LEONARDO AND THE LANDSCAPE - 1473 | MYTH, DREAM, COINCIDENCES OR TRUTH

Room VIII

A rare drawing by Leonardo da Vinci – executed the “Dì di s[an]ta Maria della neve / addj 5 daghossto 1473” – represents a large marshy area that fades in to the horizon. Between two steeps rock, lapped by towered village and by waterfall, it opens the main view of water’s stretch, with trees, bushes and cultivated fields.

Art historians and experts of Leonardo’s production like to indicate the drawing simply 8P, acronym   which indicate the inventory number that landscape is preserved at Uffizi’s Department of Prints and Drawings, sourced by the Mediceo Lorenese Fund.

For this simply and the same time complex and enigmatic scene, the art’s world has long been talking about the real location, about effective vantage point by the young Leonardo and the landscape representation.  

The exhibition “Leonardo and Landscape 1473 | Myth, Dream, Coincidences or Truth” presented at Leo-Lev Exhibition Center – in Room VIII – investigate on scholars’ different points.

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Some experts claim that the 1473 Drawing show the Arno’s valley, others a Valdinievole’s view from various points of relief (Montalbano, Montevettolini, Montaccolle, above Montecatini Alto’s fortress). Other specialist, rather, say that the portrayed subject is an view of Umbriam, precisely the Marmore’s waterfall. 

It has been argued until quite recently that the drawing was a pure topographical representation and it depicted from a place that served as observatory and in great speed. Recent studies by Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence have enshrined that the drawing was done in more stage and with different inks and the work’s intellectual value showed as much as the of Leonardo in his twentie, author of the drawing in 1473.

Oreste Ruggiero, by invitation from Italian Cultural Institute at Vienna in 2015, presented his researchs, published in 2009 and 2013, which reflected on the hypothesis that the drawing contained hidden pictures inside the rock’s shape and a tale …