ENGLISH VERSION Re-Reading Leonardo. The Treatise on Painting across Europe, 1550-1900 PART 3

Robert Williams

Leonardo and the Florentine Academy

in

Re-Reading Leonardo. The Treatise on Painting across Europe, 1550-1900
Edited and introduced by Claire Farago

Academy of Design -
Florence

[1] A series of manuscripts is taken into account, whose dating does not always see the experts agreeing (see Claire Farago, Who Abridged Leonardo da Vinci’s Treatise on Painting?), but that testify a keen interest for Leonardo’s writings in Florence in the years between 1560 and 1580. A fact not to be overlooked is that these manuscripts (the codes respectively denominated Concini, Giacomini, Gaddi and Belt 35) all seem to have belonged to literates who were particularly close to the world of painting and to the Academy of Design. In reality, the exact picture has remained somewhat dull. If it is true that an evidence of the influence of the Leonardo’s writings is tangible, not only for the presence of apograph manuscripts, but also in some texts like Il Riposo (The Rest) by Raffaele Borghini), it is equally true that testimonies of the interest in the Treatise are completely lacking for central personalities to the life of the Academy, as Vincenzo Borghini or Baccio Valori; not to speak about the certainly reductive judgement offered by Vasari in his Lives. The impression is that more clarity is still needed; an attempt is made in above mentioned essay by Claire Farago, to which we refer. Regarding Robert Williams’ contribution, we should not underestimate the reference to two "minor" writings, which are also related to the sphere of influence of the Academy of Design, where Leonardo’s lessons of natural painting is clearly recalled: they are the Lezione sulla pittura (Lesson on painting) probably due to Lelio Torelli, and a treatise composed by a young Francesco Bocchi in 1567 in praise of Andrea del Sarto (see respectively p. 67 and p . 68).