Italy will lend Leonardo's Vitruvian Man to France, French media reports indiscretion

In the end, theVitruvian Man, the most famous drawing by Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci, 1452 - Amboise, 1519), will be lent to France: the French media are sure of this, raising the indiscretion in the days that accompany the expected meeting between the culture ministers of Italy and France, Dario Franceschini and Franck Riester, who will meet tomorrow in Paris to sign the agreement that provides for an exchange of loans between the two countries. A number of Leonardo’s works preserved in Italy will go to Paris at the end of the year (they will be on display at the great Leonardo exhibition at the Louvre), while in 2020 France will reciprocate by sending some works by Raphael for the 500th anniversary of the Urbino artist’s death.

Official certainty is lacking at the moment, partly because the final word will rest with the director of the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice (where the work is kept), Giulio Manieri Elia. But according to Le Figaro newspaper, the museum is working to obtain the necessary permits for the move.

The Louvre exhibition will be held from October 24, 2019 to February 24, 2020, but from what we learn, theVitruvian Man will remain in France for only eight weeks (or at any rate not for the entire duration of the exhibition), after which it will return to the storage rooms of the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice: because of its delicacy, the work cannot in fact be exposed to light for too long.

The loan had long been opposed, both by various members of the cultural world and by the gialloverde government: instead, the new government has resumed negotiations that had been suspended, and the loan of Leonardo’s masterpiece will sanction the end of tension and reconciliation between the two countries. Thelast exhibition of theVitruvian Man was in the summer of this year and was held in its very home, the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice. The previous occasion, on the other hand, goes back to 2015, when the drawing was featured in the major exhibition on Leonardo organized in Milan’s Palazzo Reale. And since theVitruvian Man has been exhibited with unusual frequency in recent years, a rest in the dark is expected for him that is sure to last several years.

Image: Leonardo da Vinci, The Proportions of the Human Body According to Vitruvius - Vitruvian Man, detail (c. 1490; metal point, pen and ink, touches of watercolor on white paper, 34.4 x 24.5 cm; Venice, Gallerie dellAccademia)

Italy will lend Leonardo's Vitruvian Man to France, French media reports indiscretion

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