The Last Supper, ca. 1495-8. Convent of Santa Maria della Grazie, Milan. In the Virgin of the gestures form a delicate choreography of theological meaning that would soon be continued in the Saint Anne: while Mary’s left hand hovers protectively over her son Jesus to safe guard him from evil, her right hand embraces the young John the Baptist, the figure destined to announce Jesus’ inevitable path to his Passion. Thus the composition eloquently expresses Mary’s dilemma: while wholly devoted to her son’s wellbeing, she knows she must submit to God’s will and anticipate his future sacrifice. This is further affirmed in the gesture of the angel, who points to John to emphasize that this part of God’s plan for mankind. The infant Jesus, meanwhile, raises his hand to bless John, meaning he has accepted his future Passion, and welcomes John’s role in this. All in all, the Virgin of the Rocks is a rather mysterious work, given that the emphasis is clearly on the Virgin and particularly the infant John, who seems to be getting all the attention; Jesus himself is relegated to a lesser role, at the very base of the triangular composition. Some authors have argued that Leonardo was inspired by a pseudo-heretical text known as the Apocalypsis Nova by the Franciscan theologican Joao Mendes da Silva, which depicts the Virgin and John at the core of the Passion story. This may also explain why the agency that commissioned the work, the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception in Milan, initially refused to pay the agreed price for the work. The crossed hands of the Mona Lisa, by contrast, appear to elude any obvious interpretation. They are evidently at rest, and as such may signal the sitter’s contentment with her state—as a young, well-to-do wife and mother, secure in the love of her husband. Another way to look at the meaning of the hands is to state the obvious: that they are very beautiful hands, free of blemish, soft and delicate—the type of hands that want to caress, or wipe the tears from a sobbing child. That they are slightly longer than her anatomy would otherwise suggest is again the reflection of Verrocchio’s unfailing sense of elegance, particularly because the lower hand is partly hidden by foreshortening. But given the obvious care with which
composition established, he then moved to close-ups of individual combatants, as shown in the studies now in the Szépmüvészeti Múzeum in Budapest. And all throughout this process, the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo stood in a corner of his studio, unfinished save for the figure with her radiant countenance and tender hands. The Anghiari commission had once again moved Leonardo to the forefront of Florence’s artistic endeavor. Inevitably, it provoked Isabella d’Este into another letter pleading for a work by the master, or any work by Leonardo for that matter, written in a tone that betrayed just a tinge of the Marchioness’ growing exasperation. “Maestro Leonardo,” she began, “understanding that you are settled in Florence, we are hopeful that we can get from you what we have so much desired, which is something from your hand.” Isabella went on to remind him of his promise to turn the charcoal drawing he had made of her “into color,” but since this would now be unlikely, given that “it would be inconvenient for you to move here,” she magnanimously offered him to “keep your good faith by a portrait of Jesus as a young man, of about twelve years old, at the age when he disputed in the Temple.” What the Marchioness was particularly looking for, she confessed, was “that sweetness and soft ethereal charm, which is the peculiar excellence of your art.” The letter was delivered to the master’s workshop in the Santa Maria Novella by her agent, the merchant Angelo del Tovaglia. The answer, dutifully relayed back to the Marchioness, was a shrug. As Tovaglia wrote in his response, he “may do it when he can spare the time from the project he has begun for the Signoria.” Translated into Leonardonese, that meant ‘no’. The Anghiari fresco now consumed him fully, and no other work in paint, certainly not a portrait, was going to detract him from his purpose. Michelangelo Buonarotti, David; ca. 1501-1504. There was one exception, and that was a request from the same Signoria to serve on an ad hoc committee of artistic luminaries. This committee had been convened in January of 1504 to decide on the proper location for a sculpted figure, originally contracted in 1501,
of his clients and yet remain silent about the order from the king—particularly given the huge prestige associated with royal commissions. Another group of scholars believes the Saint Anne stemmed directly from Leonardo’s stay at the Servite monastery in Florence in 1501. As we saw, the friars had contracted with Filippino Lippi to paint an altarpiece for their church, the Santissima Annunziata, but when Filippino learned that Leonardo was in town, he graciously withdrew so the friars could contract with Leonardo instead. This also appears to fit with Vasari’s description of the events, although some scholars are uncomfortable with the ambiguity of the last sentence: “He returned to Florence, where he found that the Servite Friars had entrusted to Filippino the painting of the panel for the high altar of the Nunziata; whereupon Leonardo said that he would willingly have done such a work. Filippino, having heard this, like the amiable fellow that he was, retired from the undertaking; and the friars, to the end that Leonardo might paint it, took him into their house, meeting the expenses both of himself and of all his household; and thus he kept them waiting for a long time, but never began anything. In the end, he made a cartoon showing a Madonna and a S. Anne, with a Christ…” This citation is taken from the second edition of Vasari’s Lives of 1568. In the first edition, the text is even more ambiguous: “he kept them waiting for a long time, but never began anything. And in the meantime he made a cartoon showing a Madonna and a S. Anne, with a Christ…” (our italics). The strange juxtaposition would suggest that while the friars were waiting for the altarpiece they had contracted for, Leonardo started something entirely different, simply because the subject occupied his mind. The skeptics further point to archival evidence that the wooden structure ordered for the altarpiece was much larger than the cartoon Leonardo eventually completed. Ergo, the Saint Anne could not have been painted for the Servite friars. We disagree, for the simple reason that nothing in the Renaissance, and certainly not in the world of Leonardo, was ever clear-cut, or black and white. Leonardo’s workshop was not a factory were orders entered on one end and finished products flowed
view? Some authors, including Charles Nicholl, have posited that after his return to Milan, Leonardo may have had a relationship with a woman named Cremona. The suggestion is largely based on a reference to “chermonese” (perhaps intended to mean “the Cremona girl”) in one of Leonardo’s notebooks, and a passage in the writings of the 19th century Italian artist Giuseppe Bossi. In this essay, Bossi claims—based on “an authoritative source” –-that Leonardo “loved the pleasures of life” as evidenced by his affair with “a courtesan called Cremona.” In principle, is nothing wrong with the idea of Leonardo falling in love this late in life, even though he was now nearing sixty. As evidenced by the profile portrait drawn by Melzi, he was still a very handsome man with his flowing beard and long hair, which gave him both the air of a savant and the whiff of a bohemien. The affair with Cremona, if indeed it happened, would also lay to rest the insistent drumbeat that Leonardo was exclusively homosexual throughout his life. On the other hand, the reference to the chermonese does not appear until 1509, when the Leda and the Swan project was already well advanced; a direct correlation seems unlikely. Cesare da Sesto, Leda and the Swan (after Leonardo). Original dated ca. 1508-10. Instead, the true genesis of both the Leda and the Saint Anne lies in Leonardo’s fascination with the enigma of human conception and birth, as seen from two entirely opposing perspectives: the sacred (through the virginal conception of both Anne and Mary) and the profane (through lusty intercourse, bordering on bestiality). The depiction of Leda, perhaps the most erotic representation of a female nude since Antiquity, was undoubtedly assisted, if not stimulated, by Leonardo’s anatomical exploration of the female body at the Santa Maria Nuova. Similarly, we believe, the study of the wondrous world of the unborn fetus at the same hospital would inspire Leonardo to a third major discourse on the theme of motherhood. This, as we saw, is the second Mona Lisa, now in the Louvre.