Giovanni Ambrogio Mazenta
Alcune memorie dei fatti di Leonardo da Vinci a Milano e dei suoi libri [Some Memoirs about Leonardo da Vinci's Facts in Milan and his books]
Ripubblicate e illustrate da D. Luigi Gramatica, prefetto della Biblioteca Ambrosiana
La Vita Felice, Milano, 2008
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| Leonardo da Vinci, Self-Portrait, 1513 ca, Turin, Royal Library |
[On Leonardo see in this blog also :
Claire Farago, Janis Bell, Carlo
Vecce, The Fabrication of Leonardo da Vinci’s Trattato della pittura, with a
scholarly edition of the editio princeps (1651) and an annotated English
translation, With a foreword by Martin Kemp and additional contributions by
Juliana Barone, Matthew Landrus, Maria Rascaglia, Anna Sconza, Mario Valentino
Guffanti. Two volumes. Leiden, Boston, Brill, 2018. Part One,
Two,
Three,
Four
and Five.
Giovanni Mazzaferro, Vasari
and the 'Homeric Question': conflicting interpretations of the Lives in the
light of the biography of Leonardo da Vinci.
Giuseppe Bossi, About
Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper. Facsimile reprint of the 1810 Milan edition, Skira
editore, 2009
Re-Reading Leonardo, The Treatise on
Painting across Europe, 1550-1900, A cura di Claire Farago, Ashgate Publishing,
2009. Parte prima, seconda, terza, quarta, quinta, sesta, settima, ottava,
nona,
decima,
undicesima,
dodicesima,
tredicesima,
quattordicesima,
quindicesima,
sedicesima,
diciassettesima e diciottesima.]
[1] Text of the back cover:
"Giovanni
Ambrogio Mazenta (Milan 1565 - Naples, 1635), a religious and an architect,
born from a wealthy family in Milan, entered the company of the Barnabiti Friars
in 1591 at twenty-six; he also became a military, religious and civil architect,
providing drawings throughout Italy; he took over the completion of the Church
of San Salvatore in Bologna. Over the years of his activity as architect he was
called to Naples to design the churches of Santa Caterina della Spina Corona and
San Carlo alle Mortelle As to the church
of San Carlo alle Mortelle, Mazenta run between 1612 and 1616 surveys and drawings for the construction
of the building and made minor changes to the project, shortly before his death.
The memoirs were written by Mazenta in the
last years of his life, fifty years after having obtained by a certain Lelio
Gavardi the manuscripts of Leonardo with the task of selling it to Francesco de
' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany . "
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| Leonardo da Vinci, Codex Atlanticus: Two mortars shooting explosive balls Source: http://www.leonardo-ambrosiana.it/galleria-foto/?album=1&gallery=2 |
[2] It is worth reading the text of the
review to the book, signed by Armando Torno, appeared in the Corriere della
Sera on 23.12.2008 (text of the article, downloaded from the Internet, is
located within the volume).
Leonardo's manuscripts. Originates from a loft in Vaprio the mystery of the diaspora
From the Memoirs of Mazenta to the Codex Atlanticus,
by Armando Torno
Giovanni
Ambrogio Mazenta (1565-1635), born from a Milanese family, joined the Barnabites
in 1591, was an architect (he designed and directed the construction of the
Church of San Francesco in Lodi). We find him among classmates, and then
friends of Cardinal Federico Borromeo. We are setting aside his duties in Rome,
as well as the many contacts he had in England; let us simply say that he left crucial
Memoirs to learn about the ventures of the manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci and
the circumstances that saw their dispersion. Now these pages by Mazenta, written
in the last days of his life, are reprinted by La Vita Felice with a foreword
by Massimo Rodella (pp. 128, € 9.50). It offers again the integral version of
the edition edited in 1919 by Monsignor Luigi Gramatica, which became a classic
and was very important to familiarize with the papers of Leonardo [note of the
editor: the work inaugurated the series Analecta Ambrosiana, edited by Alfieri
e Lacroix] . But let us see the story preserved in the
Memoirs. Mazenta begins by evoking the time of his studies in law in Pisa,
where he found himself sharing the room with the nephew of the great printer
Aldus Manutius and with a certain Lelio Gavardi di Asola (then under the
jurisdiction of Brescia), in charge of San Zeno in Pavia. The latter was
"Maestro d’umanità” [Teacher in humanities] of the Melzi family in Vaprio
(a location close to Milan). In their villa he had the opportunity to see
"in ancient cases much drawings, books and instruments left there by
Leonardo." In practice, all what the master of Vinci had with him went to
the faithful pupil Francesco Melzi; the latter followed him in France, but at the
death of the supreme genius brought the precious heritage back to Italy, in his
house of Vaprio. He cured those documents with wariness and diligence until his
death, more or less in 1570. However, the heirs did not understand at all what type
of treasure they had been left. Indeed, Orazio Melzi begged his tutor Gavardi
to take a bit of that material ("13 of these books”!) to bring them to the
Grand Duke of Florence trying to get some money from it [note of the editor: we are in 1587], since "the prince was attracted
by such work, and because of the great credit of Leonardo in his native
Florence". But the poor Gavardi, with his horse loaded of Leonardo's
manuscripts, had just arrived in Florence when he received the news that the Grand
Duke has just passed away. Then he reaches Pisa with this incredible shipment,
where he meets Mazenta and the grandson of Manutius. The author of the Memoirs
points out that non-returning the manuscripts would have been considered as a "misappropriation”.
This pushed Gavardi to deliver the treasure to Mazenta himself, in order to make
sure he would bring back everything to Vaprio, since he had to go to Milan. There
he finally met Orazio Melzi "a dean and head of the house", who
"manifested surprise that I had taken this trouble and donated me the books,
telling me to have many other designs of the same author, lying since many
years under the neglected roofs of the villa." The thirteen manuscripts of
Leonardo then remained in the hands of Mazenta, who donated a portion of them
to his brothers, who began to speak and spread the news of the "ease of
purchase". The Memories then contain these amazing lines: "Many went to
visit the same Dr. Melzi, and obtained from him drawings, models, plastic
models, anatomies, with other precious relics of the study of Leonardo." A
name appears that says it all: "Among these fishermen there was Pompeo
Arettino (son of Cavalier Leone, already pupil of Buonarroti, and relative to
the King Philip II of Spain." Here, in short, the "statovaro” [official sculptor] Pompeo Leoni, very interested in Leonardo’s cards. He is
the one who will collect the sheets of the Codex Atlanticus. The Memories of
Mazenta tell us an incredible story. Although the events described may have
been partially arranged, this small book is still considered a document of
primary importance."
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| Leonardo da Vinci, Codex Atlanticus: A leaf of sage Source: http://www.leonardo-ambrosiana.it/galleria-foto/?album=1&gallery=2 |
[3]
The Memoirs of Mazenta therefore represent an extraordinary document on the
fate of some of da Vinci's writings between 1570 (death of Melzi) and 1637 (the
year when Galeazzo Arconati donated thirteen manuscripts of Leonardo to the
Biblioteca Ambrosiana); a document – to be sure – which always has to be accepted
with the benefit of inventory only, as it is clear that the Mazenta tends to heap
praise on his personal behaviour at the expense of others. The most obvious
caveat is due to the fact that the Mazenta did not tell us which precisely were
the thirteen books delivered by the heirs Gavardi to Melzi, then arrived in
the hands of the narrator and returned to the Melzis, who anyway preferred to
leave them with Mazenta himself. The description of the books is anyway imprecise.
However, the first mistake to avoid is thinking that the thirteen manuscripts
were those that Arconati then donated to the Ambrosiana. Mazenta himself remembers that the manuscripts first remained in his own and his brother’s hands, but
that seven were later returned to the family Melzi, who resold them to Pompeo
Leoni. Of the six remaining, one was given to Federico Borromeo, a second to Ambrogio
Figino, a third to Carlo Emanuele of Savoy. The remaining three books came
again ( "I do not know how") to Pompeo Leoni once Guido Mazenta (brother
of Giovanni Ambrogio) had died. Actually Mazenta most probably wanted to hide
something suspicious on his family: Guido Mazenta died after (and not before)
Leoni (it is a fact that Luigi Gramatica marked in the notes), so that is likely that Mazenta was willing to hide something not edifying for his family. It is
also known that Leoni provided with unfortunate ease to assemble or dissolve
the sheets of the manuscripts in order to sell it more profitably (the exemplary
case is the Codex Atlanticus). In short, the manuscripts that Arconati bought
from the heirs of Leoni, and that he donated to the Ambrosiana are not exactly
those mentioned in the Mazenta.
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| Leonardo da Vinci, Codex Atlanticus: Project for a parachute Source: http://www.leonardo-ambrosiana.it/galleria-foto/?album=1&gallery=2 |
[4]
The vicissitudes suffered by the manuscripts of Leonardo in the Napoleonic era are
also well note. Confiscated in 1796, when the French entered Milan, the codes
were sent to Paris (see Paul Wescher. I furti d’arte. Napoleone e la nascita del Louvre); the Codex Atlanticus found placement at the Bibliotheque Nationale,
the other twelve manuscripts at the Institut de France. At the time of resuming
back, once Napoleon had fallen, the emissaries of the Austrian government in
Lombardy found the Codex Atlanticus (who returned to Milan), but let themselves
mock by the French (who were much less naive on the subject), and brought back
home – instead of the originals – three copies of the 600, which of course they had
judged as authentic (and thus forming part of the twelve codes searched), after
having mistakenly noted that the other nine manuscripts had been lost (however,
they are still at the Institut de France).
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| Leonardo da Vinci, Codex atlanticus: The moon with its spots Source http://www.leonardo-ambrosiana.it/galleria-foto/?album=1&gallery=2 |
[5]
Three manuscripts by the Giovanni Ambrogio Mazenta are mentioned. It is believed
unanimously that, among these, ms. H227 inf. at the Ambrosiana library is an
autograph. In all three cases, at any rate, the manuscripts passed through the
hands of Cassiano dal Pozzo. The commitment of Cassiano in finding material
relevant to the purpose of drawing Leonardo editio princeps (first edition) of
the Treatise on Painting is well known (see Mauro Pavesi, Cassiano dal Pozzo, Nicolas Poussin e la prima edizione a stampa del «Trattato della Pittura» di Leonardo tra Roma, Milano e Parigi) .
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