An exhibition on Leonardo's anatomical studies in Vinci

What was Leonardo da Vinci ’s working method and what was the activity like in his workshop while he was painting the Salvator Mundi in the first two decades of the 16th century? This is told by the exhibition Leonardo’s Anatomical Drawing at the Time of the Salvator Mundi at the Museo Leonardiano di Vinci in the Conti Guidi Castle, which opened Saturday, June 24, at the Biblioteca Leonardiana and can be visited until Dec. 23. Protagonists of the exhibition, curated by Professor Pietro C. Marani of the Milan Polytechnic, among the leading scholars of Leonardo, with the collaboration of Dr. Roberta Barsanti of the Museo Leonardiano and Professor Marco Gaiani of the Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, are two anatomical drawings.

They are Myology of Lower Limbs, Three Legs by Leonardo da Vinci, red chalk with reinforced outlines in pen and brown ink on paper prepared in red, datable between 1506 and 1508, and Study of a Small Figure and Male Half-Bust and Study of Purely Male Legs by Leonardo and Workshop(pictured), in pen, brown ink and traces of charcoal on paper, datable between 1510 and 1513. The first, from the Veneranda Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan allows visitors to compare autograph drawings and copies made from the early 16th century onward. The second, recently rediscovered and owned by the Civic Cabinet of Drawings of Milan’s Castello Sforzesco, depicts copies from Leonardo’s anatomical drawings and on the back of the sheet, the inscription Salvator Mundi. This work offers the key to enter Leonardo’s workshop and unveil an articulated and complex context of production, which adds new and important pieces to the story of the enigmatic painting.

Accompanying visitors into the universe of the Genius’ atelier are then a series of multimedia installations, touch tables made with ISLe technology developed by the University of Bologna that allow visitors to project themselves within Leonardo’s small, dense sheets, to discover what the naked eye cannot possible to observe, or visual machines that show affinities and differences between drawings characterized by the same subject (making it clear that the copies were not simply didactic exercises or replicas of the master’s originals, but also variants due to different uses), and interactive teaching tables that allow visitors to retrace the constructive stages of the drawing.

The exhibition will also feature a presentation of drawing tools and the reconstruction of how these drawings were made.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog published by Bologna University Press.

For all information, you can visit the official website of the Museo Leonardiano.

An exhibition on Leonardo's anatomical studies in Vinci

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