where we notice the characteristic sfumato style, but also the transparent oil patina uniting the planes of the landscape in the background and softening the Christ’s body. His is also the veiled landscape to the left.

Annunciation

1472-1474 circa tempera and oil on poplar panel, 98 x 217 cm Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi

One of Leonardo’s most famous works, the Annunciation was among the first commissions obtained by the young artist. Da Vinci innovated traditional iconography of the subject, setting the scene in a garden outside Mary’s house, rather than the customary loggia or the Virgin’s bedroom. It is, instead, traditional in other ways: the collocation of the two characters and the discretion of the meeting is preserved thanks to the Madonna’s repaired position; furthermore, you can glimpse the bed through the door. In the background, aside from a low wall, there is a river with bends and boats. The spatial setting is already marked by an aerial perspective.

Madonna and Child (Madonna of the Carnation) 1473-1475 circa

oil on poplar panel, 62 x 48,5 cm Munich, Alte Pinakothek

This work marks an evolution in the art of young Leonardo, with references to the Flemish painters: the complex lighting of the room, the presence of the parapet, the still life of the flower vase.

Notice some evident Verrocchio derivations: the composition, the nearly transparent delicacy of the skin, the sober but realistic gestures of mother and son. Mary’s face closely resembles that of the Annunciation at the Uffizi. Other elements instead contain features of the mature artist’s style, such as the rocky landscape and the yellow drape knotted like a vortex.

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Portrait of Ginevra Benci

1474-1475 circa tempera and oil on poplar panel, 38,1 x 37 cm Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art

Ginevra de’ Benci was the daughter of banker Amerigo di Giovanni de’ Benci, a family to which Leonardo was tied for a long time. In an indefinite period, a third of the painting was severed, removing the hands that had probably been damaged. Originally the proportions of the portrait were similar to those of the Mona Lisa. In this painting, Leonardo measures himself with the delicate luminescence and the analytic colou ring of Flemish painting: the shadow of the juniper enhances Ginevra’s pale face and the lightness of her hairdo evolves in her gown and in the backdrop, in a masterful chromatic continuum. The landscape in the distance offers all the elements held dear by the painter: bodies of water, bell towers and pointed towers, mountains, all shrouded in the blue tones of the aerial perspective.

Madonna and Child (Benois Madonna) 1478-1482 circa oil on panel, transferred to canvas, 49,5 x 31,5 cm Saint Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum

The work owes its name to the family who owned it for a long time, the Benois, who acquired it in 1824. It has been at the Hermitage since 1914. An authentic Leonardo, it depicts the Madonna and the Child on the backdrop of a dark room, lit at the back by a double-arched window that opens onto the sky. Mary is seated and holds her son on her knees while he tries to grab the flower she is holding. The four petals of the flower seem to be an allegory of his future crucifixion. Contrarily to iconographic tradition, the Virgin is smiling as she observes her son’s tender clumsiness. The painting marks Leonardo’s detachment from the Florentine pictorial tradition, to which he opposes an interest in atmospheric values and the variability of contours.

Adoration of the Magi

1481 tempera and bister on poplar panel, 243 x 246 cm Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi

Commissioned in 1481 by the friars of San Donato in Scopeto, the Adoration of the Magi was not completed because Leonardo left for Milan the following year. The theme, one of the most frequent in 15th century Florentine art, was radically innovated by Leonardo, who focused on the moment in which the Child, making a blessing gesture, reveals his divine nature. The fact that it was left unfinished makes it possible to know the technique used

by Leonardo to create his works. Beginning with a drawing, when necessary he applied a dark bister base of reddish brown and black paint. A series of patina’s and varnishes provide lighting and uniform the composition. Over this preparation the painter would then apply colours.

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St. Jerome in the Wilderness

1482-1485 ink drawing on walnut panel, 102,8 x 73,5 cm Vatican City, Musei Vaticani, Pinacoteca

Generally dated around the last years of his first Florentine stay because of similarities with the Adoration of the Magi, not much is known about the painting until 1845, when it was acquired by Pius IX and placed in the Vatican Museums.

Saint Jerome is depicted as a repentant hermit in the wilderness. Kneeling, in tatters, in his right hand he holds the stone he uses to beat his chest, while with his left he points at himself in an act of humility. The figure of the hermit is a testimony of Leonardo’s great interest in anatomical detail: the arched bust darker between the clavicles, the plastic gesture of the extended arm that highlights the surrounding space, the extended leg with a very effective partial view, and the head, bony and gaunt.

Virgin of the Rocks

1483-1486 circa oil on panel, transferred to canvas, 199 x 122 cm Paris, Musée du Louvre

The Virgin of the Rocks is da Vinci’s first documented work in Milan: he worked on it from 1483 to 1486 and, with the help of his students, produced a second version between 1491 and 1508.

The scene depicts the encounter of young Jesus and John the Baptist, an episode that isn’t recounted in canonic Gospels, but comes from Serapion’s Life of John the Baptist, from the Apocrypha, and from other devotional books. The figures emerge from the dark background in a diffused light typical of Leonardo’s sfumato, which creates an enveloping atmosphere. The painting seems to conceal the mystery of the Immaculate Conception, with the rocky cavern representing the mother’s womb.

The symbolism of rock is tied to Jesus’s purifying mission on earth. The colours are darker than those used by Leonardo in the later version of this work, but the light is definitely warmer.

Portrait of a Musician

1485 oil on walnut panel, 44,7 x 32 cm Milan, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana

The original location of this painting and the circumstances of its commission are unknown. We know for certain that in 1671 it was already at the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana. The character depicted is probably the Flemish composer Josquin Desprez.

The subject, a young man with thick hair, is depicted in a medium close up, slightly turned towards the right. His gaze is distant, but alive and intelligent, treated with a heavy chiaroscuro. His robes, which are certainly not high quality, are a hurried later intervention, possibly operated by Leonardo himself. The powerful psychological introspection is inspired by Antonello da Messina and vouches for its authenticity.

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Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani (Lady with an Ermine) 1488-1490 circa oil on walnut panel, 54,8 x 40,3 Cracow, Museum Czartoryski

One of the most iconic of Leonardo’s works, this painting is dated to the two years following 1488, year in which the King of Naples endowed Ludovico Sforza with the title of Knight of the Ermine.

The young woman is traditionally considered to be Cecilia Gallerani, the Duke’s lover. The structure of the 15th century portrait, the three-quarters half bust, was overcome by Leonardo, who devised a double rotation, with the bust turned to the left and the head to the right. The ermine and Cecilia have much in common: the animal seems to be identified with the woman, in a subtle resemblance and in their gazes, both intense and candid at once.

Breastfeeding Madonna (Madonna Litta)

1490 circa tempera and oil on panel, transferred to canvas, 42 x 33 cm Saint Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum

The work dates back to the genius from Vinci’s first stay in Milan at the court of the Sforza’s. There are two sketches of Leonardo’s of the Madonna Litta, on display at the Louvre and at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt. In the mid 18th century the painting was sold by the Sforza’s heirs to the Marquises Litta, who sold it to Czar Alexander II of Russia in 1865. At first the work was displayed in Moscow, and was later transferred to the Hermitage, where it was displayed to the public only after the Second World War.

Portrait of Milanese Lady (La Belle Ferronière) 1493-1496 circa oil on walnut panel, 63 x 45 cm Paris, Musée du Louvre

Like the Portrait of a Musician and the Lady with an Ermine, the work dates back to the artist’s first stay in Milan and reflects his fervent studies on optics, evident in the reflection of the red dress on the woman’s cheek. The lady depicted was connected to Ludovico Sforza’s court and the name by which the painting is known is almost certainly owing to a cataloguing error.

The painting depicts a young woman in a medium close-up, on a dark background behind a Flemish-styled parapet. The bust is turned to the left and the head faces the front, as if her attention has just been caught by something. The pretty face offers itself to the contemplation of the public, but her gaze is lateral: she escapes visual contact and increases the sense of enigmatic inaccessibility. As in the Lady with an Ermine, her clothes are very neat, but not lavish.

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The Last Supper

1494-1498 circa tempera and oil on two layers of chalk on plaster with residues of gold trim, 460 x 880 cm Milan, Santa Maria delle Grezie, refectory

In 1494 Leonardo is entrusted by Ludovico Sforza with the decoration of the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan with a Last Supper. The master dedicated himself to this job with great passion. He did not love the fresco technique, for the speed needed for its execution was not compatible with his constant afterthought, the additions and the small changes of his modus operandi. Thus he developed a new technique that would enhance his qualities: the rendering of transparency, the light effects, and his manic attention to detail.

In 1498 the work was completed but it immediately began to deteriorate: in the lower left-hand corner you could already see a crack. The technique he had used was not compatible with the dampness of the wall. However, though damaged, the painting emanates an unparalleled allure.

Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) 1503- 1506 circa and after oil on poplar panel, 77 x 53 cm Paris, Musée du Louvre

The most famous painting in the world depicts Lisa Gherardini, a Florentine lady of the time.

Leonardo began working on it in 1503 and continued to return to it until his death. The painting followed its author throughout his life.

To the perfect execution, Leonardo ads an impeccable atmosphere that ties the subject on the foreground to the background and contributes to giving the image of the woman an aura of extreme psychological introspection. The Mona Lisa is one of the first portraits depicting the subject in front of an imaginary landscape. It is interesting to notice how the landscape is not uniform: the left side is lower than the right. Some critics think for this reason that it was a later addition.

The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and the lamb 1503 circa, 1508-1510 and later oil on poplar panel, 73 x 56,5 cm Paris, Musée du Louvre

We are not certain when Leonardo began to work on this piece, but we know that in 1517 it was located in his home in Clos-Lucé.

The work represents three generations of Christ’s family: Saint Anne, her daughter Mary, and the baby Jesus. The composition, rich in allegorical meaning, is modeled in a pyramidal structure, as were many Renaissance works, with the peak in Saint Anne’s head. Her benevolent gaze is turned on Mary and Jesus. Symbolically she represents the Church that, condemning Mary’s motherly apprehension, reaffirms the necessity of Jesus’s voluntary sacrifice. The light is suffused and the atmospheric effects tie the monumental figures in the foreground to the vast landscape in the background, with a high horizon fading into a very light hue.

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Saint John the Baptist 1506-1513 circa oil on walnut panel Paris, Musée du Louvre

Possibly this work was commissioned in Florence by Giovanni Benci around 1505. At Leonardo’s death it was inherited by his student Gian Giacomo Caprotti, aka Salaì. When the latter died, the painting was lost. Around 1630 it reappeared in an inventory of the possessions of the French ambassador at the court of Charles I of England. In 1666 the painting became part of the royal collection, which then became part of the Louvre’s collection. The composition, the features, and the attitude of a young Saint John are typical of Leonardo’s later production: he turns his gaze to the viewer, but his expression in languid, ambiguous, and smiling sweetly. Probably the model for the painting was Salaì himself.

Below: Lady with an Ermine (oil on walnut panel, 1488-1490 circa), reproduced in Da Vinci Experience.

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Exhibition setup: Machines

S

ergio Martelli and his two sons, Sandro e Silvano, after designing and creating the shows and the permanent museums in San Gimignano dedicated to torture instruments in the ‘90s, have for over 20 years put their art at the service of a dream that is intertwined with the family’s centuries-long history.

Thus, using Leonardo’s drawings, which are clear and well defined, year after year they carefully reconstructed – life-size and to scale – a series of impressively precise and mechanically functioning models. Among these the armored vehicle, 5 meters in diameter by 4.5 meters high, and the impressive wing for human flight, 9 meters in span, which is hung from the central of the immersive room of Da Vinci Experience.

The Martelli family has practiced for generations the arts of sword forging, carpentry, smithy, and armory. Their encounter with Leonardo seems to be destined to be recurring over the centuries. It seems, in fact, that at the beginning of the 1500s their ancestors hosted the genius for a long stretch of his stay in Florence. It is said, also, that after his death, the family began to collect and preserve some of his sketches and notes, the same that later became an integral part of the precious world-renown codices.

Today we owe Sergio Martelli, expert in technologies and the ancient secrets of European armourers, along with his sons, skilled restorers of wooden and wrought iron objects, the actualization of an idea that for years had been a mere fantasy: building Leonardo’s war machines as he himself would have had them constructed by a workshop of his times.

Sergio, Sandro, Silvano Martelli – Bottega Artigiana Martelli

Reproduction of the paddle boat invented by Leonardo da Vinci:

radius of the paddles 50 cm, radius of the wheel 22 cm.

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Reproduction of the bombard invented by Leonardo da Vinci:

diameter of the barrel 45 cm, depth of barrel 60 cm.

Reproduction of the armored vehicle invented by Leonardo da Vinci: 

diameter of the vehicle 87 cm, height of tower 30 cm, maximum height of armored vehicle 39 cm.

Reproduction of the catapult invented by Leonardo da Vinci: 

catapult arm 192 cm, wheel diameter 47 cm.

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ex p er i e n c e and his real machines Concept: Federico Dalgas Product Manager: Andrea Moreschini Communication Manager: Roberto Fiorini

Video Installation

Production: Art Media Studio Firenze Direction: Marilena Bertozzi e Vincenzo Capalbo Image Archives: F.lli Alinari / Scala Group

Allestimento

Machines reproductions: Bottega artigiana Martelli Anastatic code reproductions: Giunti Editore, Progetto Leonardo Ocululus VR experience: Orwell srl

Communication

External Relations: Massimo da Cepparello Web-site: Fabio Vallana Social media: Raffaele Nencini / Fabio Vallana

Catalog

Texts: Raffaele Nencini Photographs: Piero Taddei, Fabio Vallana Design and Layout: Giulia Raineri Print: Litografia Ip PRODUCED BY

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eonardo’s life and works are the absolute protagonists of Da Vinci Experience, an immersive show dedicated to the greatest genius of all times. An exciting production, full of special effects, 3D reconstructions, and multi-projections. An immersive experience which is exhibition and performance in one.

www.davinciexperience.it www.ctcrossmedia.com

ISBN 978-88-942197-7-7

Produced by 9 788894 219777

10,00 euro