Vinci, tu victore
Vinci colle parole un proprio Cato…
Tal che dell arte tua ogni autore
Resta dal vostro stil vinto e privato.
[Vinci, you the victor conquer with words, like a true Cato… and through your skill all other authors find themselves defeated and outshone by your style.]
These lines perhaps refer to the debates and lectures of the ‘academy’.
Some believe the author of the Antiquarie is Donato Bramante, who is known to have turned his hand to satirical sonneteering; but Bramante was not Milanese. Other attributions are to Ambrogio de Predis, Bramantino, Bernardo Zenale, and the up-and-coming young architect Cesare Cesariano, whose later writings on Vitruvius include an engraved version of Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man with an erection. Of these only de Predis is likely to have called Leonardo his socio – partner or colleague; he is also known to have visited Rome at least once in the 1490s. The initials ‘P.M.’ which appear on the title-page presumably stand for ‘Prospectivo Melanese’, but could punningly stand for something like ‘Predis Mediolanensis’ as well.120 The title-page has a curious engraving, featuring a naked man down on one knee in a position reminiscent of Leonardo’s St Jerome. He holds a pair of compasses in his left hand and a sphere in his right hand, and he kneels inside a circle in which appear geometrical figures. In the background is part of a round colonnaded temple of the kind found in Paris MS B, and which is also associated with Bramante. The rocks in the background are perhaps a reminiscence of the Virgin of the Rocks. The accumulated references suggest the interests of the Milanese ‘academy’ – perspective, architecture, geometry, painting – and the whole tone suggests a coterie production for a private circle of intimates. It is possible that the ‘libro danticaglie’ (‘book of antiquities’) which appears in the Madrid book-list is a record of Leonardo’s own copy of it.
I would also relate to this sodality or academy Bramante’s enigmatic Men at Arms frescos, now in the Brera Gallery but formerly in the Casa Panigarola on Via Lanzone. The cycle featured seven standing figures in fictive niches, and a half-length portrait of two Greek philosophers, Democritus and Heraclitus. Only two of the standing figures survive entire: one is a courtier carrying a mace, the other a warrior in armour flourishing a large sword. The others, who have lost their lower halves, are harder to individuate, but one wearing a laurel wreath is clearly a poet, and another seems to be a singer. According to Pietro Marani, the cycle expresses a Neoplatonic idea of the ‘hero’, whose virtù comes from a tempering of physical force (the warriors with weapons) and spiritual elevation (the singer and the poet).121 The ‘LX’ monogram behind the philosophers may stand for lex, law, again with a Platonic overtone in which ‘law’ refers philosophically to the underlying harmonic order of things. The date of the frescos is uncertain, nor is it known who owned the house at the time they were painted there.122 The figures are comparable to Bramante’s fine panel painting Christ at the Column (also in the Brera), generally dated to the 1490s, and the philosophical tone seems to belong within the ambit of the ‘academy’.
My interest centres on that double portrait of the philosophers Democritus and Heraclitus, seated at a table with a large terrestrial globe between them. Their identities are signalled by their traditional attributes of laughter and tears. Democritus was said to have laughed at the follies of mankind, and Heraclitus was known as the ‘weeping philosopher’ because of his pessimistic view of the human condition. This painting has an even more precise connection back to the Ficinian academy, for a picture on exactly the same subject hung in what Ficino called the gymnasium, i.e. lecture-room, of the academy at Careggi. Ficino writes, in his Latin edition of Plato, ‘Have you seen, painted in my lecture-room, the sphere of the world with Democritus and Heraclitus either side of it? One of them is laughing and the other weeps.’123 Historically earlier than Plato, the two philosophers represent fundamentally opposite responses to the human condition – another dualism which the Platonic adept sought to rise above, or to ‘temper’ into equilibrium.
By the time of the fresco’s removal to the Brera, in 1901, the portrait of the two philosophers hung above a mantelpiece in the room containing the rest of the fresco, but an eighteenth-century description of the Casa Panigarola states that ‘Heraclitus and Democritus were to be seen above the door in the next room’, before being moved by the then owner into the frescoed room.124 So the picture was originally a kind of introduction to the Men at Arms fresco: as you walked towards that sumptuously decorated room, the two philosophers greeted you at the doorway, invited you in, and generally set the tone of the experience – that tone including, for those who knew about such things, a direct allusion to the imagery of the Florentine academy of Ficino.
According to Lomazzo, some of the figures in the Men at Arms were portraits of Milanese contemporaries. Technical analysis tends to confirm this: each of the heads constitutes a whole giornata (a day’s painting, measurable as a discrete area of plaster), which shows that Bramante was taking great care over their features. The philosophers certainly have a contemporary look. They do not have the usual attributes of ancient philosophers – no long beards or flowing antique robes. They are clean-shaven and, in the case of Heraclitus, in patently Renaissance costume. There is a good case for taking Democritus as a self-portrait. Comparison can be made with Raphael’s portrait of Bramante in the School of Athens fresco in the Vatican, where he appears as Euclid, and in a related chalk portrait in the Louvre. These show him round-faced and very bald. The School of Athens was painted in about 1509, more than a decade after the Panigarola fresco, but the generic resemblance is strong: one notes particularly the incipient baldness of Democritus.
If Democritus is Bramante, who is Heraclitus? It is surely his friend and fellow philosopher Leonardo da Vinci, whose fascination with flux and movement could be seen as parallel to the philosophy of Heraclitus (‘all things flow; nothing abides’), and whose general aura of mystery and wisdom might earn him the other epithet applied to Heraclitus, the ‘Dark One’.125
Two possible images of Leonardo in Milan. The philosopher Heraclitus, from a fresco by Donato Bramante (left), and the face of the Vitruvian Man.
There are further pointers to this identification. First, it has been noticed that the manuscript book on the desk in front of Heraclitus is written from right to left: the initial capital of the text is clearly shown at the top right-hand side of the page. Second, the depiction of the philosophers accords precisely with Leonardo’s own instructions in the Trattato della pittura: ‘He who sheds tears raises his eyebrows at their juncture and draws them together, producing wrinkles between and above them, and the corners of his mouth are turned down; but he who laughs has the corners of his mouth turned up, and his brows are open and relaxed.’126 It is also notable that in a later Milanese painting of Heraclitus and Democritus, attributed to Lomazzo, Heraclitus is almost certainly an image of Leonardo according to the later template of the long-bearded sage, suggesting a connection in Lomazzo’s mind which the Bramante fresco may have created.
Take away the tears and the wrinkled, sunken eyes – Heraclitan attributes of sorrow – and we see here a fresco portrait of Leonardo da Vinci painted by one of his closest friends (above). It shows him in his mid-forties, with long, dark curling hair, a fur-trimmed gown, and long-fingered hands elegantly laced together. It is one of only two images of Leonardo that remain from these years in Milan, the other being the ‘Vitruvian Man’ of c. 1490, whose face bears a strong similarity to Heraclitus.
LEONARDO’S GARDEN
In 1497 Leonardo became the owner of a plot of land with a vineyard. It was outside the Porta Vercellina, between the convent of the Grazie and the monastery of San Vittore. Strictly speaking this was not the first property that Leonardo owned – there was that heavily mortgaged house in the Val d’Elsa which features in the contract for the Adoration – but this was properly his, without strings attached, and it was still his when he drew
up his will twenty-two years later. In the will it is described as ‘a garden which he owns outside the walls of Milan’. That was how he remembered it, as the shadows lengthened around him in France: his garden.
It was a gift from Ludovico. No record survives of the actual transfer of the land to him, but the date is given in a later document concerning a neighbouring property. In this – a contract between the Moor’s attorneys and a widow named Elisabetta Trovamala – reference is made to Leonardo’s vineyard having been ceded to him by the Camera Ducale fourteen months previously; the contract is dated 2 October 1498, so Leonardo took possession of the vineyard in early August 1497.127 This would have been around the time he completed the Last Supper.
The land covered an area of about 16 pertiche. The pertica (pole) is etymologically related to the English perch, but is a much larger unit. According to Leonardo it was equivalent to 1,936 square braccia. The value of the braccio is not precise – Milanese braccia were slightly longer than Florentine ones – but in rounded terms this makes the vineyard just over a hectare in area, or in English terms getting on for 3 acres, a good-sized country garden. According to Luca Beltrami’s classic study La vigna di Leonardo (1920), its dimensions were approximately 200 m long by 50 m wide (220 x 55 yards) – long and thin, as vineyards often are.128
It is always described as Leonardo’s vineyard or garden, but there was certainly a house of some sort on it. In a document of 1513 it is described as ‘sedimine uno cum zardino et vinea’, which estate-agents today might translate as ‘a detached residence with garden and vineyard’.129 It was by then under the management of Salai: he rented part of it out, for 100 lire per annum, while reserving some of its rooms to accommodate his widowed mother. It was thus something more than a vineyard casetta or wine-shed, though not necessarily very grand. There is talk of building-works in the garden in 1515, but whether this was a new house or the original house being refurbished is not clear.
Leonardo’s notes and sketch-maps minutely tabulate the lengths and breadths of his precious patch of land:
From the bridge to the centre of the gate is 31 braccia.
Begin the first braccia right there at the bridge.
And from that bridge to the corner of the road, 23½ braccia.
He disappears into a labyrinth of convertible units – parcels (particelli) and squares (quadretti) as well as perches and arms – and thence into related differentials of value. He calculates the value of the land at 4 soldi per quadretto, which works out at 371 lire per pertica, which gives an overall value of his land of ‘1931 and ¼’ ducats.130 These trailing sums – practical fruit of Paciolian arithmetic – convey Leonardo’s sense of the land as a tangible asset, a conferring of substance and security, something one can understand as important to a 45-year-old man of no fixed abode and no steady income. We can also guess how much Leonardo loved it for itself, for its beauty and tranquillity and verdancy, its refuge from the pestered streets of summer in the city.
The site lies south of the Grazie, behind the row of buildings whose frontage runs along the south side of Corso Magenta. When Beltrami was researching the case eighty-five years ago there was still a vineyard here. Today you can still see a thin wedge of greenery, with that focused lushness of the town-garden, and you can celebrate this partial survival with a meal at the Orti di Leonardo restaurant, at a spot roughly corresponding with the eastern end of the vineyard. This part of town is now a residential area for the Milanese haute bourgoisie. The tall, ornate apartment-blocks have neoclassical balconies and an air of Risorgimento self-esteem. To the south lies the San Giuseppe hospital, and the old San Vittore monastery with its fine Renaissance cloisters. From there you cut back up towards the Grazie, along Via Zenale, with the ghostly vineyard on your right-hand side. This road, connecting the Grazie with San Vittore, was built or enlarged in 1498. Some plans in Leonardo’s notebooks relate specifically to this project.131 Perhaps the improvements to the road would enhance the value of his property: a kickback.
The area outside the Porta Vercellina was leafy and desirable, and there had been a good deal of development there in recent years, especially of houses and gardens for ducal functionaries. Among those who lived there was Galeazzo Sanseverino, the friend of Leonardo and Pacioli and probable patron of their ‘academy’. The stables of this fine horseman were famous – some studies of stables by Leonardo, dating from the later 1490s, may be a project for renovating them.132 According to a sixteenth-century chronicle, Arluno’s De bello gallico, ‘These stables were so beautiful and finely decorated that you would believe that the horses of Apollo and Mars yoked together were stabled there.’ Vasari is perhaps referring to them when he writes of some frescos by Bramantino, ‘Outside the Porta Vercellina, near the castle, he decorated certain stables, today ruined and destroyed. He painted some horses being groomed, and one of them was so lifelike that another horse thought it was real, and aimed several kicks at it.’133
Another prominent family, the Atellani family, were also given property here by the Moor. The front of their house was on the Vercelli road (present-day Corso Magenta); the garden at the back of it abutted on to Leonardo’s vineyard, forming its northern boundary. The house was later decorated with ceiling frescos by Bernardino Luini, full (like so much of Luini’s work) with Leonardesque motifs; these belong to the early sixteenth century, when the Atellani house was the focus of one of the most distinguished intellectual circles in Milan.134
A note of Leonardo’s refers to some other neighbours in this up-market suburb: ‘Vangelista’ and ‘Messer Mariolo’.135 It is tempting to think the former refers to his late colleague Evangelista de Predis, but it seems unlikely. ‘Messer Mariolo’ is Mariolo de’ Guiscardi, a leading Milanese courtier, and it is probable that a series of architectural plans in the Codex Atlanticus refers to Leonardo’s work on the Guiscardi mansion, which was described in 1499 as ‘newly built and not yet finished’. One of these plans has some specifications in the hand of the client himself:
We want a parlour of 25 braccia, a guardroom for myself, and a room with two smaller rooms off for my wife and her maids, with a small courtyard.
Item, a double stable for 16 horses with a room for the grooms.
Item, a kitchen with attached larder.
Item, a dining room of 20 braccia for the staff.
Item, one room.
Item, a chancellery [i.e. an office].
Leonardo’s own notes are revealing both of the requirements of rich, fussy clients and of his own fastidiousness:
The large room for the retainers should be away from the kitchen, so the master of the house may not hear their clatter. And let the kitchen be convenient for washing the pewter so it may not be seen being carried through the house…
The larder, wood-store, kitchen, chicken-coop, and servants’ hall should be adjoining, for convenience. And the garden, stable, and manure-heaps should also be adjoining…
The lady of the house should have her own room and hall apart from the servants’ hall… [with] two small rooms besides her own, one for the serving-maids and the other for the wet-nurses, and several small rooms for their utensils…
Food from the kitchen may be served through wide low windows, or on tables that turn on swivels…
The window of the kitchen should be in front of the buttery so firewood can be taken in.
I want one door to close the whole house.136
This last specification recalls a house-design in Paris MS B, within the ambit of the ‘ideal city’, with the note ‘Lock up the exit marked m and you have locked up the whole house.’137 This is eminently practical, but also suggestive of Leonardo’s fierce tendencies to secrecy and privacy – the hermetic closure within an interior world.
Within his ‘garden’ Leonardo is his own man. He paces his boundaries, and inspects his vines, and sits under shady trees plotting improvements he will never get round to making. He potters. And in the castle, as if to celebrate this pastoral mood, he is also
creating a kind of garden – the wonderful fictive bower of the Sala delle Asse.
In sombre mood after the death of his wife in childbirth in January 1497, Ludovico Sforza began to remodel the north wing of the castle for his private retreat. On the ground floor of the north tower was the Sala delle Asse, the Panel Room, so called because it had wooden panels featuring Sforza family crests round the walls. Leading off from this were two smaller rooms called the Salette Negre (the Little Black Rooms), which gave on to the charming but now dilapidated loggia spanning the castle moat.
Here Leonardo was at work in 1498, as we gather from reports by the Duke’s treasurer Gualtiero Bascapé – the ‘Messer Gualtieri’ who is shown holding up the Moor’s robes in an allegorical drawing by Leonardo:
20 April 1498 – The Saletta Negra is being done according to your commission… and there is agreement between Messer Ambrosio [i.e. the Duke’s engineer Ambrogio Ferrari] and Magister Leonardo, so that all is well and no time will be wasted before finishing it.
21 April 1498 – on Monday the large Camera delle Asse in the tower will be cleared out. Maestro Leonardo promises to have everything finished by the end of September.138
Thus Leonardo was finishing decoration-work on the Salette Negre in April 1498, and the Sala delle Asse was being prepared for him to start work on it immediately. He undertook to ‘have everything finished’ by the end of September: five months away.
The frescoed ceiling of the Sala delle Asse is virtually all that is left to us of Leonardo’s work as an interior decorator for the Sforza. Nothing remains of his work at the summer-palace of Vigevano in 1494, or in Beatrice Sforza’s apartments – the camerini – in 1496, or indeed in the ‘Little Black Rooms’ which he was painting just before he set to work on the Sala delle Asse. In this large, long-windowed but intrinsically rather gloomy room he
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