Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Milan, September 10 2019 - From 11 September to 15 December 2019, within the program of "Leonardo never seen" - which includes all the initiatives organized at the Sforzesco Castle, on the occasion of the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the death of the Tuscan genius - it will be set up in the Sala dei ducali the exhibition “Around Leonardo. Graphic works from Milanese collections".

The exhibition, curated by Giovanna Mori and Alessia Alberti, is the result of the collaboration between the venerable Ambrosian Library and the Sforzesco Castle, and focuses on the fortune and diffusion of some of Leonardo da Vinci's graphic inventions, such as the famous "knots" which they are also included in the decoration of the adjacent Sala delle asse.

The exhibition presents nine precious and rare graphic works, created between the nineties of the fifteenth century and the end of the sixteenth century, capable of recounting the success of the subjects treated by Leonardo, which left significant traces in the work of artists of his circle and for all the following centuries, coming from Milanese institutions such as the venerable Ambrosian Library, the “A. Bertarelli” and the Drawing Cabinet of the Sforzesco Castle.

The itinerary starts from the "Head of Leda" (circa 1504-1506), a drawing belonging to the civic collections of the Sforzesco Castle. The sheet, an autograph by Leonardo, subsequently retouched by his students, is a study in red pencil that fixes the image of the face of the mythical Leda, for whose love Jupiter transformed into a swan and from whose union the Dioscuri were born, then continues with three tables of the so-called "Vincian knots", decorative motifs engraved with a burin starting from Leonardo's inventions, created in his workshop towards the mid-XNUMXs and today known in very few examples.

The complete series of the six “Vincian knots” is preserved in the collections of the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan.
The refined graphic works on interweaving games will be particularly appreciated by the public coming from the nearby Sala delle asse, where through the show of lights and virtual projections the geometries formed by the knots that intertwine with the mulberry branches are highlighted, the tree that celebrated the political wisdom of Ludovico il Moro.

Furthermore, the "character heads" are peculiar to Leonardo, and the influence of these in the portraiture of the artists of his time was very significant. Along the way you come across a suggestive drawing with two grotesque heads - unpublished, already attributed to the engraver originally from Prague, Wenzeslaus Hollar (1607-1677) but perhaps a work from the end of the sixteenth century - and a study in black pencil by Giovanni Agostino da Lodi (1500 -circa 1519), with a bearded male head, strongly evocative of the research on facial expressions in the Last Supper in Santa Maria delle Grazie.

The exhibition concludes with a focus on the horse motif, documented here through three very rare burins, on watermarked paper, made between the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth century in the context of Giovanni Antonio da Brescia (active between the end of the fifteenth and the first quarter of the 16th century).

The sheets depict studies of horses for equestrian monuments that can most likely be associated with the projects for Francesco Sforza and Gian Giacomo Trivulzio.

“Intorno a Leonardo” is part of the “Milano Leonardo 500” program, promoted by the Municipality of Milan | Culture on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci.