Leonardo da Vinci and Florence: Tracking Down the Battle of Anghiari & Selected Pages from the Codex Atlanticus

1. Why these exhibitions?

2. Practical information

2.1 Palazzo Vecchio
2.2 The itinerary of “Tracking Down the Battle of Anghiari”
2.3 Opening hours
2.4 Admission fees
2.5 Other important information and tips

3. Tracking Down the Battle of Anghiari

3.1 Salone dei Cinquecento (Hall of the Five Hundred)

Franco Zeffirelli’s funerary ceremony

3.2 Copy of the Battle of Anghiari by an anonymous artist
3.3 Sketch for The Rout of the Pisans at Torre San Vincenzo by Giovan Battista Naldini
3.4 Battle Scenes by the workshop of Giovanfrancesco Rustici
3.5 Extracts from “A Treatise on Painting” by Leonardo da Vinci (1651)

Of Composition in History
How to Compose a Battle

4. “Leonardo da Vinci and Florence: Selected Pages from the Codex Atlanticus”

4.1 The Lantern (folio 808 verso)
4.2 A Device by Brunelleschi (folio 909 verso)
4.3 The Canal of Florence (folio 126 verso)
4.4 Savonarola (folio 628 recto)
4.5 Description of the Battle of Anghiari (folio 202a recto)
4.6 Santa Maria Nuova (folio 196 verso)
4.7 Botticelli (folio 331 recto)
4.8 The Flight (folio 186 verso)
4.9 The Arno River (folio 201 verso)
4.10 St. John (folio 489 recto)
4.11 The Medici Family

Folio 252 recto
Folio 429 recto

4.12 Head of Christ the Redeemer by Gian Giacomo Caprotti, known as Salai

1. Why these exhibitions?

The Battle of Anghiari is Leonardo da Vinci’s best-known unfinished work. Praised by his contemporaries and copied by an entire generation of artists, it was intended to decorate one of the walls in the great hall of Palazzo Vecchio, which hosted meetings of the Great Council of the Florentine Republic at the time and is known today as the Salone dei Cinquecento (Hall of the Five Hundred). Leonardo was commissioned to paint the work by the Florentine Signoria (the government of medieval and renaissance Florence) under the leadership of Gonfaloniere Pier Soderini in 1503. For many months he mulled over the depiction of the battle, won by the Florentines against the Milanese in 1440, producing several drawings and one or more preparatory cartoons. Meanwhile, the Signoria commissioned Michelangelo Buonarroti to paint a second battle, in which the Florentines vanquished the Pisans at Cascina in 1364, on another wall of the same room. Leonardo finally began to paint the scene in the Battle of Anghiari known as the Struggle for the Standard on the wall, but soon he broke off his work because the paint would not dry due to a mistake in the experimental technique he was using. He eventually gave up and moved to Milan in the service of Charles II d’Amboise, while the remains of his unfinished painting were lost during subsequent renovation work.

Old replicas of the work, based either on Leonardo’s preparatory cartoon or on the fragmentary remains of his painting, and other testimonials (such as Leonardo’s own studies) that have handed the memory down to us, between facts and legends, have invariably aroused a great deal of interest on account of the extraordinarily expressive power contained in the highly original manner of portraying a battle that Leonardo devised in his unfinished masterpiece. To mark the 500th anniversary of the master’s death, the Museo di Palazzo Vecchio is celebrating the Battle of Anghiari with an itinerary retracing its history through the various testimonials it houses, accompanied by special tools exploring the theme in greater depth.

In the Sala dei Gigli (Hall of the Lilies) of Palazzo Vecchio, an exhibition named “Leonardo da Vinci and Florence: Selected Pages from the Codex Atlanticus” was held from 29th March to 24th June 2019, in which twelve handwritten folios by Leonardo from the esteemed Biblioteca Ambrosiana were displayed. Leonardo da Vinci died 500 hundred years ago in the Château du Clos Lucé in France. Although he had been away from Florence for ten years, he felt a close attachment to his city until the end. All his life he called himself a “Florentine painter”; in his will he indicated that he wished to be buried at the “Church of St. Florentin in Amboise”; the year before his death, he dedicated one of his last writings to the menagerie of lions behind the Palazzo Vecchio. The page about the symbolic animal of Florence testifies to a still vivid memory and bears the significant date of 24th June 1518, the day of the city’s patron saint. It was in the name of this connection that this exhibition was curated by Cristina Acidini.

  • Throughout his life, Florence was Leonardo’s primary point of reference, whether he found himself in the city or far from it. The pages on display in this exhibition show visitors the important role played by Florence in the artist’s life.
  • The twelve selected pages, which are not the only ones that allude to Florence, show Leonardo’s many-sided and often contradictory relationship with the city, in whose territory he was born and where he spent his formative years.
  • The exhibited folios range in date from the 1470s to Leonardo’s death in 1519; thanks to the contributions of experts in the various fields in question, the display explains in detail why each page was selected.

2. Practical information

2.1 Palazzo Vecchio

Palazzo della Signoria, better known as Palazzo Vecchio, has been the symbol of the civic power of  Florence for over seven centuries. Built between the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th to house the city’s supreme governing body, the Priori delle Arti and the Gonfalonier of Justice, over time it has been subject to a series of extensions and transformations. Today, the complex is one of the city’s top attractions including the Museo di Palazzo Vecchio, the Tower and Battlements, and an archaeological site. In this post, I’ll focus on the itinerary “Tracking Down the Battle of Anghiari” and the exhibition “Leonardo da Vinci and Florence: Selected Pages from the Codex Atlanticus” dedicated to the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death, but I strongly recommend you to take this opportunity to explore the many historical rooms of the palace as well as the Tower and Battlements, which give breathtaking views of the city of Florence.

2.2 The itinerary of “Tracking Down the Battle of Anghiari”

The Battle of Marciano by Giorgio Vasari and assistants (Salone dei Cinquecento) –> The Rout of the Pisans at Torre San Vincenzo by Giorgio Vasari and assistants (Salone dei Cinquecento) –> Copy of the Battle of Anghiari by an anonymous artist (Apartments of Eleonora of Toledo/Room of Esther) –> Sketch for The Rout of the Pisans at Torre San Vincenzo by Giovan Battista Naldini (Mezzanine/Loeser Bequest) –> Battle Scenes (terracotta sculptures) by the workshop of Giovanfrancesco Rustici (Mezzanine/Loeser Bequest)

The itinerary starts in the Salone dei Cinquecento in which searches have been conducted in recent years to discover whether there are still any residual traces of Leonardo’s painting, beneath Vasari’s fresco of the Battle of Marciano. A video in the hall tells the story of the Battle of Anghiari with images and 3D models showing what the hall looked like in Leonardo’s days and its subsequent transformation. The video has been specially produced for the occasion on the basis of the most recent knowledge, striving for stringent historical authenticity.

We then move on to the opposite wall to discover the memories of Leonardo’s work concealed in Vasari’s fresco depicting the Rout of the Pisans at Torre San Vincenzo. The itinerary continues on the floor above, where the Apartments of Eleonora of Toledo host an old replica of the Battle of Anghiari that is one of the closest copies of the original. Finally, our journey winds up on the Mezzanine floor where the Loeser Bequest has a rare sketch on a tile showing the central scene of the Rout of the Pisans at Torre San Vincenzo and renowned terracotta Battle Scenes from the Rustici workshop testifying to the exceptional impact of Leonardo’s unfinished work on his contemporaries.

2.3 Opening hours

Museum and Archaeological Site:

  • From October to March:
    • Monday – Sunday except Thursday: 9:00 – 19:00
    • Thursdays: 9:00 – 14:00
  • From April to September:
    • Monday – Sunday except Thursday: 9:00 – 23:00
    • Thursdays: 9:00 – 14:00

Mezzanine (Loeser Bequest):

    • Monday – Sunday except Thursday: 9:00 – 19:00
    • Thursdays: 9:00 – 14:00

Tower and Battlements:

  • From October to March:
    • Monday – Sunday except Thursday: 10:00 – 17:00 (no admission after 16:30)
    • Thursdays: 10:00 – 14:00 (no admission after 13:30)
  • From April to September:
    • Monday – Sunday except Thursday: 9:00 – 21:00
    • Thursdays: 9:00 – 14:00

The Museum, Archaeological Site and Tower and Battlements are closed on Christmas Day.

The special event “Tracking Down the Battle of Anghiari” will be on from 23rd February 2019 to 12th January 2020; the temporary exhibition “Leonardo da Vinci and Florence: Selected Pages from the Codex Atlanticus” was on from 29th March to 24th June 2019.

2.4 Admission fees

The itinerary is included in the standard price of admission to the Museo di Palazzo Vecchio, but during the temporary exhibition, the admission fee was raised a little. Since the temporary exhibition is already finished, I’ll show you the standard price of admission below.

  • Museum + Archeological Site + Tower and Battlements:
    • full price: € 19.50
    • reduced price: € 17.50
  • Museum + Tower and Battlements:
    • full price: € 17.50
    • reduced price: € 15.00
  • Museum + Archeological site
    • full price: € 16.00
    • reduced price: € 13.50
  • Museum:
    • full price: € 12.50
    • reduced price: euro 20,70
  • Tower and Battlements:
    • full price: € 12.50
    • reduced price: € 10.00
  • Archeological Site:
    • full price: € 4.00

Please note:

  • Reduced price is applicable to young people between 18 and 25 years old and university students.
  • Admission to the whole complex is included in the Firenzecard.
  • Free admission is applicable to young people under the age of 18, disabled visitors and their companions, student groups and their teachers, tour guides and interpreters, members of ICOM, ICOMOS and ICCROM, etc. For more information please click here.
  • Tickets can be bought online or on site, and with your online ticket, you can jump the queue and go straight to the entrance. Like many other popular attractions in Florence, there can be long lines at busy times. I arrived at 10:00 at the palace on a Monday (about one hour after it opened) and there was no line for buying the ticket or entering the museum. If you want to guarantee your priority access, you should probably book your ticket online with an advance booking fee of only € 1.00.
  • The ticket office closes one hour before the museum closes.
  • This is a huge complex and I suggest leaving at least 1.5 hours for the museum, 45 mins for the Tower and Battlements, and 15 mins for the Archaeological Site.

2.5 Other important information and tips

  • This palace is the seat of the city council. Unfortunately this means that on certain special occasions when institutional ceremonies are scheduled, the museum may be totally or partially closed to the public. Please click here to check the “Visitors Please Note” section before starting your visit.
  • The ticket is valid for six months from the day of purchase, so you can always buy your ticket on one day and visit the palace on another.
  • The Archaeological Site–the excavations of the Roman Theatre of Florence–is not accessible to children under 8 years of age.
  • As for the Tower and Battlements, you need to climb 418 steps to reach the top, and there may be a short wait on the third floor because no more than 25 people are allowed on the battlements or in the tower at one time. The Tower and Battlements are not accessible to children under 6 years of age and all visitors under 18 years of age must be accompanied by an adult.
  • The InfoPoint is situated on the ground floor in the Cortile della Dogana, inside the ticket office, where you can ask for information, make reservations for guided tours and educational activities, and rent multi-media guide available in Italian, English, French, German, Russian and Spanish. Please note, the guide is not specifically designed for the itinerary or the temporary exhibition but for the museum in general. For the temporary events, there are info boards with detailed introductions.
  • The cloakroom is situated on the ground floor in the Cortile della Dogana, in the ticket office area. Visitors must leave all umbrellas, backpacks and large bags in the cloakroom, free of charge.
  • For information about guided tours and family activities please click here.
  • Photography for personal use is allowed in all the spaces without the use of flash or tripod.

3. Tracking Down the Battle of Anghiari

3.1 Salone dei Cinquecento (Hall of the Five Hundred)

© Municipality of Florence
© Municipality of Florence

54 meters long, 23 meters wide and 18 meters high, the Salone dei Cinquecento is not only the largest and most important room in terms of artistic and historic value in Palazzo Vecchio, but also the largest room in Italy made for a civil power palace. It was commissioned by Fra Girolamo Savonarola and built in 1494 by Simone del Pollaiuolo and Francesco Domenico. At that point, Savonarola had already ousted the Medici from power for a short period and founded a new Florentine Republic, which lasted between 1494 and 1498. He tried to establish a more democratic government for the city of Florence and thus created the Council of Five Hundred (or Great Council), consisting of five hundred people, modeled after the Grand Council of Venice. In this way, the decision-making power belonged to a greater number of citizens, and it was more difficult for a single person to take control of the city. The tangible result of these reforms was the creation of the Salone dei Cinquecento in the government building, which at the time involved a remarkable engineering effort. According to the austerity pursued by Savonarola, the room was very basic and almost devoid of decoration.

Savonarola was arrested in 1498, hanged, and burned at the stake in the Piazza della Signoria as a “heretic, schismatic, and for preaching new things,” and as a result, the power was given to Piero Soderini, who was appointed Gonfaloniere for life. He decided to decorate the Salone dei Cinquecento and succeeded in reaching an agreement with the two greatest Florentine artists of the time, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti, for the execution of two large murals to decorate the walls of the room, with battle scenes celebrating the victories of the Republic. Leonardo started working on the Battle of Anghiari, while Michelangelo focused on the Battle of Cascina. The two geniuses of the Renaissance would have an opportunity to work for a certain period of time face-to-face, but none of their work was completed. Leonardo experimented with an encaustic technique, which proved disastrous, hopelessly wasting the work. Michelangelo stopped and left for Rome after being called by Pope Julius II. Both original works are lost, but copies and preparatory drawings still remain.

Later, the Medici returned to power and in 1540 chose Palazzo Vecchio as a residence, radically transforming it. Most of the work was entrusted to Giorgio Vasari. The Salone dei Cinquecento was transformed from a place of celebration of the power of the Republic to the audience room of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, where he received ambassadors and gave audience to the people. The decorations, therefore, had to glorify the Medici family. To accentuate the grandeur of the hall, Giorgio Vasari raised the ceiling seven meters, covering the truss structure with a beautifully decorated coffered ceiling. The forty-two panels were carried out by a team of painters coordinated by Vasari, and the iconographic subject was treated by Vincenzo Borghini. In the original sketches, the center was to be occupied by an allegory of Florence, but Duke Cosimo wanted a glorious depiction of himself, which led to the Cosimo I in Apotheosis we see today. Around the central panel, we can recognize some allegories of the districts of Florence and Tuscany in an act of submission to the Duke, episodes from the War of Pisa and the War of Siena, as well as portraits of some of Giorgio Vasari’s collaborators.

Down the hall is a raised area called la Tribuna dell’Udienza (consultation gallery) (as you can see in the 1st, 2nd and 4th pictures above), designed to accommodate the throne of the Duke. The architecture is inspired by a Roman triumphal arch with niches containing statues of members of the Medici family. The two largest arcs contain the statues of the two Medici popes, Leo X and Clement VII while the other four niches contain other members of the Medici family: Cosimo I, Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, Alessandro, and Francesco I. Among the sculptures along the west and east walls, one is The Genius of Victory by Michelangelo, which was probably originally intended for the tomb of Julius II.

The whole room is richly decorated, and Giorgio Vasari, along with his assistants, painted on the walls six scenes of battle that represent the military successes of Cosimo I against Pisa and Siena. On the east side, you can find the Conquest of Siena, the Conquest of Porto Ercole, and the Battle of Marciano; on the west side, you can find the defeat of the Pisans at the Tower of San Vincenzo, Maximilian of Austria attempting the conquest of Livorno, and Pisa attacked by the Florentine troops.

Franco Zeffirelli’s funerary ceremony

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to take a close look at the Salone dei Cinquecento because during my visit (17th June, 2019), the room was used for the funerary ceremony of Franco Zeffirelli, who died on 15th June at the age of 96. According to The Guardian, he “was not only one of Italy’s most talented directors and designers in the theatrical arts, but was also involved with cinema and television for more than half a century. In any medium, he generally preferred a grand canvas. His work was dominated by adaptations of the classics and lush biographies or histories, told with flamboyance and sentimentality. He had an unerring eye for attractive stars of both sexes such that, whatever their weaknesses, his productions invariably looked good.” For me personally, I could never forget his 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet, for which he received an Academy Award nomination. I’ve watched some other film adaptations of the romantic tragedy by William Shakespeare, but the one directed by Franco Zeffirelli remains the best and most beautiful in my heart. Not sure which is the 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet? I hope the lyrics of its theme song will ring a bell to you:

A time for us, someday there’ll be
When chains are torn by courage born of a love that’s free

A time when dreams, so long denied
Can flourish as we unveil the love we now must hide

A time for us at last to see
A life worthwhile for you and me
And with our love through tears and thorns
We will endure as we pass surely through every storm

A time for us, someday there’ll be
A new world, a world of shining hope for you and me

A time for us at last to see
A life worthwhile for you and me
And with our love through tears and thorns
We will endure as we pass surely through every storm

A time for us, someday there’ll be
A new world, a world of shining hope for you and me

3.2 Copy of the Battle of Anghiari by an anonymous artist

The scene of the Battle of Anghiari (fought in 1440) which Leonardo began to paint in this palazzo in 1505, is known to us from the master’s own preparatory drawings, from copies that his contemporaries made of the unfinished painting or of his preparatory cartoon before they vanished, and from a number of later revisitations of those works.

All the replicas reproduce the same scene of the Struggle for the Standard with, on the right Pietro Giampaolo Orsini, commander of the Florentine army, launching an attack preceded by his papal ally Ludovico Trevisan, and on the left, Niccolò Piccinino, captain of the Milanese troops, with his sword raised and his son Francesco vainly attempting to hold on to the standard by its pole.

The painting, tarnished by time and once the property of Antonio de’ Medici, is considered to be one of the closest replicas of Leonardo’s original, together with the Tavola Doria now in the Uffizi. The two works differ from others on account of certain unfinished parts. They both share the blank space on the right, where we see Orsini with his head painted while the rest of his body is only sketched in. In the painting on display here, the end of the leg belonging to the horse on the left is only drawn, and beneath it a few sketched lines only visible under infrared light hint at the figure of a soldier on the ground with his shield raised–a figure that is painted, albeit still only summarily, in the Tavola Doria and is reproduced in all the other replicas. Several suggestions have been put forward regarding the artist responsible for this work including most recently that of Vasari’s assistant Francesco Morandini known as il Poppi, and a date of circa 1570.

3.3 Sketch for The Rout of the Pisans at Torre San Vincenzo by Giovan Battista Naldini

This painting, donated by Charles Loeser in 1918, is a study on tile for the central scene of one of the large frescoes decorating the west wall of the Hall of the Five Hundred in this palazzo. The fresco, depicting a battle won by Florence over Pisa at San Vincenzo in 1505, was painted by Giorgio Vasari and his assistants between 1567 and 1571. The sketch, once attributed to Vasari himself, is now attributed to Naldini who was his chief assistant in depicting stories from the war with Pisa.

The details sketched here, with horses forced to face each other down in a terrifying melee and two knights struggling for possession of a standard pole in the background, explicitly echo the scene of the Battle of Anghiari, known as the Struggle for the Standard, which Leonardo da Vinci began to paint in 1505 in the same room in which Vasari’s fresco now sits. Left unfinished, Leonardo’s work has since been lost, but it is recorded both in the master’s own drawings and in a number of replicas. The remnants of the painting, or of its preparatory cartoon, were visible in the room before Vasari’s intervention, at least until 1549. Leonardo’s contemporaries lavished particular praise on his horses, writing that “no one has ever made any more beautiful”.

This preparatory study focuses precisely on the group of finished and coloured figures of the horses. Artists used terracotta tiles as supports for their studies in order to capture the effect of a frescoed wall painting, but only a handful of such painted tiles have come down to us. In the case of this particular sketch, its iconographical model’s fame may have helped it to survive down the centuries.

3.4 Battle Scenes by the workshop of Giovanfrancesco Rustici

The two terracotta reliefs, from the Loeser Collection, were once the property of two Florentine families, the Ridolfi (left) and the Rucellai (right), and were originally both painted. They are very similar to another four earthenware groups now dispersed in various museums and collections. Two of the six exemplars, both in the round (standing free with all sides shown, rather than carved in relief against a ground), are attributed to Rustici, while the others with their backs unmodelled, are thought to be a product of his workshop. Rustici was a friend of Leonardo da Vinci. Having returned to Florence for a short time, Leonardo lived with Rustici in 1508 and helped him to make the models for his bronze group depicting St. John the Baptist Preaching. Giorgio Vasari tells us in his biography of Rustici that he learnt “many things from Leonardo, but particularly how to represent horses, in which he delighted so much that he fashioned them of clay and of wax, in the round or in low-relief, and in as many manners as could be imagined”. Vasari also informs us that “of his horses in clay with men on their backs or under them, similar to those already mentioned, there are many in the houses of citizens, which were presented by him […] to his various friends”. The description perfectly fits these groups, which are clearly based on Leonardo’s studies for the Battle of Anghiari (1503 – 1506) and reflect the famous notes on the “Way of Depicting a Battle” (1492) which was subsequently incorporated into his “A Treatise on Painting”. The six exemplars differ in a number of minor ways yet they all show a horse rearing, with a soldier in the saddle fighting with a warrior who is looking downwards, and below the horse, other soldiers entangled in bloody, chaotic combat, with their facial features distorted by their cries just as we see in the Battle of Anghiari.

3.5 Extracts from “A Treatise on Painting” by Leonardo da Vinci (1651)

Of Composition in History

When the painter has only a single figure to represent, he must avoid any shortening whatever […] but in subjects of history, composed of many figures, shortenings may be introduced […] as the subject may require; particularly in battles, where of course many shortenings and contortions of figures happen, amongst such an enraged multitude of actors, possessed, as it were, of a brutal madness.

How to Compose a Battle

First, let the air exhibit a confused mixture of smoke, arising from the discharge of artillery, and the dust raised by the horses of the combatants… The victorious party will be running forwards, their hair and other light parts flying in the wind, their eyebrows lowered, and the motion of every member properly contrasted… The countenances of the vanquished will appear pale and dejected. Their eyebrows raised, and the forehead and cheeks much wrinkled. The tip of their noses somewhat divided from the nostrils by arched wrinkles […]; the upper lips turned up, revealing the teeth. Their mouths wide open, and expressive of violent lamentation. Others running away, and with open mouths seeming to cry aloud. Between the legs of the combatants let the ground be strewed with all sorts of arms… Some may appear disarmed, and beaten down by the enemy, still fighting with their fists and teeth, and endeavouring to take a passionate, though unavailing revenge. There may be also a straggling horse running …) beating down with his feet all before him, and doing a deal of damage. A wounded soldier may also be seen falling to the ground, and attempting to cover himsetf with his shield, while an enemy bending over him endeavours to give him the finishing stroke.

4. “Leonardo da Vinci and Florence: Selected Pages from the Codex Atlanticus”

During his complex life, marked by prestigious appointments mixed with inconsistent results and by insatiable curiosity, Florence was always the polar star for Leonardo da Vinci, the never-to-be-forgotten state where he was born on 15th April, 1452, the city where he grew up and which set his identity as “Pictor Florentinus“. Therefore, Florence has been chosen as the leitmotiv of this show which exhibits twelve folios drawn from the “Codex Atlanticus” and a painting, the Head of Christ the Redeemer, painted by an artist within the closest circle of Leonardo’s collaborators.

The codex is a twelve-volume, bound set of drawings and writings by Leonardo da Vinci, the largest of such sets. Its name comes from the large paper used to preserve the original da Vinci notebook pages, which was used for atlases. In the late 16th century, the sculptor Pompeo Leoni, son of Leone Leoni, by dismembering some of Leonardo’s notebooks, gathered 402 pages in one big volume. In 1637, Pompeo Leoni’s collection, together with 11 other manuscripts by Leonardo, was donated to the library, and the 12 volumes became today’s “Codex Atlanticus”. The codices have been preserved here ever since expect for the Napoleonic period when they were taken to Paris. Currently, the codex comprises 1,119 pages, covering Leonardo’s thoughts for a period of more than 40 years, from 1478 to 1519. With approximately 2,000 drawings and notes, it covers a great variety of subjects including engineering, hydraulics, mathematics, optics, anatomy, architecture, geometry, astronomy, botany, flight, weaponry, musical instruments and so on.

The folios chosen here, just by a sentence or a mark allow us to trace some of Leonardo’s closest ties to Florence, testified in various ways: by places of excellence like the Palazzo dei Priori (now Palazzo Vecchio), the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore and the Spedale di Santa Maria Nuova; by institutions such as the city government, the Opera del Duomo and the city guild of painters; by personalities of the past and of his days such as Brunelleschi, the Medici family, Savonarola, Soderini, Verrocchio, Botticelli, Michelangelo… Leonardo’s recurring interests are evoked: machines to be used in peace or at war, the flight of birds in a prophetic view of human flight, hydro-geological studies, the grandiose project of the “Canal of Florence” as an alternative to the capricious flow of the Arno and of course painting.

Unfortunately this temporary exhibition is already finished, but I hope through my pictures and introductions (which are largely based on the information provided on the info boards on site) you can still obtain a good understanding of the relationship between the master and the city.

4.1 The Lantern (folio 808 verso)

For the construction of the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore (1420 – 1436) the architect Filippo Brunelleschi created revolutionary tools and machines, which made the operations of such a grand site quick and relatively efficient. Leonardo studied the mechanisms of such devices. One of these was certainly the “revolving crane” graphically described on the recto (mounted on a ring shaped base) and verso of the folio. It is believed that this crane is the only machine by Brunelleschi still in use. Indeed, in the 1460s, it was employed to build the roof of the lantern, the elegant marble temple crowning the dome of the Cathedral, as many sources confirm, such as the celebrated painting–Three Archangels–by Biagio d’Antonio. Duly modified, the crane was also used to position the hollow gilded copper ball, surmounted by a cross, on top of the dome, marking the end of an enterprise which lasted 35 years. In 1436 the Opera del Duomo appointed Brunelleschi to design the lantern and direct its construction. After Brunelleschi’s death in 1446, his work was continued by Michelozzo di Bartolomeo, Antonio Manetti Ciaccheri, Bernardo Rossellino and Tommaso Succhielli. In 1468, Andrea del Verrocchio was commissioned to make the great golden ball. On 27th May, 1471 he installed it on the peak of the lantern. Leonardo was an eye witness to this daring operation, and perhaps took part as an assistant.

Other folios, both from the “Codex Atlanticus” and other manuscripts, testify to Leonardo’s lasting and vivid recollections of the Cathedral and especially of the dome. This can be seen from his sketches of domes and temples with a central plan, as well as the construction details inspired by the “fishbone” technique of bricklaying, typical of Florence and especially of Brunelleschi.

4.2 A Device by Brunelleschi (folio 909 verso)

The number “467”, written in the bottom-left corner of the verso, precedes the use of the folio by Leonardo and shows the paper came from an account book of the Cathedral of Milan.

While meticulously planning an underwater military action, including the study of a diving suit and how it could work, Leonardo mentions a device which is certainly of Florentine origin. On the left column, near the drawing of the keel of a ship, one can indeed read the words, “One should bring one of the 3 iron screws of the works of Santa Liberata. Plaster mould and wax cast”. Leonardo counted on copying a device existing at the site of Santa Maria del Fiore: a plaster mould should be created and wax poured into it, to prepare the casting of the screw in alloy steel. The screw which Leonardo intended to use for warfare was certainly a component of one or more of the many machines invented by Brunelleschi and put to work when he was directing the construction of the great dome, vaulted between 1420 and 1436, and then of the lantern, until his death in 1446. Brunelleschi’s devices were such an innovation and improvement to the operation of large and complex sites, that their inventor was awarded an extra 100 florins. Still to be found at the site of Santa Maria del Fiore, they were certainly visible to craftsmen there, including Leonardo, who in the “Codex Atlanticus” and in other folios took note of stretchers, hoists, mobile cranes, as well as the great revolving crane which could move weights horizontally thanks to Achimedes’ screw.

This material legacy of Filippo Brunelleschi (who, as is well known, avoided making drawings) contributed to the progress of technology applied to constructions and to educating the following generations of Florentine and Tuscan engineers, among whom Leonardo played a leading role.

4.3 The Canal of Florence (folio 126 verso)

Ever since the 1490s, Leonardo had been developing studies on building canals. On the recto of the folio, Leonardo studies a siphon system to bring water to certain heights, overcoming the differences in height of the terrain, and how to use carts to carry material taken from the bottom of a ditch filled with water.

On the verso, Leonardo develops the project called, in his handwriting, “Canal for Florence“. In the three drawings, the water system is seen from many points of view: on top, the profile of the dykes; in the centre, a partial view from above of the river crossed by a bridge-canal above its course with three arches; below, the same canal seen with the dip in a frontal position, going over the river with four arches. A note tells when to undertake the excavation, from mid-March to mid-June, since “farmers, being outside their ordinary working period, can be found cheaply and the days are long and the heat does not tire them out”.

Giorgio Vasari recalled that Leonardo “was the first, when still a youth, to speak of the river Arno to make in it a canal from Pisa to Florence”. Actually, the idea had been around ever since the terrible flood of 1333, but nothing had ever been conceived which could be compared to the grandiose and revolutionary project by Leonardo, which called for deviating a large part of the waters of the Arno into a navigable canal towards Prato and Pistoia, up to the Val di Nievole and the swamps of Fucecchio, reaching the natural course of the river at Vicopisano and from there the sea. In other variants, the project also involves the area of Lucca (“Codex Atlanticus”, folio 1271). In the idea of the Canal of Florence, besides taming the waters and preventing floods, several different goals were involved: creating an efficient alternative way of communication, reclaiming the land and facilitating productive activities and trade. To build the Canal, pharaonic earth movement and even tunnelling through a mountain, the Serravalle, would have been needed. Leonardo designed excavating machines, drew up working plans, calculated costs, etc., but everything remained on paper.

4.4 Savonarola (folio 628 recto)

The folio contains a study on fortification, a note by another hand referring to Savonarola addressed to Leonardo and two geometrical sketches.

On the recto, there is a note by another hand which is not that of Leonardo: “A memorandum to Master Leonardo to soon have the note on the state of Florence, viz. [it is permitted to see] how the Reverend Father brother Jeronimo has kept the state of Florence/also the orders and expressed form of every law, in order concerning the way and order in which they have been and are observed to the present”.

The “frate Jeronimo” mentioned is without doubt the Dominican from Ferrara, Girolamo Savonarola, who had been preaching since the 1480s in the convent of San Marco and, having permanently returned to Florence in 1490, had inflamed and excited the whole city with his violent sermons, driven by demands for reforming the Church against Pope Alexander VI. Excommunicated, he was burnt at the stake in 1498. After the Medici were driven out in 1494, in the city occupied by the army of the French king Charles VIII, Savonarola set up a republican government with theocratic inspiration and large popular participation. To this end, he had a large hall built to host the “Great Council” in the Palace of Priors (Palazzo Vecchio), according to the project by Simone del Pollaiolo known as Il Cronaca. A possible interpretation of the memo ties it to Leonardo’s role as one of the experts Il Cronaca consulted in 1495, according to Vasari (1568).

It has also been suggested that Leonardo may have been asked–probably by someone resident in Milan–to obtain a copy of a text by Savonarola: depending on the date of the folio, it could be the treatise on the regime and government of the city of Florence of 1497 – 1498, or a summary note on the government of the Florentine Republic. If Leonardo did actually return briefly to Florence in 1495, he could have been directly exposed to the apocalyptic sermons of the Dominican friar and been strongly impressed by them, as he reveals in his “prophetic” writings and drawings of complicated and mysterious allegories.

4.5 Description of the Battle of Anghiari (folio 202a recto)

This densely written page, not by Leonardo himself, contains a summary of the historical events of the Battle of Anghiari fought on 29th June, 1440 between the armies of Florence and Milan: a glorious episode in the history of Florence, celebrated by the Chancellor Leonardo Dati in his poem Trophaeum Anglaricum. This chronicle was the base for the summary, transcribed here, which the clerk Agostino Vespucci made available to Leonardo on orders from Gonfaloniere Pier Soderini. It was the latter who in 1503 ordered the great mural which da Vinci engaged in painting in the Hall of the Five Hundred in the Palazzo Vecchio, opposite to that of the Battle of Cascina–a Florentine victory over the Pisans on 28th July, 1364–by Michelangelo.

The story is well known. Both artists, at the peak of their career, abandoned the project. Michelangelo never went beyond the preparatory cartoon, while Leonardo, after preparing drawings and cartoons, according to his biographers, began working on the wall, but soon had to stop, because of the damage his innovative techniques made to the painting. In his Battle, Leonardo put the episode of the Struggle for the Standard at the centre, a scene Vasari remembered as a “knot of horses“. In fact, in Leonardo’s interpretation, the clash between Francesco and Niccolò Piccinino on the Milanese side and Ludovico Scarampo Mezzarota and Pietro Giampaolo Orsini on the Florentine side (which took place near a bridge over a brook) became a knot of violent actions, where the four captains are intertwined with their horses, while three foot soldiers below them fight and flee.

Vespucci’s summary not only provides the names of the captains and the composition of the armies, but also describes the location–”the country, that is hills, fields and a valley irrigated by a river; and he saw Niccolò Picci[ni]no come with his people, amidst a cloud of dust, from Borgo Santo Sepolcro”; “here, at the bridge, a great fight to place”–and facial features such as “Napoleone Orsino, a beardless youth”. Leonardo’s invention, greatly admired, is known to us from the master’s own preparatory drawings, from copies that his contemporaries made of the unfinished painting or of his preparatory cartoon before they vanished, and from a number of later revisitations of those works.

4.6 Santa Maria Nuova (folio 196 verso)

The a few lines written on folio 196 verso focus on two sides of Leonardo’s private life: his family affections and the management of his wealth.

“On Wednesday at 7 o’clock Piero da Vinci died on the 9th of July 1504”, and “Wednesday around 7” contain the memory of the death of his father: a brief commemoration, as was the style in those days, but strongly felt, so much that he corrected the hour and even a mistake in the day, which was the 10th instead of the 9th.

A note on money drawn from the bank, “Friday on the 9th of August 1504, I take 10 ducats from the bank” refers to a city institution, the Spedale di Santa Maria Nuova, which also carried out financial activities. It was there that Leonardo, like other citizens, deposited his earnings, as well as the precious items when travelling.

When he moved to France, he withdrew his belongings, but left the money, which in his will he gave to his half-brothers. The Spedale, which the painter, illuminator and goldsmith Marco di Bartolomeo Rustici called “splendour of the world” (“Codex Rustici”), was a well-organised structure which for two centuries had been providing health care and support. Permitted to observe patients and study corpses there, Leonardo was able to perform dissections, as can be seen from the extraordinary anatomical drawings dedicated to every part of the human body. The artist performed dissections in Milan and Rome too, but he only mentions the hospital in Florence where he experimented. In a lively memory, noted down on one of the Windsor folios, Leonardo describes the painless death of a centenarian, adding: “And I performed an anatomy on him, to see the reason for such a sweet death”.

4.7 Botticelli (folio 331 recto)

On the recto, the folio contains a list of 33 items (people and things), a note on mechanics, notes on optics and perspective, a sketch of the bust of a man, and a faintly outlined wooden structure. On the verso are various notes on optics, perspective and astronomy, with diagrams, two sketches representing a saddle with bags to hold items and sections of a round fortress; a different hand wrote “Salai” three times on it.

On the recto, there’s an interesting short note (as you can see in the 2nd picture above): “Sandro, you do not say why these second things appear to be lower than the third”. Leonardo da Vinci was writing notes on optics and perspective, and struck by a sudden thought, he writes on the margin of the folio this criticism, which is agreed to refer to Sandro Botticelli. The two artists had known each other since the 1470s, when Leonardo was the assistant of Andrea del Verrocchio and Botticelli, seven years older, had become an independent painter after studying under Filippo Lippi. Over the years, they had occasional disagreements and opportunities for rivalry. Here, Leonardo is accusing Sandro of not being able to explain why he departs from the rules of artificial perspective demonstrated by Filippo Brunelleschi nearly a century before, which had become a stable part of the way painters, not only in Florence, worked.

After returning to Florence in 1503, Leonardo perhaps saw some recent paintings by Botticelli, now far removed from the splendour of the times of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and marked by the spiritual anguish of Savonarola. For example, in the Mystical Nativity (1500, National Gallery, London) and in the Holy Trinity (Courtauld Institute Galleries, London), Botticelli distributed figures in space paying no attention to the logic of proportional relations between far and near. It was this emotional and irrational vision that evoked Leonardo’s disapproval.

4.8 The Flight (folio 186 verso)

The folio, densely covered with writing on both sides, contains studies on birds’ flight. The texts are grouped into paragraphs, illustrated by small diagrams of forces and figures of flying birds.

On the recto, the text opens with the memory called “of the kite“: “To write so clearly about kites seems to be my fate, because the first memory of my childhood is that, it seemed to me I was in my cradle, and a kite came to me and opened my mouth with his tail, and repeatedly struck me with it inside my lips”. Sigmund Freud, father of psychoanalysis, made this note famous in 1910 when he published “Leonardo da Vinci, A Memory of His Childhood”, where he claims it’s not a true memory, but a fantasy built later. The sentence is also seen as a self-fulfilling prophecy–”seems to be my fate”–to emphasise the role of discoverer of the mechanisms for achieving the goal of human flight.

4.9 The Arno River (folio 201 verso)

The themes dealt with in the notes concern the “Accidents of movements of waters”, a topic Leonardo evidently intended to dedicate a systematic treatise to with observations on riverbeds, currents, waves, transport of debris, dykes, the power of erosion of water and water control works. The treatise was never actually written. The Kiddle of Ognissanti (as you can see in the 2nd picture above), which still exists today but is known as Santa Rosa, was one of the ancient crossings of the Arno inside the city, together with the upstream one of San Niccolò, then called “pescaia della Giustizia”. Leonardo illustrates it (in the middle of the verso) to comment different ways water falls: “They do not make reflected motion”, “droplets are not separate”, “they split up”, “below the air they pierce each other” and “below the air they strike each other without piercing”.

The folio with the table of contents dates from 1505 – 1506, when Leonardo was studying the Arno basin most intensely. They are crucial themes in the reflection on the hydrogeology of Tuscany, which Leonardo studied meticulously between 1502 and 1504. On this basis, Leonardo developed grandiose projects, ranging from military engineering to the creation of imposing hydraulic works to improve navigability of the Arno, reducing the risk of overflow while reclaiming large swampy areas.

Small and large scale maps made in those years, accurate and at the same time spectacular, show the complex territorial variety of the Arno Valley, where the hydrographic element is fundamental. It is in fact the river that models and transforms the territory, with its continuous movement from source to sea. With a painter’s sensitivity, Leonardo broke cartographic conventions, introducing the rendering of the altitude of hills and mountains and the depth of sea, river and lake.

4.10 St. John (folio 489 recto)

On the recto, with the folio upside down, one can see a light drawing in black pencil of a hand, with raised forefinger: this is not an autograph work, but should be attributed to a disciple who copied, with some uncertainty, a typical gesture. Above this weak sketch, Leonardo drew geometrical studies, two dogs and a horse.

An upraised hand repeatedly appears in Leonardo’s works: in the Adoration of the Magi in the Uffizi, in Thomas the Apostle in the Last Supper in Milan, in the Burlington House Cartoon of Saint Anne in the National Gallery in London and in the lost composition of the Announcing Angel seen by Vasari in Florence (1568). The expressive and prophetic gesture is especially characteristic of the iconography of John the Baptist, the patron saint of Florence to whom Leonardo dedicated one of his greatest masterpieces. We are talking about the painting of St. John the Baptist as a youth (Louvre, Paris), believed to have been begun in Florence around 1508 and finished around 1517 in France, where it had been brought by Leonardo himself, together with other paintings, manuscripts and drawings, when he moved to the court of Francis I. In the Château du Clos Lucé, assigned by the king to Leonardo and his followers, the painting was seen by Cardinal Luigi d’Aragona, who was on a mission to France in October 1517 with his secretary Antonio de Beatis, who also remembered the Saint Anne in the Louvre and a “Florentine woman” believed to be the Mona Lisa, calling the three paintings “most perfect“.

4.11 The Medici Family

Folio 252 recto

Around sixty years old, Leonardo went back under the patronage of the Medici, the powerful family which had protected him during his youth, at the time of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Together with Lorenzo’s seventh son Giuliano, he went to Rome to the court of Giuliano’s brother Leo X. However, the Roman experience gave few results; after Giuliano’s death in 1516, Leonardo accepted Francis I’s invitation to France, where he died on 2nd May, 1519. Folio 252 r contains the notes for a letter to Giuliano (we do not know whether it was actually sent) complaining of the disloyalty of a craftsman, Giovanni Tedesco or “degli Specchi” (of the mirrors), who accepted jobs from others: “I ascertained that he works for everybody and keeps shop for the people; therefore I do not want him to work on commission for me, I want him to be paid only for the work he does for me; since he has his shop and home from the Magnificent, he should do first of all the work he has to do for the Magnificent”.

In those years, Leonardo also worked at the service of Giuliano’s nephew, Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici. For Lorenzo, who was responsible for staging the part organised by the Florentine nation of the events in Lyon to honour Francis I in 1515, Leonardo prepared an automaton lion which moved some steps and opened its chest, full of fleurs-de-lys.

Folio 429 recto

It is hard to understand the bitter note on folio 429 r: “The medici [which may mean either doctors or the Medici family] created and destroyed me“. It is not clear whether Leonardo’s resentment was addressed to clumsy healers or showing a feeling of disappointment with the Florentine family. But if both doctors and the Medici had the power to “destroy” him, who could have “created” him? A possible explanation comes from the history of medicine. The Medici had offered him opportunity and protection, so much that he could consider himself a “creature” of theirs, whereas doctors did not “create” children by helping them come to light, because childbirth, at the time, was something in which only women were involved.

4.12 Head of Christ the Redeemer by Gian Giacomo Caprotti, known as Salai

This single painting, bestowed upon the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana as a gift, presents the iconic image of the Redeemer, in a frontal view, with a red hemmed dress and blue mantle, on which his long curly hair rests, framing his gentle face with an intense and unforgettable gaze. Thanks to the ancient inscription, which you can see in the bottom-left corner of the panel, the painting is associated with Gian Giacomo Caprotti, Leonardo’s favourite assistant, who followed the master for 24 years. Leonardo nicknamed him Salaino or Salai after the devil whose fury is mentioned in the poem “Morgante” by Luigi Pulci (1478). The writing in gold leaf on the panel, “FE SALAI/1511 DINO”, is significant, though diagnostic investigation has left several questions unanswered. In the area of the inscription, indeed, each letter is crossed by a crevice which is consistent with the painting and appears to be coeval, but digital imagery in ultraviolet fluorescence (later processed in “false colours”) has revealed that the background on which the words “SALAI” and “DINO” are applied, presents extensive abrasion, which is not to be found in the area with the writing “FE”  and “1511”. This means something was removed from there and replaced with what we read, in a time which–considering the consistency of the crevices–could not be later than ten years after the work was made. So, on one hand this fascinating Redeemer appears to be the only certain proof of Salai’s artistic activity, of his capability of making Leonardo’s subtle pictorial skills his own by imitating his refined technique. On the other hand it remains mysterious because the area which bears his name has been tampered with.

The date of 1511, which is certain, was a special year in the life of Leonardo, due to the war between Milan and France that forced him together with Salai to take refuge in Vaprio d’Adda, in the villa of his young collaborator Francesco Melzi. The Redeemer came out of that breeding ground of knowledge and creativity, where Melzi and Salai, different by culture and social position, competed with each other for Leonardo’s attention and affection.


My this visit to Palazzo Vecchio was rich in history and culture, in which the itinerary to track down the lost painting by Leonardo da Vinci–Battle of Anghiari–was both curious and awe-inspiring. Though some scholars believe the original might still be hidden behind Vasari’s fresco of the Battle of Marciano, as of now, we can’t determine whether there are actually any residual traces. Thanks to the special tour, the Battle’s faithful copy and influences on Leonardo’s contemporaries and artists of the following generations together with the detailed introductions on the info boards on site helped form a vivid picture in my mind. As for the temporary exhibition dedicated to Leonardo’s many-sided and often contradictory relationship with Florence, the 12 chosen folios were not as impressive as some other folios from the “Codex Atlanticus”, such as the designs of some war machines and civil engineering projects which I saw in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan, but the rationale behind their selection was eye-opening, which not only talked about the content of each folio but also introduced the general cultural and historical background in which they were written. At the beginning, I was a bit overwhelmed by the information because there was so much, but after immersing myself in the late-15th – early-16th century Florence, I began to see it as Leonardo had seen it.

Leonardo da Vinci and Florence: Tracking Down the Battle of Anghiari & Selected Pages from the Codex Atlanticus was last modified: December 2nd, 2019 by Dong

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