Livorno will have a nearly €1 million exhibition on Leonardo da Vinci

What does Leonardo da Vinci have to do with Livorno? Little or nothing, but the topic evidently does not interest the city administration, which still intends to focus on blockbuster exhibitions: after the operation on Banksy (which on these pages received a sharp rebuke), now Livorno is throwing itself on the Renaissance with an exhibition worth almost a million euros (to be precise 905.586 €: this is the expenditure quantified by the administration in a council resolution published yesterday on the municipal bulletin board), which will be entrusted to MetaMorfosi Eventi srl (the same entity that organized Banksy’s exhibition), will be titled Leonardo. Order, Beauty and Invention, will run from December 20, 2023 to April 1, 2024, and will be curated by Sara Taglialagamba. Venue of the exhibition will be the City Museum.

Costs are broken down as follows: 445.300 € are for the selection of works, payment of loan fees, transportation, assembly and disassembly of the works, exhibition design and graphic design, insurance of the artworks, texts in Italian and English for the exhibition set-up and communication, availability of the necessary images for the exhibition set-up, graphic line of the exhibition and communication, curatorship of the catalog, and travel of the curator and organizational staff. Another 460,286 euros is allocated for all operations for the organization of the exhibition with regard to the setting up of the artworks, lighting, printing catalogs, drafting condition reports, hall and control staff, printing of promotional materials, promotion and communication of the exhibition in cooperation with MetaMorfosi Eventi srl, and custody of the works. The entire budget will be borne by the City of Livorno. Tickets will cost 15 euros the full, 10 euros the reduced (for under 18, over 65, students, groups of at least 20 people) and 5 for school groups. The administration estimates that the exhibition will guarantee returns of 660,000 euros and MetaMorfosi will have a consideration of 365,000 euros plus VAT.

What will the public be able to see in the rooms of the former Bottini dell’Olio now home to the museum? The list of works has not been disclosed and the city administration is not leaking anything for now, making an appointment for a press conference on November 15 when details will be revealed. From what Councillor Simone Lenzi has said so far, it seems there will be about 10 designs, perhaps more, and it is not known what. There is also no word on whether the sheet, preserved at the Royal Collection, in which Leonardo da Vinci drew a section of the coast of Tuscany in which the city of Livorno is also pictured, will be present: the only, tenuous link between the artist and the city. “It goes without saying that he must have passed through here, right?” the alderman said in an interview with La Nazione a couple of weeks ago. Talk about designing an exhibition on solid ties to the territory....

Image: Leonardo da Vinci, Bird’s eye view of western Tuscany (c. 1503-1504; black chalk, pen and ink, brown and red watercolor on paper, 275 x 401 mm; Windsor, Royal Collection)

Livorno will have a nearly €1 million exhibition on Leonardo da Vinci

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