Leonardo and the Last Supper (57 page)

8
M. T. Fiorio, ed.,
Le Chiese di Milano
(Milan: Electa, 1985), 308–9.

9
Richter, ed.,
The Literary Works
, vol. 2, §1403.

10
One member of the family, Niccolò de’ Carissimi da Parma, possibly Alessandro’s father, had served as Francesco Sforza’s envoy to Florence in the time of Cosimo de’ Medici. See Rab Hatfield, “Some Unknown Descriptions of the Medici Palace in 1459,”
Art Bulletin
52 (September 1970): 232.

11
Richter, ed.,
The Literary Works
, vol. 1, §667.

12
Carlo Vecce,
Leonardo
, 156.

13
Pastor,
A History of the Popes
, vol. 5, 285.

14
See Vecce,
Leonardo
, 156.

15
Antonio de Beatis, quoted in Pedretti,
Studies for
“The Last Supper,” 145. Beatis and Cardinal Luigi of Aragon visited Leonardo in Amboise before seeing
The Last Supper
in Milan in 1517.

16
Richter, ed.,
The Literary Works
, vol. 2, §§ 716 and 717.

17
Quoted in Arnaldo Bruschi,
Bramante
(London: Thames and Hudson, 1977), 177.

18
Richter, ed.,
The Literary Works
, vol. 2, §1427. Bramante’s book is
Antiquarie prospettiche Romane
, a collection of four hundred verses on the antiquities of Rome composed about 1500. The author is identified only as “prospectiuo Melanese depictore” (Milanese perspective painter) but is widely regarded as having been Bramante, who often recited his poetry at the Sforza court. For an argument in favor of his authorship, see Carlo Pedretti,
Leonardo: Architect
, trans. Sue Brill (London: Thames and Hudson, 1986), 116.

19
Richter, ed.,
The Literary Works
, vol. 2, §1427.

20
Charles Robertson, “Bramante, Michelangelo and the Sistine Ceiling,”
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes
49 (1986): 105.

21
This proverb forms the basis for an insult by Michelangelo, who, shown a painting of a bull by an artist whom he disliked, replied, “Every painter paints himself well.”

22
McMahon, ed.,
Treatise on Painting
, vol. 1, 86.

23
For good discussions of automimesis, see Frank Zöllner,
Leonardo da Vinci, 1452–1519: The Complete Paintings and Drawings
(Cologne, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Paris, Toronto: Taschen, 2003), 134–55; and Philip Lindsay Sohm,
The Artist Grows Old: The Aging of Art and Artists in Italy, 1500–1800
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 41–43.

24
Richter, ed.,
The Literary Works
, vol. 1, §587.

25
Quoted in Zöllner,
Leonardo da Vinci
, 134. Zöllner writes that there can be “no doubt that Visconti’s rhetoric is aimed directly at Leonardo.” See also the discussion (and translation) in Martin Kemp, “Science and the Poetic Impulse,” in Michael W. Cole, ed.,
Sixteenth-Century Italian Art
(Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 97–98. Kemp likewise argues that Leonardo is the butt of this “humorously critical poem” (p. 95).

26
See Pedretti,
Commentary
, vol. 1, 377.

27
Bramly,
Leonardo
, 24.

28
This latter self-portrait was first presented by the scientific journalist Piero Angela on the Italian television program
Ulysses
, broadcast on 28 February 2009. It has since found acceptance from scholars such as Carlo Pedretti.

29
For the dating, see Clayton,
Leonardo da Vinci
, 112.

30
Edward MacCurdy,
Leonardo da Vinci
(London: George Bell, 1908), 35.

31
Leonardo’s drawing and descriptions of the play are found on a sheet of paper in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York,
Allegorical Design (recto), Stage Design (verso)
(17.142.2). For a description of Taccone’s play, see Martin Kemp,
Leonardo da Vinci: The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man
, rev. ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 154.

32
See Pedretti,
Leonardo: Architect
, 28–29. Pedretti dates Leonardo’s submarine designs to 1483–85.

33
Domenica Laurenza,
Leonardo’s Machines: Secrets and Inventions in the Da Vinci Codices
(Florence-Milan: Giunti, 2005), 31.

34
Laurenza,
Leonardo’s Machines
, 34.

35
For a discussion, see Kemp,
Marvellous Works
, 105.

36
Richter, ed.,
The Literary Works
, vol. 2, §1123.

37
See the discussion in Laurenza,
Leonardo’s Machines
, 46–53.

38
See Laurenza,
Leonardo’s Machines
, 54–61.

39
The pair of wings appears in
Codex Atlanticus
, folio 844r; see Laurenza,
Leonardo’s Machines
, 62–69. Leonardo’s plans for a test flight are given in
Codex Atlanticus
, folio 361v-b. For discussions of this passage, see Carlo Pedretti, ed.,
Leonardo da Vinci, Codex Atlanticus: A Catalogue of Its Newly Restored Sheets
(Milan: Giunti, 1979), part 2, 232; idem.,
Commentary
, vol. 1, 220–22; and Kemp,
Marvellous Works
, 105–6.

40
Quoted in Lynn White Jr., “Eilmer of Malmesbury, an Eleventh-Century Aviator: A Case Study of Technological Innovation, Its Context and Tradition,”
Technology and Culture
2 (Spring 1961): 98.

41
Quoted in White, “Eilmer of Malmesbury,” 103.

42
Richter, ed.,
The Literary Works
, vol. 2, §1484.

43
Quoted in Bramly,
Leonardo
, 286.

44
Quoted in Pedretti,
Commentary
, vol. 1, 221.

45
White notes (p. 103) that no account of this story predates 1648. If true, the episode can be dated to February 1498, since it supposedly took place during the wedding celebrations of the mercenary Bartolommeo d’Alviano and Pantasilea Baglioni, sister of the lord of Perugia.

46
Pedretti,
Commentary
, vol. 1, 220–21. Pedretti writes, “There seems to be no doubt that Leonardo had made some attempt to fly” (p. 220).

47
Richter, ed.,
The Literary Works
, vol. 2, §1125.

48
Ibid., vol. 2, §1428). See the discussion of this passage in Domenico Laurenza,
Leonardo: On Flight
(Florence-Milan: Giunti, 2004), 64.

Chapter 10

1
Richter, ed.,
The Literary Works
, vol. 1, §55.

2
Claire J. Farago, ed.,
Leonardo da Vinci’s “Paragone
” (Brill: Leiden, 1992), 207; Richter, ed.,
The Literary Works
, vol. 1, §52.

3
Ibid., vol. 1, §102.

4
Alberti,
On the Art of Building in Ten Books
, 305; and Kim Williams, “Verrocchio’s Tombslab for Cosimo de’ Medici: Designing with a Mathematical Vocabulary,” in Kim Williams, ed.,
Nexus: Architecture and Mathematics
(Florence: Edizioni dell’Erba, 1996), 193–205.

5
Thomas Brachert, “A Musical Canon of Proportion in Leonardo da Vinci’s
Last Supper
,”
Art Bulletin
53 (December 1971): 464.

6
Brachert, “A Musical Canon of Proportion,” 464. See also Kemp,
Marvellous Works
, 185.

7
Quoted in Kemp,
Marvellous Works
, 166.

8
Lives of the Artists
, 262–63. On Borso d’Este, see Baxandall,
Painting and Experience
, 1.

9
Vasari,
Lives of the Artists
, 263.

10
Ibid., 206.

11
Cited in Mrs. Charles W. Heaton,
Leonardo da Vinci and His Works
(London: Macmillan, 1874), 32, note 3.

12
Vasari,
Lives of the Artists
, 262. For the conservation, see Marani, “Leonardo’s
Last Supper
,” 18.

13
John F. Moffitt,
Painterly Perspective and Piety: Religious Uses of the Vanishing Point, from the 15
^th
to the 18
^th
Century
(Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008), 170.

14
On ultramarine, see Cennini,
The Book of the Art of Cennino Cennini
, 47 and 50; and Merrifield,
The Art of Fresco Painting
, xxxvi. For rents in Florence, see Richard A. Goldthwaite,
The Economy of Renaissance Florence
(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), 462. For Leonardo’s use of ultramarine, see Barcilon, “The Restoration,” 424 and 426.

15
Quoted in Merrifield,
The Art of Fresco Painting
, 58. For Leonardo’s technique of painting Christ’s garment, see Matteini and Moles, “A Preliminary Investigation,” 129 and 131.

16
See Rush Rhees, “Christ in Art,”
Biblical World
6 (December 1895): 490–503.

17
“Exposition on Psalm 133,” §6, in
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers
, 1st ser., vol. 8, trans. J. E. Tweed, ed. Philip Schaff (Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888).

18
Gerhard Wolf, “From Mandylion to Veronica: Picturing the Disembodied Face and Disseminating the True Image of Christ in the Latin West,” in Herbert L. Kessler and Gerhard Wolf, eds.,
The Holy Face and the Paradox of Representation: Papers from a Colloquium Held at the Biblioteca Hertziana, Rome and the Villa Spelman, Florence, 1996
(Bologna: Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1998), 153–79. For a discussion of the face of Christ, see Martin Kemp,
Christ to Coke: How Image Becomes Icon
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 13–43.

19
Quoted in Baxandall,
Painting and Experience
, 57.

20
Lorenzo Valla,
On the Donation of Constantine
, trans. G. W. Bowersock (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 60.

21
George Eliot,
Romola
, ed. Andrew Sanders (London: Penguin, 1980), 75; and Sarah Lipton,
Images of Intolerance: The Representation of Jews and Judaism in the Bible moralisée
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 20.

22
Quoted in Ottavia Niccoli,
Prophecy and People in Renaissance Italy
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 93–94. On the beard as a sign of otherness, see Barbara Wisch, “Vested Interest: Redressing Jews on Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling,”
Artibus et Historiae
24 (2003): 148. On Agyropoulos, see Deno John Geanakoplos,
Constantinople and the West
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 111.

23
Richter, ed.,
The Literary Works
, vol. 2, §§986, 987 and 837.

24
Aimé Guillon de Montléon,
Le cénacle de Léonard de Vinci rendu aux amis des Beaux-Arts dans le tableau aujourd’hui chez un citoyen de Milan
(Milan and Lyon: Dumolard, 1811), 70.

25
Richter, ed.,
The Literary Works
, vol. 2, §1305.

26
Pedretti,
Commentary
, vol. 1, 384–85. Pedretti adds, “No such document is to be found in the archives of the church” (p. 384).

27
See Katharine Park, “The Criminal and the Saintly Body: Autopsy and Dissection in Early Renaissance Italy,”
Renaissance Quarterly
47 (Spring 1994): 1–33, and Antonio Benivieni,
De abditis nonnullus ac mirandis morborum et sanatorium causis
(Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1954).

28
Stephen Jay Gould,
Leonardo’s Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms: Essays on Natural History
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 26, 28.

29
Richter, ed.,
The Literary Works
, vol. 2, §910.

30
Ibid., vol. 2, §886.

31
Pedretti,
Commentary
, vol. 2, 127.

32
Richter, ed.,
The Literary Works
, vol. 2, §858.

33
Pedretti,
Commentary
, vol. 2, 128.

34
Martin Kemp, personal e-mail communication, 1 January 2012.

35
Vasari,
Lives of the Artists
, 270.