Monument to Leonardo da Vinci

The monument to Leonardo da Vinci is a commemorative sculptural group in the Piazza della Scala, Milan, unveiled in 1872. It is surmounted with a statue of Leonardo da Vinci, while the base has full-length figures of four of his pupils: Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, Marco d'Oggiono, Cesare da Sesto, and Gian Giacomo Caprotti (under the name Andrea Salaino).
The monument was executed by the sculptor Pietro Magni, beginning in 1858; due to Milan's transition from the Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom to first the Kingdom of Sardinia and then the Kingdom of Italy, funding for its construction had problems and delays. After its inauguration the monument was much criticised because of the choice of location and because it was considered a legacy of the Austrian administration.
In 1834, references are found to a "noble and highly cultured fellow citizen of ours" from Milan who intended to create a bronze monument to Leonardo at his own expense. The anonymous person had also obtained permission from the Austrian government to place the monument in the courtyard of the Palazzo Brera, decorating the access to the double staircase. Monuments to Cesare Beccaria and Giuseppe Parini were also being prepared for the staircase at the time.
The granite base was to have been about 2 meters high, with bronze figures about 3 meters high, showing a personification of Immortality in the act of handing a laurel wreath to Leonardo, intent on deep meditations on his books. A bas-relief on the base would have reproduced Leonardo's Last Supper. However, this project was not completed.
In 1856, among the competitions of the Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, the design of a monument to Leonardo in the form of a fountain to be placed in the courtyard of the Palazzo Brera was requested.
On February 8, 1857, the Emperor Franz Joseph determined that a proper monument should be erected in Piazza San Fedele with a marble statue 3.6 meters high. A new program was therefore established on October 1, 1857, with a deadline of October 31, 1858.
On December 22, 1858, the commission unanimously decided to choose the "Think in marble" model submitted by Pietro Magni; however, it was also pointed out that it would require an expenditure greater than the 60,000 Austrian liras stipulated in the call for proposals. It was also decided that the monument would be destined for Piazza della Scala.
Magni set to work, but the outcome of the Second Italian War of Independence forced him to turn first to Urbano Rattazzi, at that time the minister of the interior, and then to Cavour, president of the Council of Ministers. In fact, the government believed that it had no obligation to Magni since the competition had not been approved by the authorities and the amount of expenditure planned for his work was greater than that established by the competition. However, Cavour instructed Massimo d'Azeglio, Governor of Milan, to examine the situation in the sculptor's studio and make a decision.
D'Azeglio not only confirmed the design but also suggested essential changes that increased the cost of the monument.
Magni left for Bologna as standard-bearer of the National Guard and on his return in 1861 found Giuseppe Pasolini as the new governor; in order to try to obtain confirmation of the commission to build the monument, he thus contacted the Academy, d'Azeglio (who had retired from politics), Pasolini, the mayor of Milan Antonio Beretta and the president of the Council of Ministers Bettino Ricasoli.
A value of about 100,000 liras (corresponding to the 60,000 Austrian liras of the competition plus another 47,000 Italian liras) was estimated for the monument's construction. In 1862 the authorities requested changes to the project to reduce the expense to 90,200 liras, and the city of Milan pledged a contribution of 20,000 liras.
Magni carried on with the monument by incurring expenses for materials; by 1867, however, he had received no payment and the ministerial file had made no progress. He then decided to take advantage of the inauguration of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II alongside the Piazza della Scala, scheduled for September 15; he installed a model of the monument at his own expense for the entire month of September, hoping that the authorities, seeing it, would finally allow the work to be completed.
In 1868 Magni was informed that the government intended to award him only the original amount of the competition, which amounted to about 52,000 Italian liras; even counting the 20,000 for which the municipality of Milan had pledged, he would suffer a net loss of at least 15,000 liras for out-of-pocket expenses.
As a last hope, in 1879 Magni wrote to Filippo Antonio Gualterio, minister of the Royal Household, to try to get the sovereign to intervene, but to no avail. At the same time he was presented with a warning from the Royal State Property Office because he was late in paying rent for the premises he used for his studio; in early 1870 all his models and all his works were seized for auction. Giovanni Battista Brambilla bought them all to return them to the sculptor.
Seeing the impossibility of obtaining what was owed, Magni in August 1870 presented a writ of judicial warning to the Ministry of Public Education. Finally, with the contract signed on March 23, 1871, he managed to obtain a total of 72,000 liras. The amount was less than that allocated for other monuments, such as that to King Charles Albert in Turin (700,000 liras) or that to Cavour in Milan (more than 100,000 liras).
According to Ettore Verga, the general hostility toward the monument's construction was not due to the sculptor Magni, but to the monument's origin itself. It was Elia Lombardini, head of the office of public constructions under the Austrian government, who proposed its construction, and it was Lombardini himself who tried to get it accepted after the unification of Italy by presenting Leonardo as the "true creator of hydraulic science".
The monument was unveiled on September 4, 1872, in the presence of Prince Umberto, to coincide with the opening in Milan of the first congress of engineers and architects. The National Exhibition of Fine Arts was also underway.
In the evening, celebrations were also held in the Piazza del Duomo with flares. An electric light was projected from a window of the Teatro alla Scala, illuminating the monument in various colors.
In the depictions made on the occasion of the inauguration, the four pedestals with the statues of the students were no longer separate (as planned in earlier versions), but joined to the central octagonal base.
The monument consists of five statues placed on a plinth of pink granite from Baveno, 7.08 meters high. The central body of the plinth has an octagonal shape with unequal sides. Its center is placed in axis with the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II.
In the center is a 4.40 meter–high marble statue of Leonardo da Vinci. He is portrayed in a pensive pose with his hands clasped to his chest. The name LEONARDO is inscribed on the front of the statue's base; whereas on the back the inscription reads PIETRO MAGNI FECE.
At a lower level, four pedestals protrude from the short sides of the octagonal plinth on which the other four marble sculptures, 2.60 meters high, stand. They represent four of Leonardo's pupils: Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, Marco d'Oggiono, Cesare da Sesto, and Gian Giacomo Caprotti (under the name Andrea Salaino).
On the major sides of the octagonal plinth, four marble bas-reliefs depict four aspects of Leonardo's life in Milan: Leonardo the Painter, which shows him painting the Last Supper in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie; Leonardo the Sculptor, in which he is shown modeling the equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza; Leonardo the Architect and Strategist, in which he directs the building of Cesare Borgia's fortifications in Romagna; and Leonardo the Plumber, in which he attends to the pipeline work for the irrigation of Lombardy.
Below the bas-reliefs, between the pedestals, is a four-part inscription dictated by Professor Gilberto Govi and inscribed in gilded bronze letters with the dedication:
There were varying degrees of negative criticism of the monument, which was not considered Magni's best work; some would have liked Francesco Melzi among the student statues, while others would have preferred to replace them with personifications of mechanics, music, geometry, and philosophy. The pose of the figures, likened to puppets "with their hands hanging down – like hands of lead," was also criticized.
The monument's nickname "un litro in quattro" ('one liter in four'), popular in the late 19th century, was due to the resemblance of the monument's five statues to a wine bottle with four glasses around it. Several sources of the time attribute the creation of this nickname to Giuseppe Rovani.
On May 18, 1919, on the 400th anniversary of Leonardo's death, a bronze crown decorated with Vincian knots was added to the foot of the plinth.
In November 1970, as part of the demonstrations to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Nouveau Réalisme movement, Christo and Jeanne-Claude were commissioned by the city of Milan to create a performance. On November 24, the monument to Victor Emmanuel II was wrapped with tarps and tied with red rope; however, due to protests, it was decided to remove the covering the next day. On the same days, the monument to Leonardo da Vinci was also wrapped; on the night of November 28, some young people (apparently neo-fascists) set fire to the tarpaulin, which was removed by firefighters responding to the scene.