Hi,
FLORENCE, Italy -- Researchers at a military geography institute here say they have discovered -- hiding practically in plain sight in their building -- what may have been a workshop for Leonardo da Vinci.
They have also homed in on fading frescoes that they think may have been painted by da Vinci or by a workshop student 500 years ago, although that hypothesis has not been put to the test by art historians or by scientific analysis.
Italian museum officials are hoping that the discovery of the frescoes and five small rooms where da Vinci may have lived and worked, in a building just off the Piazza of the Santissima Annunziatain in central Florence, will help flesh out the life of the artist, inventor and scientist, who embodied the ideal of the Renaissance man.
"Every piece of information helps us to understand not only the person but the historical climate at that time," said Annamaria Petrioli Tofani, the director of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. But she cautioned against jumping to conclusions about authorship before rigorous analysis.
"It's an absolutely interesting discovery," said Alessandro Vezzosi, director of the Museo Ideale Leonardo da Vinci, in Vinci, who said that he was convinced that da Vinci worked in the space and that he considered it possible that da Vinci lived there, too.
It seems like the stuff of a mystical thriller, with army boots clicking on one side of a wall and robed monks shuffling in sandals on the other: For years, it seems, the possible importance of the frescoes was obscured by a simple wall separating the military institute from a monastery.
On one side of the wall, a fresco of three birds hovers over the harsh fluorescent light of an emergency exit at the Institute for Military Geography. On the other side, a larger, ruined fresco sits at the foot of a Renaissance staircase in a 14th-century monastery.
All it took to connect the two was observation, said Roberto Manescalchi, 51, a cartographer at the military institute. "It was always here," he said, "all we had to do was look."
Even if da Vinci did not paint the frescoes, Manescalchi and the other researchers say, it is possible that a workshop student did. To bolster their argument, they turned to historical accounts of da Vinci's presence at the convent in the early 1500s. Giorgio Vasari, the Renaissance painter and architect, referred to da Vinci's use of rooms in the building in his 16th-century "Lives of the Artists."
And the researchers suggest that the faded images of birds -- one diving, another gliding and a third alighting on a tree branch -- are similar to drawings found in the Codex Atlanticus, an atlas-size collection of da Vinci's artistic exercises, naturalist observations and anatomical drawings.
On the wall-size fresco in the monastery a void -- the result of peeling -- is shaped much like the kneeling angel in da Vinci's "Annunciation," a painting that hangs in the corner of Room 15 of the Uffizi Gallery.
The discovery, announced by the researchers at a news conference on Monday, was reported earlier this week in the European press. Manescalchi said he was now being inundated with requests for viewings by art historians and conservators.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=index2&cid=1033
Scroll down, it is the 9th article, click on the box and it will opens up a video showing the studio. It's amazing and worth watching.
Annessa
XOXO
FLORENCE, Italy -- Researchers at a military geography institute here say they have discovered -- hiding practically in plain sight in their building -- what may have been a workshop for Leonardo da Vinci.
They have also homed in on fading frescoes that they think may have been painted by da Vinci or by a workshop student 500 years ago, although that hypothesis has not been put to the test by art historians or by scientific analysis.
Italian museum officials are hoping that the discovery of the frescoes and five small rooms where da Vinci may have lived and worked, in a building just off the Piazza of the Santissima Annunziatain in central Florence, will help flesh out the life of the artist, inventor and scientist, who embodied the ideal of the Renaissance man.
"Every piece of information helps us to understand not only the person but the historical climate at that time," said Annamaria Petrioli Tofani, the director of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. But she cautioned against jumping to conclusions about authorship before rigorous analysis.
"It's an absolutely interesting discovery," said Alessandro Vezzosi, director of the Museo Ideale Leonardo da Vinci, in Vinci, who said that he was convinced that da Vinci worked in the space and that he considered it possible that da Vinci lived there, too.
It seems like the stuff of a mystical thriller, with army boots clicking on one side of a wall and robed monks shuffling in sandals on the other: For years, it seems, the possible importance of the frescoes was obscured by a simple wall separating the military institute from a monastery.
On one side of the wall, a fresco of three birds hovers over the harsh fluorescent light of an emergency exit at the Institute for Military Geography. On the other side, a larger, ruined fresco sits at the foot of a Renaissance staircase in a 14th-century monastery.
All it took to connect the two was observation, said Roberto Manescalchi, 51, a cartographer at the military institute. "It was always here," he said, "all we had to do was look."
Even if da Vinci did not paint the frescoes, Manescalchi and the other researchers say, it is possible that a workshop student did. To bolster their argument, they turned to historical accounts of da Vinci's presence at the convent in the early 1500s. Giorgio Vasari, the Renaissance painter and architect, referred to da Vinci's use of rooms in the building in his 16th-century "Lives of the Artists."
And the researchers suggest that the faded images of birds -- one diving, another gliding and a third alighting on a tree branch -- are similar to drawings found in the Codex Atlanticus, an atlas-size collection of da Vinci's artistic exercises, naturalist observations and anatomical drawings.
On the wall-size fresco in the monastery a void -- the result of peeling -- is shaped much like the kneeling angel in da Vinci's "Annunciation," a painting that hangs in the corner of Room 15 of the Uffizi Gallery.
The discovery, announced by the researchers at a news conference on Monday, was reported earlier this week in the European press. Manescalchi said he was now being inundated with requests for viewings by art historians and conservators.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=index2&cid=1033
Scroll down, it is the 9th article, click on the box and it will opens up a video showing the studio. It's amazing and worth watching.
Annessa
XOXO
