Vincian Codicil No. 2. Leonardo's Adoration of the Magi: an unfinished work?

Leonardo’sThe Adoration of the Magi, preserved in the Uffizi Gallery, is routinely qualified as an unfinished work, and the interruption of the work is tacitly linked to the move to Milan, although doubts remain as to the conjuncture that led the artist to leave the place of origin. We have no details of the journey, but the Codex Atlanticus has preserved a valuable list that is presumed to have been compiled on the occasion of the departure from Florence or the arrival in Lombardy: almost all images relating to the human figure, heads, nudes, many arms, legs, feet and attitudes, as well as certain San Girolami and a finished Nostra Donna. While the Madonna cannot be identified, it is possible instead that the San Girolamo included the panel now in the Pinacoteca Vaticana (fig. 1). Remaining in Florence, of course, was the Adoration, the large square panel commissioned from Leonardo in 1481 by the Augustinians destined for the main altar of the church of San Donato a Scopeto (fig. 2); after the removal of the author, and at an unspecified time, the work was placed in the Benci palace, as Vasari attests in the Life of the Giuntina edition. The execution of at least two effigies of Ginevra Benci, by Leonardo and by Verrocchio, and Leonardo’s own relations with Ginevra’s brother, Giovanni, attest to a concrete link with the family, and it is credible that the panel was kept with them, after Filippino Lippi had delivered the altarpiece that replaced that of the unsuccessful Leonardo in 1496.

A contamination between the iconographic schemes of the Nativity and the Adorationof the Magi had long been established on the subject: at a building where the Holy Family had found refuge (hut, ruined building, and variants) the Infant Child is surrounded by the Magi and a crowd of characters belonging to a high class, accompanied by horses and servants; a dilation of the procession of the wise men who had come from the East, in which the sacred and profane were associated with measure, and which in Florence comprised a series staggered between the first half and the end of the 15th century: from Gentile da Fabriano’s Strozzi altarpiece and tondi by Domenico Veneziano and Beato Angelico (with Filippo Lippi) to the better-known solutions of the last decades of the century (by Botticelli and Ghirlandaio, to exemplify). These are all works that project an event from sacred history into a contemporaneity evoked in theatrical form, and which, in relation to this, is enriched by forms of narrative digression related to the precedents of the Fugue, the virginal birth of Mary or the journey of the Magi.

1. Leonardo, Penitent Saint Jerome (Vatican City, Vatican Art Gallery).

2. Leonardo, Adoration of the Magi (Florence, Uffizi Gallery)

The Da Vinci painting has been the subject of a complex restoration and investigations conducted with the support of the most sophisticated technologies, and in-depth studies have analyzed the means and materials used by the artist, ascertaining their variety and complex stratification, drawing from this elements such as to suggest, albeit with questioning, that in the Adoration two interventions spaced out in time can be discerned. I think it is quite legitimate for those who have worked for a long time, with constant attention and lively participation, on the recovery of a work of such peculiar importance as the extraordinary sketch by Leonardo, to express their opinion on the results achieved, and nevertheless I believe that the aforementioned hypothesis requires a verification of a historical nature, extended to the whole of Leonardo’s activities. The contingency of a strong distancing in the workmanship of the work is supported in parallel by an authoritative scholar, Edoardo Villata, in a challenging framework that is worth discussing. Villata outlines a reconstruction of events by pointing to the multiple novelties of the Adoration, establishing comparisons with other vincian paintings, and even going so far as to outline an alternative Leonardo’s path to that fixed by the relevant literature: a sequence that, summarized succinctly, would place in order an early drafting of the Adoration (1480-81), the move to Milan, the Virgin of the Rocks, the Last Supper, and a second drafting of the Adoration in the early sixteenth century; it is difficult to venture a detailed distinction between the two interventions. A view that, according to the proposed comparisons, suggests a subterranean devaluation of the early Florentine Leonardo and an explicit valorization of the Lombard Leonardo; a distinction that does not benefit a correct approach to the problem, and that suffers from the survival of certain patterns: the attribution of an ascending charge to the path of each artist and the disavowal of the precocity of some, often the most gifted (Raphael is the most glaring case, not the only one). One certainly cannot ignore the scope of the studies that have highlighted the intellectual growth of the vincian from the 1980s onward, linked to his presence in Milan and contacts with representative personalities such as Bramante and Luca Pacioli, to name a few; and I have no reason to defend a priority of Tuscan figurative culture, to which Villata himself refers often and with sure competence, but I think it is opportune to recall an essential fact that characterizes Leonardo: in contradistinction to a kind of inconstancy and propensity for dispersion that tend to be attributed to him, the Vincian manifests in his multiform research activity a liveliness of interest and intent that is not strictly anchored to his movements, even if it is expressed through forms of varying depth. I will try to account for this with a few exemplifications, limiting my discourse to what the artist realized with visual language, without entering into the vast area from which he drew material for incursions pertinent to problems of mechanics, optics, anatomy and beyond. For the sake of synthesis, I will try to outline at least three of those main lines that I believe characterize Leonardo’s boasting of the stories, and which find multiple parallels in the Adorationof the Magi.

The famous Landscape on folio 8 P of the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe, to which a bibliography superior to that of the Adoration is due, bears a date, 1473, that corresponds to an early maturity of the artist, subsequent to his first interventions in painting; and there is expressed a Leonardo already confident in investigating reality by favoring a view from above, widening the visual field beyond the natural limit, as many qualified voices have indicated (fig. 3). Even the protagonist of the Adoration, the Christ Child, presupposes a relative who is in an elevated position, from which it is easy to grasp the rotation, almost the vaulting of the figurine, one hand raised to bless, the other reaching out, with human curiosity, toward the casket offered by one of the Magi (a brilliant iconographic invention that seems to me altogether ignored, or at any rate inadequately evaluated, fig. 4). The whole group of onlookers, scrutinized from different vantage points, recalls what was to be Leonardo’s research on Flight, and lattraction for lofty and ideally unattainable peaks, attested shorthandly by the rocky peaks present throughout his work. When, as a teenager, he breaks into the Baptism left in the middle in Verrocchio’s workshop, Leonardo discards the symmetry of the primitive set, introduces the wingless angel towering above his companion, and then breaks through the image in the center with a valley bordered by a chain of sharp peaks with steep slopes (fig. 5). Unusual forms for the morphology of the Tuscan territory, where they are quite rare, and therefore chosen with intention, and reproposed without caesura in the youthful drawings (also in sheet 8 P r/v) and paintings: in extended version in the Munich Madonna of the Carnation and in the Annunciation of the Uffizi(fig. 6), in reduced version in the St. Jerome and the Adorationof the Magi. Concomitantly, in this series, there emerges a tendency to innovate iconographic schemes, as will occur more openlyin thexploits of the Virgin of the Rocks and later outcomes. Needless to mention the assertion of a real orographic passion in the works and reflections of his maturity, of whose profound meanings others have already said acutely.

Another decisive feature of the vincian figurality hinges on the man and on the posture combined with the gesture, that is, an extension of the limbs that in some sketches is set in an alternative form (high/low, left/right); I call attention to the hands that advance from the bottom to extend or to support, with a concentration in the San Girolamo, where one arm is outstretched, the other brought back to the chest, and the bony knee heralds a vigorous lifting of the body. Hands and arms are also decisive protagonists in the Adoration, where the pattern set by tradition is shattered and reassembled without regard to the needs of devotion, and especially without regard to relevance to bodies. Worthy of note is the limiting example of the hand with the index finger pointing up, whose relationship to a character it would be vain to seek, since the same hand rises rootless from a dombra clot where men and horses converge (fig. 7, in the lower left-hand corner). These are forms that are easily found in later works and especially in the Last Supper, however, having clear the need to consider the demands posed by the difference in subjects. In the analogy between the left arm of St. Jerome, that of Cecilia Gallerani touching the lermine, or that of the Apostle Philip in the Last Supp er (figs. 8, 9, 10), one grasps the mastery and extraordinary adaptability of a master who constantly elaborated his own repertoire, but working around some primitive ideas without detaching himself from them completely, and above all with the intent to investigate and know put before the need to depict.

3. Leonardo, Landscape of 1473, detail (Florence, Uffizi Gallery, Prints and Drawings Cabinet, 8 P); 4. Leonardo, Adoration of the Magi, detail

5. Verrocchio and Leonardo, Baptism of Christ, detail (Florence, Uffizi Gallery); 6. Leonardo, Annunciation, detail (Florence, Uffizi Gallery); 7. Leonardo, Adoration of the Magi, detail

8. Leonardo, Penitent Saint Jerome, detail; 9. Leonardo, Last Supper, detail (Milan, Santa Maria delle Grazie); 10. Leonardo, Lady of the Hermine, detail (Krakow, Czartoryski Museum).

Finally, I would like to point out a third element peculiar to Leonardo’simagerie, namely, the commensuration of the energy of the human body with the broader and more widespread vitality of nature, that is, with the marvelous potential of animal organisms.

Lanalogy between man and lanimal that will lead Leonardo to the compilation of the Book on the Flight of Birds (1505) has a timely correspondence in the relationship between man and horse: a specific text probably existed there and is lost (A Book of Horses for Cardboard written by Leonardo around 1504), but the problematic knot survives in a large series of drawings dedicated to this theme. The horse, in which power and speed are associated in equal measure, constitutes, with the latleta who rides it, a physical and emotional whole that prompted Leonardo’s careful study from his earliest days; the drawings and especially theAdorationof the Magi also testify to a fact that has received little attention until now (figs. 11,12): both in a quiet situation, in the left part of the panel, and in movement, that is, in the episode of the fight located in the upper band, the vincian horseman appears naked or half-naked, does not avail himself of saddle and stirrups, and rides bareback on a horse without bridle and bit, which implies a close attunement with lanimal; in fact, it is a form of riding that is not easy, for which a full adherence of the rider to the horse’s body is indispensable. When he designed the Battaglia dAnghiari in 1503, Leonardo would continue along this path, and, in the grope of horses (Vasari) preserved by the famous Rubensian drawing (fig. 13), even the condottieri turn out to be without boots and spurs, just as the horses spontaneously participate in the fight despite being without bridles and harnesses. As I have pointed out in the past, rather than a realistic fight between two pairs of opposing condottieri, what Leonardo proposes is a clash between four centaurs.

To what has been said so far, history provides other material for reflection: not to dispute the stratification attested by the restoration, but to question a prolonged interval between two drafts and a marked gap between an ante and post-1482 Leonardo.

11.Leonardo, Adoration of the Magi, detail; 12. Leonardo, Horse and Rider (the same subject in two different views). Cambridge, Fitwilliam Museum; 13. Rubens, Copy from the cartoon of the Battaglia dAnghiari, detail (Paris, Louvre)

In the very early years of the sixteenth century the artist is engaged with Cesare Borgia, and only after the failure of this adventure (1502-1503) will he return to Florence to fulfill his commitments to the government of the city (1501), where he will remain more than two years, (1503-1506), working with feverish application (Galluzzi). He will be hosted with his helpers by the Servites of SS.Annunziata, and it is here that he will have an open-door workshop. This is said by some sources, but it is testified by the attention that some artists, and among the first Raphael, will reserve for the vincian workshop and the projects pertinent to two themes, an image of the Madonna with SantAnna (a uniconography in which divinity and natural maternity are synthesized), and a renewal of the structure of the portrait, in the perspective of what will be the Mona Lisa. Moreover, Leonardo wanted to prepare a large cartoon for the Battle, and he obtained to operate in a room reserved for that undertaking, the Sala del Papa in Santa Maria Novella, and there the operations that preceded the ill-fated attempt of the mural painting in the Palazzo Vecchio took place. But Pier Soderini had requested Leonardo’s return for other contributions, related to various needs of the area. Leonardo’s skills were well known, and he would carry out various inspections along the course of the Arno and on the coast, at the port of Piombino, drawing up maps whose loriginality Paolo Galluzzi has highlighted: Through bird’s-eye view Leonardo obtained such effective and innovative results that the traditional sharp distinction between cartographic and landscape drawing fell apart. An activity that saw him engaged as an expert in hydrogeological problems and as a military architect. At the same time, Leonardo carried on his studies of anatomy devoting himself to dissection at the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova: research of which Domenico Laurenza has reconstructed in an in-depth form the extension in time but also the strong scientific-philosophical commitment and the emotional participation.

The return to Florence at the beginning of the century was therefore characterized by a very intense, as well as branched, activity, and it is difficult to think that Leonardo could have operated as a painter in any other place than those mentioned, approaching a work interrupted twenty years earlier, and to resume it only partially, almost on a whim. An eventuality of which there is no trace in the dense draft of autograph notes.

Ultimately the issue is another, and scholars to whom valuable contributions are due, appropriately cited by Villata, had already mentioned it. If one considers the innovative effort of the dinsieme composition, where the components synchronize and overlap according to a profoundly different syntax than that successfully adopted by contemporaries; a composition in which few characters are recognizable and some episodes turn out beautifully isolated and independent... well, it seems impossible that Leonardo could have thought of proceeding further, and perhaps of coating with color that glimmering monochrome ensemble from which actions, emotions, and manifold suggestions are released: as will happen with the Scapiliata, and perhaps with the Naked Mona Lisa (before after the master’s death a pupil put his hands on it). Linterruzione there was, but I think we must respect what was a reasoned suspension of the artist, aware that he had conducted an experiment that went far beyond the professional commitment, a testimony that could propose itself as an opportunity for comparison and stimulation to a small circle of connoisseurs, but that, beyond that, few would be able to appreciate and above all share.

Essential Bibliography (1999-2019)

• P.C.Marani, Leonardo Una carriera di pittore, Milan 1999, pp.106-116 (reissued in 2019)
• Leonardo in Piombino, edited by A.Fara, A.Natali (essays by A.Fara, G.M. Fara, A.Natali), Florence 1999, pp.142-155
• F.Zöllner-J.Nathan, The perfection of drawing, in F.Zöllner, Leonardo da Vinci 1452-1519, All the paintings and drawings, Köln 2003
• E.Villata, Leonardo , Milan 2005
• Idem, Leonardo’s Adoration of the Magi. Reflections and Reflections, “Raccolta vinciana,” XXXII, 2007, pp.5-42.
• Idem, Leonardo’s Saint Anne between iconography, documents and style, “Iconographica,” XIV, 2015, pp. 153-16
• A.Natali and collaborators, Primordi della maniera moderna, in The Mind of Leonardo. In the workshop of the universal genius, Catalogue of the exhibition (Florence 2006-2007) edited by P.Galluzzi, Florence 2006, I, pp.63-101
• D.Laurenza, Studies on flight, in The Mind of Leonardo. At the Time of the Battle of Anghiari, Exhibition Catalogue (Florence 2006-2007), edited by Carlo Pedretti, Florence 2006, II, pp.156-165
• Idem, The Dissection of the "Old Man," in The Mind of Leonardo. At the Time of the Battle of Anghiari 2006, cit., pp.142-155
• P.Galluzzi, Studies of optics, mechanics and hydraulics in the Arundel Codex (1503-1506), in La mente di Leonardo. At the time of the Battle of Anghiari 2006, cit. pp.166-208
• A.Nova, "ADDI 5 DAGHOSSTO 1473," The Object and its Interpretations, in Leonardo da Vinci on nature. Knowledge and Representation, edited by F.Frosini and A.Nova, Venice 2013, pp. 285-381
• M.Versiero, Leonardo in “chiaroscuro” between Savonarola and Machiavelli, Mantua 2015.
• R.Bellucci, The Adoration of the Magi and the Times of Leonardo, in The Restoration of the Adoration of the Magi. The rediscovery of a masterpiece, edited by M.Ciatti-C.Frosinini, Florence 2017, pp.63-108.
• R.Bellucci-C.Frosinini, Leonardo. From the Pope’s Room to the Great Hall. Tempi, materiali e imprevisti, in La Sala grande di Palazzo Vecchio e la battaglia d’Anghiari, edited by R.Barsanti and collaborators, Florence 2019, pp.386-396.
• C.Bambach, Leonardo da Vinci rediscovered, New Haven&London 2019.

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