Leonardo da Vinci battle. Cerca Trova, or The Return of Leonardo

The intoxication of mournfully passive renunciation that permeates the paintings of Botticelli and Perugino, Borgognone and Francia, with the further development of the Italian Renaissance, began to give way to the optimism of joy and youth. The artist who overcame the then decadent moods, began a new period of Italian humanism and, after an era of sorrow and renunciation, returned to man his right to cheerfulness, to sensual enjoyment of life was Leonardo da Vinci .

Leonardo began his activity in the seventies of the XV century. Leaving the workshop Verrocchio, he was accepted as an independent master in the Florentine Guild of Artists. According to Vasari, he invented in Florence a special kind of mandolin, the shape and sound of which greatly pleased the famous Duke of Florence. Lorenzo the Magnificent, which allegedly prompted him to bring it from his, Lorenzo, name to the Duke of Milan Ludovico Moro from the Sforza dynasty. But in the letter that has survived to our time, written by Leonardo in his own hand to Duke Ludovico, it is, however, more about the services that he can provide as a military engineer. Around 1484 Leonardo moved from Florence to Milan. He lived there until 1499.

“The best thing a talented person can do,” Leonardo once wrote, “is to pass on to others the fruits of his talent.” So, on his initiative, the Duke of Leonardo da Vinci Academy was founded. In Milan, he lectured, and probably many of his manuscripts that have come down to us were nothing more than lecture notes.

At the same time, he worked in all areas of art: he oversaw the strengthening of the Milan fortress, built a pavilion and a bathhouse for the duchess in the palace park. As a sculptor, Leonardo da Vinci worked on a monument for Francesco, the great founder of the Sforza dynasty, who married the daughter of the last representative of the previous ruling family of Milan, the Visconti. At the same time, he painted portraits of all the duke's mistresses. Having finished his work as an artist of beautiful sinners, Leonardo went to the Dominican church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, where he painted The Last Supper, completed in 1497.

In this era, strife began in Milan, which led to the fact that the duchy went to the French. Leonardo left the city. For him, the time of restless wanderings began. First, he spent some time in Mantua with Isabella D "Este. In the spring of 1500, he went to Venice. Then we find him in the service of Cesare Borgia as a military engineer, strengthening the cities of Romagna for him. He was connected with Caesar even then, when he again settled in Florence (1502 - 1506).Having then visited again in Milan, as well as in Rome and Parma, in 1515 he accepted the offer of the French king Francis I to move to France, with an annual salary of 700 thalers (15 thousand rubles). rub. with our money.) His residence was assigned to the city of Amboise, the favorite residence of the young king. His student Francesco Melzi accompanied him and lived with him in the villa of Cloud, next to the palace, at the very end of the city.

Melzi informed his relatives in Florence about his death: “Everyone mourns with me the death of a man so great that nature did not have the strength to create another one like him.”

What significance did he have for the world as an artist? To answer this question, it is necessary to look at the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci one by one and try to understand for yourself what they contained in the sense of feelings, forms and colors.

Youthful paintings by Leonardo da Vinci

The point of departure should be the painting by Verrocchio, located in the Florence Academy, depicting the baptism of Christ. Vasari reports that the painting by Leonardo belongs to the kneeling angel on the right, holding the clothes of the Savior. If this is so, then Leonardo found from the very beginning that main note that sounds in all his work, because already from this figure of an angel comes a peculiar aroma of beauty and grace, characteristic of all his images. When we move on to the next paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, to the Annunciation, Resurrection and Saint Jerome, it is necessary to pay attention to some of their formal features.

Baptism of Christ. A painting by Verrocchio, painted by him with his students. The right of the two angels is the work of Leonardo da Vinci. 1472-1475

In the painting depicting the Annunciation, Mary's cloak is thrown so naturally that it forms wide folds.

Painting by Leonardo da Vinci "The Annunciation", 1472-1475

In Leonardo da Vinci's painting depicting the Resurrection, both young saints, looking at the Risen One in dreamy ecstasy, are arranged so that the line of their backs forms a right triangle together with the figure of Christ. And Saint Jerome is kneeling and moving his hands so that the whole silhouette of the figure is distinguished not by straight lines, but by wavy lines.

The portrait of Ginevra de Benci, executed by Leonardo, in turn, is devoid of the melancholy that emanates from the girlish heads of Botticelli. There is such exotic charm in this pale face, and it stands out so peculiarly against the dark background of a bamboo grove!

Leonardo da Vinci. Portrait of Ginevra de Benci, 1474-1478

These youthful works, relating to the early youth of the artist, are followed by paintings created by Leonardo da Vinci in Milan. The portrait of the mistress of the Duke of Milan Cecilia Gallerani (“Lady with an Ermine”), kept in Ambrosiana, returns with subtle sophistication to the profile beloved in the days of Pisanello, while the languid, misty gaze and thinly curved lips are full of mysterious, sensual charm.

Lady with an Ermine (portrait of Cecilia Gallerani?). Painting by Leonardo da Vinci, 1483-1490

Painting by Leonardo da Vinci "The Last Supper"

The Last Supper was interpreted in two ways before Leonardo. The artist either depicted how Christ approaches the disciples and endows them with a host, or how they sit at the table. In both cases there was no unity of action.

In a burst of genius inspiration, Leonardo chose the words of Christ as the leitmotif: “One of you will betray me” - and by this he immediately achieved this unity. For now it was to be shown how the words of the Savior affected the meeting of the twelve disciples. Their faces reflect in the painting "The Last Supper" all shades of feelings: anger, disgust, anxiety, the conviction of a clear conscience, fear, curiosity, indignation. And not just faces. The whole body reflects this spiritual movement. One stood up, the other leans back in anger, the third raises his hand, as if wanting to swear, the fourth puts it on his chest, assuring that it is not him ...

Leonardo da Vinci. The Last Supper, 1498

Leonardo da Vinci is new not only in the concept of the theme, but also in the layout. Even at the Last Supper in Sant'Onofrio, the group broke up into separate parts in the spirit of the Gothic. The upright seated figures correspond to the straight pilasters rising in the background. In Leonardo's The Last Supper, the factor that determines the composition is no longer the angle, but the circle. Above the window, in front of which Christ is sitting, the arch of the vault rises, and when distributing the heads, the artist avoided the former monotony. Grouping figures in threes, forcing some to rise, others to bow, Leonardo da Vinci gave everything the shape of a wavy line: as if from Christ, a sea shaft emanates with rising and falling waves.

Even all the other subjects of The Last Supper are chosen accordingly with the indicated point of view. Meanwhile, as in "The Last Supper" Ghirlandaio there are slender, tall fiaschetti on the table, in the picture of Leonardo there are only round objects - expanding downwards, jugs, plates, bowls and bread. Round replaced straight, soft - angular. Colors also strive for softness. Fresco painting is designed, in essence, for a decorative impression. Simple colorful masses are separated by powerful lines. Leonardo da Vinci was too much of a painter to be content with a simple, line-filling brilliance. He painted on the wall in oils in order to gradually develop the whole picture and achieve more subtle transitions. This had the bad side that the colors of The Last Supper faded early. Nevertheless, old engravings still allow us to guess how thin, gray light was saturated with space and how softly individual figures stood out in the air.

Painting by Leonardo da Vinci "Madonna in the Rocks"

The coloristic ideas of Leonardo stand out even more clearly in the painting “Madonna in the Rocks”. Here all the subtleties of his art merge into a full-sounding chord. This picture relates to the rest of the Madonnas of the era in the same way as the portrait of Ginevra de Benci to the Frankfurt head of a Botticelli girl. This means, in other words: for Perugino, Botticelli and Bellini, the gospel of suffering, the Christian renunciation of the world, no matter how different their Madonnas may be, was of decisive importance. Overwhelmed by sad and mournful piety, doomed to wither an unblown bud, Madonna looks into the distance with big eyes. No cheerfulness, no sunshine, no hope! Trembling lips are pale, a weary-sorrowful smile plays around them. A mystery glimmers in the eyes of the Infant Christ. This is not a cheerful, laughing child, but the Savior of the world, seized with a gloomy foreboding.

Leonardo da Vinci. Madonna of the Rocks, 1480-1490s

"Madonna in the Rocks" by Leonardo da Vinci is alien to any church. Madonna's eyes are not darkened by either grief or mournful foresight. Is she a goddess at all? Is she a naiad, or a sylph, or a maddening Lorelei? In an infinitely more refined form, Leonardo revives in this picture of his heads, known from Verrocchio's Baptism, from the Uffizi's Annunciation: a young woman leaning towards her child with a feeling of inexpressible bliss, an angel like a teenage girl, peering out with a softly sensual look from the picture, and two children who are not even children, but Amorettas or cherubs.

Painting by Leonardo da Vinci "Saint Anne with the Madonna and the Christ Child"

When then Leonardo again settled in Florence (1502 - 1506), Francesco del Gioconde commissioned him to paint a portrait of Mona Lisa, a beautiful Neapolitan, whom he married with a third marriage. Filippino Lippi handed over to him the execution of the order given to him by the servites of Santa Annunziata to paint the image of St. Anne, and the council invited him to participate, together with Michelangelo, in decorating the Palazzo Vecchio. In the great hall of the signoria, now decorated with frescoes by Vasari, Michelangelo depicted the scene of the Pisans taking by surprise the Florentine soldiers bathing in the waves of the Arno, while Leonardo da Vinci reproduced the battle that took place in 1449 between the Florentines and the Milanese at Anghiari, between Arezzo and Borgo San -Sepolcro.

"Saint Anne with the Madonna and the Christ Child" represented a solution - albeit in a different spirit - to problems similar to those that Leonardo posed for himself in the "Madonna in the Grotto". Predecessors reproduced this theme in two ways. Some artists, such as Hans Fries, Sr. Holbein and Girolamo dai Libri, seated Saint Anna next to the Madonna and placed the Christ child between them. Others, like Cornelis in his painting in Berlin, depicted St. Anne in the literal sense of the word "sam-third", that is, they depicted her holding a small figure of the Madonna on her knees, on whose knees, in turn, an even smaller figure of the Baby sits. Christ.

Saint Anne with the Madonna and the Christ Child. Painting by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1510

For formal reasons, Leonardo chose this old motif. But just as in The Last Supper he deviated from the gospel words that “John was reclining on the Savior’s chest,” which prompted his predecessors to portray him as almost miniature, so he did not adhere to the impossible proportions of figures in this case either. He places the Madonna, depicted as an adult woman, on the lap of St. Anne and makes her bow down to the Christ Child, who intends to sit astride a lamb. This gave him the opportunity to create an integral composition. The whole group of this painting by Leonardo da Vinci gives the impression of being carved by a sculptor from a block of marble.

Unlike his predecessors, in the composition of the picture, Leonardo did not pay attention to the age of the characters. For all former artists, Saint Anna - in accordance with the text of the Gospel - is a kind grandmother, often playing rather familiarly with her granddaughter. Leonardo did not like old age. He does not dare to depict a withered body, dotted with folds and wrinkles. He has Saint Anna - a charmingly beautiful woman. Horace's ode is recalled: "O beautiful mother more beautiful daughter".

The types of the painting "Madonna in the Grotto" became more mysterious in this painting by Leonardo da Vinci, more like sphinxes. Leonardo brought something different to lighting as well. In Madonna at the Grotto, he used a landscape with dolomites to make pale faces and pale hands glimmer from the gentle twilight. Here the figures stand out more airy and softer against the background of the trembling light air. Gently refracting, pink and bluish tones predominate. Above the enchanting landscape, the gaze catches distant blurring mountains, protruding in the sky like clouds.

Painting by Leonardo da Vinci "Battle of Anghiari"

One can, of course, only make assumptions about what colorful problems Leonardo set himself in the Battle of Anghiari. The picture, as you know, was not finished. The only idea of ​​it is given by a study made a century later by Rubens on the then preserved cardboard and engraved by Edelink. In his book on painting, Leonardo wrote in detail about light refracting through smoke, dust, and cloudy thunderclouds. Naturally, the copy of Rubens gives almost no idea about these lighting effects. Unless we can get some idea of ​​the composition of the picture. It once again shows with what confidence Leonardo subordinated all the little things to a single concentrated rhythm. People and horses are fighting. Everything was tangled up in a wild ball. And despite this, amazing harmony reigns in the wild hustle and bustle. The whole picture has the outlines of a semicircle, the top of which is formed by the crossing front legs of rearing horses.

Leonardo da Vinci. Battle of Anghiari, 1503-1505 (detail)

Leonardo da Vinci "Adoration of the Magi"

In exactly the same relation as this battle painting by Leonardo to earlier works. Uccello And Piero della Franceschi, stands "Adoration of the Magi" to similar paintings by Gentile da Fabriano and Gozzoli. These artists gave the composition the form of a frieze. Mary sits at one end of the picture, and from the opposite side, the kings-magi with their retinue are approaching her.

Leonardo da Vinci. Adoration of the Magi, 1481-1482

Leonardo transforms this composition in the spirit of bas-relief profiles into a united group. In the center of the picture is Mary, depicted not from the side, but from the front. Her head forms the top of a pyramid, the hips of which form the bowed backs of the Magi worshiping the Child. The remaining figures soften this frozen symmetry with a witty, wavy play of mutually complementary and opposite lines. The same novelty as the composition imbued with unity is also distinguished by the dramatic life imbued with unity, which breathes the whole scene. In earlier paintings, apart from the worshiping magi, only an indifferent "presence" was depicted. Leonardo is full of movement. All the characters of his "Adoration of the Magi" participate in the event, crowding forward, asking, wondering, sticking their heads out, raising their hands.

Painting by Leonardo da Vinci "Mona Lisa" ("La Gioconda")

"Mona Lisa" completes all the aspirations of Leonardo da Vinci in the field of portraiture. As you know, the Italian portrait painter developed from the medal. This explains the sharp profiles of women's portraits by artists such as Pisanello, Domenico Veneziano and Piero della Francesca. Plastically carved contours. The portraits were supposed to be distinguished by the hardness, metallicity of beautiful medals. In the era of Botticelli, rigidly outlined heads are enlivened by a touch of dreamy thoughtfulness. But it was an elegiac grace. Although the women are dressed in beautiful modern dresses, something monastic, bashfully timid emanates from their heads. Thin, pale faces are illuminated by the church mood, the mystical beauty of the Middle Ages.

Leonardo da Vinci. Mona Lisa (La Gioconda), ca. 1503-1505

Leonardo had already given the portrait of Ginevra de Benci a demonic charm, and in The Lady with an Ermine he sang a hymn of seductive grace. In "Mona Lisa" he now creates a work that attracts and excites the spirit, like an eternal mystery. It's not that he makes his hands rest on his waist with a broad gesture and thus gives this work the shape of a pyramid, and it's not that the place of rigidly outlined contours is taken by a soft half-light hiding all transitions. What especially captivates the viewer in this painting by Leonardo da Vinci is the demonic charm of the Mona Lisa's smile. Hundreds of poets and writers wrote about this woman, who either smiles seductively at you, or looks coldly and soullessly into the distance; however, no one guessed the smile of the Mona Lisa, no one interpreted her thoughts. Everything is mysterious, even the landscape, everything is immersed in a thunderous atmosphere of suffocating sensuality.

Painting by Leonardo da Vinci "John the Baptist"

Probably, in the last years of Leonardo da Vinci's stay in Milan, the "John the Baptist" also stored in the Louvre was created. How much unheard of novelty is felt in this picture, especially when you remember the earlier images of this saint. Throughout the 15th century John the Baptist was portrayed as a wild hermit dressed in a camel's skin and eating locusts. Then he's a fanatic like u Rogier van der Weyden and Kossa, then a meek contemplator, like Memling. But he always remained a hermit. How does Leonardo da Vinci act?

Leonardo da Vinci. John the Baptist, 1513-1516

Against the mysteriously dark background of the grotto, the sparkling body of a young god stands out, with a pale face and almost female breasts ... True, he holds his right hand, like the Forerunner of the Lord (praecursor domini), but on his head he has a wreath of vines, and in the other the thyrsus rests in the hand. From the gospel hermit John the Baptist, who ate locusts, Leonardo made Bacchus-Dionysus, the young Apollo; with a mysterious smile on his lips, putting his soft feet on top of each other, John the Baptist looks at us with an exciting look.

Features of the artistic style of Leonardo

Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci complement his paintings. As a draftsman, he also has nothing to do with primitives. The latter were limited to sharp, sharp lines, outlining everything like an ornament. Leonardo has no line, only forms. Barely noticeable, barely perceptible transitions. The content of his drawings is the most diverse. Especially drapery he studied all his life. It is necessary to strive for ancient simplicity, he advises artists. The current lines should take the place of the broken ones in the pictures. Indeed, it is difficult to describe the charm of these linear melodies by Leonardo da Vinci, these folds, falling, colliding, timidly bending back and again quietly murmuring further.

Leonardo was also interested in drawing hair. Ghirlandaio was already drawing pretty good hair on his portraits of young girls, curling in thin serpentine curves near the temples. For Leonardo da Vinci, women's hair was a source of inexhaustible inspiration. He tirelessly drew how they curled around his forehead in soft lines or fluttered and swayed. He paid attention to his hands. Earlier, Verrocchio, Crivelli and Botticelli entered this area. They gave graceful grace to hand gestures, drawing fingers bending like tree branches. But only in the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, the hand, previously bony and hard, gets a warm, sensually vibrating life. In the same way, with the knowledge of a specialist who had no rival in this field, he glorified the charm of lush, beautifully contoured lips and the charm of delicate shoulders.

Significance of Leonardo da Vinci in the history of Italian art

In summary, we can define the significance of Leonardo da Vinci's paintings in the history of Italian art as follows.

In the field of composition, Leonardo replaces the angular line with a wavy line. In other words, in the paintings of his Italian predecessors, all the figures are long and slender. If several figures are connected in one picture, then it breaks up into perpendicular stripes, as if invisible pilasters separate the figures. Hands either hang along the body, or rise perpendicularly upwards. The trees in the background do not have round tops, but rise like obelisks. Other sharp, thin objects that rise straight up or fall perpendicularly down should enhance the impression of verticality, forming sharply right angles with objects lying on the ground, in the reproduction of which any wavy lines are just as carefully avoided.

The paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, on the other hand, are designed in wavy lines. No more corners. You only see circles, segments, and curved lines. The bodies become rounded. They stand or sit in such a way that wavy lines are obtained. Leonardo uses exclusively round objects, vessels, soft pillows, curved jugs. Even the fact that for portraits he chooses almost exclusively a frontal pose is explained by the same considerations. In portraits in profile, which XV century. preferred, it was about sharply protruding angular lines, while the full face more emphasizes the soft, rounded shape of the head.

The hard replaced Leonardo with the soft in the field of paints. The artists of the early Quattrocento, intoxicated by the sparkle and brilliance of the world, reproduced all objects with bright, colorful colors. They didn't care about shades. They are all shiny and sparkling. Individual paints are laid side by side like a mosaic, delimited by a sharp pattern of lines. This intoxication with the contemplation of beautiful colors was replaced at the end of the century by the desire for harmony. Everything must obey a holistic scale of tones. Already Verrocchio, Perugino and Bellini made many important discoveries in this area, but only Leonardo solved the problem facing the artists. He gave paints such a charm, the possibility of which his predecessors did not even suspect. All sharp, colorful colors are banished from his paintings, he never resorts to gold, the contours are smoothed out, the hard drawing gives way to soft, transparent, agitated.

So Leonardo became the founder of the "picturesque" style.

The era of "chiaroscuro" has come.

Leonardo da Vinci was not only the creator of a new doctrine of composition and a new view of paint; more importantly, he breathed a new soul into the art of the era. To feel this, it is necessary to remember the end of the 15th century, the time when the monk Savonarola once again resurrected the spirit of the Middle Ages. Leonardo liberated art from pessimism, from gloominess, from asceticism, which then broke into it, returned to it the cheerfulness, the bright mood of the ancient world. He never portrayed renunciation and torment. It is impossible to imagine Leonardo da Vinci as the creator of paintings depicting the Crucifixion, or the Last Judgment, the Massacre of the Bethlehem babies, or those condemned in purgatory, or tortured martyrs with axes sticking out in their heads and daggers at their feet.

In the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci there is no place for the Cross and the scourge, there is no place for either heaven, or hell, or blood, or sacrifices, or sin, or repentance. Beauty and bliss - everything he has is from this world. Botticelli portrayed Venus in the form of a nun, in the form of a mournfully sad Christian woman, as if preparing to leave for a monastery in order to suffer for the sins of the world. The Christian figures of Leonardo's paintings, on the contrary, are permeated through and through with the spirit of antiquity. Mary turns into the goddess of love, the fishermen and publicans of the New Testament - into Greek philosophers, the hermit John - into Bacchus adorned with thyrsus.

A child of free love, beautiful as a god, he glorified only beauty, only love.

It is said that Leonardo da Vinci liked to walk around the market, buy caught birds and set them free.

Thus, he also freed people from the cage where the monastic theory locked them, again showing them the way from a cramped monastery to a wide realm of earthly, sensual joy.

History of creation

The fresco was commissioned by Gonfalonier Soderini to Leonardo da Vinci to celebrate the restoration of the Florentine Republic after the expulsion of Piero de' Medici.

At the same time as Leonardo, the opposite wall of the hall was commissioned by Soderini to be painted by Michelangelo.

For the battle scene, da Vinci chose the battle that took place on June 29, 1440 between the Florentines and the Milanese troops under the command of the condottiere Niccolo Piccinino. Despite the numerical superiority, the Milanese were defeated by a small Florentine detachment.

As conceived by the artist, the fresco was supposed to be his most ambitious work. In size (6.6 by 17.4 meters), it was three times the size of The Last Supper. Leonardo carefully prepared for the creation of the mural, studied the description of the battle and outlined his plan in a note presented to the Senoria. To work on cardboard, which took place in the Papal Hall at the Church of Santa Maria Novella, Leonardo designed special scaffolding that folded and unfolded, raising and lowering the artist to the required height. The central part of the fresco was occupied by one of the key moments of the battle - the battle of a group of horsemen for the banner.

According to Vasari, the preparatory drawing was recognized as a thing:

outstanding and executed with great skill because of the most amazing observations applied by him in the image of this dump, for in this image people show the same fury, hatred and revenge as horses, of which two are intertwined with their front legs and fight with their teeth with no less bitterness than their horsemen fighting for the banner...

Sketch for the "Battle of Anghiari"

By the will of the Senoria, two great masters of that time worked on decorating the hall. This was the only time Leonardo and Michelangelo met on the same project. Everyone flashed the strong side of his talent. Unlike da Vinci, Michelangelo chose a more "mundane" plot. His painting "The Battle of Kashin" was supposed to show the Florentine warriors at the moment when, while swimming, they were suddenly attacked by the enemy. Both cardboards were presented to the public for several months. Later, Benvenuto Cellini, who saw the cardboards when they were still intact, called the work of Leonardo and Michelangelo "a school for the whole world."
According to many researchers, despite the fact that the work on decorating the Palazzo Vecchio was never carried out (Michelangelo did not even start painting), two geniuses made a revolution in the development of Western European painting, which led to the development of new styles - classicism and baroque. One of the first copies (a sketch in ink) from the original da Vinci cardboard belongs to Raphael and is kept in Oxford, in the University Gallery. The Uffizi has an unfinished copy, possibly owned by an amateur artist. According to Milanesi, it could have been used by Lorenzo Zaccia da Luca when creating an engraving in 1558 with the inscription: “ex tabella propria Leonard! Vincii manu picta opus sumptum a Laurentio Zaccia Lucensi ob eodemque nunc excussum, 1558" . It is assumed that it was from the engraving of Zaccia around 1605 that Rubens made his drawing.

Leonardo continued his experiments with paint compositions and primer, begun when creating The Last Supper. There are various assumptions about the reasons for the destruction of the fresco, which began already in the process of work. According to Vasari, Leonardo painted on the wall with oil paints, and the painting began to dampen already in the process of work. An anonymous biographer of da Vinci says that he used Pliny's mixture recipe (encaustic wax painting) but misinterpreted it. The same anonymous author claims that the wall was unevenly dried: at the top it was damp, while at the bottom it dried out under the influence of charcoal braziers. Leonardo turned to wax paints, but some of the pigments soon simply evaporated. Leonardo, in an attempt to rectify the situation, continued to work with oil paints. Paolo Giovio says that the plaster did not accept a walnut oil based compound. Due to technical difficulties, work on the fresco itself progressed slowly. There were problems of a material nature: the Council demanded either to provide the finished work or to return the money paid. Da Vinci's work was interrupted by his invitation to Milan in 1506 by the French governor Charles d'Amboise. The fresco was left unfinished.

in - 1572 the Medici family decided to reconstruct the hall. Carried out the restructuring of Vasari with assistants. As a result, Leonardo's work was lost - Vasari's fresco "The Battle of Marciano" took its place.

The search for a fresco

In 1975, the Italian art historian Maurizio Seracini suggested that Leonardo's fresco was not at all in such a deplorable state as previously thought. He saw the proof in the engraving, made, according to his assumption, not from cardboard, but from the fresco itself, and dated 1553. All the details of the painting are clearly visible on the engraving, therefore the “Battle of Anghiari” was in excellent condition even fifty years after its creation. Seracini was sure that Vasari, who admired the Battle of Anghiari, would never have destroyed Leonardo's work, but hid it under his fresco. Seracini drew attention to the image of a small green pennant with a mysterious inscription: “Cerca trova” (“The seeker finds”) and considered this as Vasari's hint that Leonardo's fresco was behind the wall. Acoustic studies have shown behind the wall with the "Battle of Marciano" the presence of a small (1 - 3 cm) air gap. Seracini suggested that a new wall was built for the Vasari fresco, hiding the "Battle of Anghiari".
In 2002, the Florentine authorities banned the search for Seracini, fearing that the Vasari fresco would be damaged. In August 2006, it was allowed to continue research. A special fund has been created to finance the Anghiari project. In order to conduct testing, it was decided to build a reduced model of two walls located at a small distance from each other. To create a copy, the specialists of the main institute for the reconstruction of Italy, Opificio delle Pietre Dure, had to use the materials used in the construction of the eastern wall of the Salon Five Hundred, behind which, as Seracini assumed, Leonardo's fresco was hidden. It was supposed to apply paints to the walls, which were used by Leonardo and Vasari.

Notes

Literature

• Vasari D. Lives of the most famous painters, sculptors and architects, Academia, vol. II, pp. 108 - 109.
• Zubov V.P. Leonardo da Vinci, -M. - L .: Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1962

Links

In the middle of the fifteenth century, all of Italy was fragmented into city-states, principalities and duchies, which waged territorial wars among themselves. In June 1440, one of the many battles took place - the battle of Anghiari, which gave a temporary truce to Milan and Florence. She brought victory to the Italian League, which was headed by the Florentine Republic. Great importance was attached to this victory. Seventy years later, the Great Leonardo was asked to paint the wall of the Grand Council of the Signoria Palace. The theme was chosen by da Vinci himself. The Battle of Anghiari interested him. Another wall was painted by Michelangelo, and Niccolo Machiavelli, a young, promising official, was watching the progress of the work.

Preparing for battle

It was one of the stubborn and bloody battles for the freedom of Tuscany. Coalition troops concentrated near the small town of Anghiari. They included about four thousand soldiers. The forces of the Milanese more than doubled the army of the league. There were about nine thousand of them. In addition, two thousand more allies joined them. The Milanese believed that the surprise of the attack would certainly be the key to their victory. Therefore, they planned to start the battle on June 29. But the dust on the road raised by their army warned the leader of the Florentines, Attendolo, of the advance. He began to prepare for a decisive battle. Subsequently, it will be called the Battle of Anghiari.

The course of the battle

The vanguard of the Milanese army, consisting of the Venetian knights, blocked the bridge over the canal. Namely, the water barrier served as protection for the Tuscans. But the Milanese were advancing. And the fierce battle of Anghiari began. The Florentines fiercely defended their freedom. Four hours later they cut off a third of the Milanese from the main army. The battle then continued throughout the night. And ended with the victory of Florence.

Location of the fresco

In 1499, Leonardo once again left Milan and moved to Florence. In it, he will stay intermittently for seven years: until 1506. During these years, starting in 1503, he worked on a large commission from the Florentine seigneury - a fresco for the Council Hall. The drawing was called - "The Battle of Anghiari". He was supposed to depict the victory won by the Florentines over the Milanese about 70 years ago. The wall of the Great Council Hall was huge, larger than the one on which da Vinci had painted The Last Supper.

"Battle of Anghiari". Leonardo da Vinci

She remained only on cardboard. Looking at him, Pushkin's Poltava comes to mind: "Stomp, neigh, groan, and death, and hell from all sides." The "Battle of Anghiari" depicted by Leonardo is a ball of people and horses. They are intertwined so closely with each other that the work has become like a sketch for a sculpture. The rearing horses are reminiscent of those striking in the master's early work, The Adoration of the Magi. But there was joy, and here - frenzy and rage. The hatred of warriors who rush at each other is transferred to horses, these fighting machines. And they bite people and horses of the enemy, kicking.

It can be assumed that Leonardo's idea was not to depict a mass battle scene, but to visibly reproduce people drunk with blood, brutalized, losing their human appearance and blinded by rage. The "Battle of Anghiari" by Leonardo da Vinci is considered by himself as an accusation of war. He remembered Cesare Borgia's military campaigns all too well, which he called "the most brutal madness." It is topical and important to this day, almost five hundred years later. The "Battle of Anghiari" as an indictment of the war is quite modern, as it responds to timeless issues.

"Battle of Anghiari": description

It has no scenery, landscapes. And the warrior costumes are fantastic. They cannot be associated with any specific time. Trying to generalize the apotheosis of the battle to make it even more impressive, Leonardo used an interesting compositional technique - all the lines are collected inside a simple geometric diamond shape. In the vertical line, where the swords cross, there is one center of the composition. The second goes along a horizontal line that divides the cardboard in two. It is impossible to look away, and the genius himself removed everything superfluous from the center, where chaos, bringing death, and unbridled rage open before us in all their unsightly nakedness. It distorted faces and bodies.

The facial expressions of the depicted people are worked out to the details. The movements are frantic. Horses are cut, people are crushed... And no one cares about them. Whether Leonardo portrayed the climax of the battle or the whole course of the battle seemed to him as such, it is already difficult to judge. It is known that he worked a lot with historical sources and wrote an epistle to the signoria, which has not survived. In it, he expressed his thoughts related to the future fresco. His “Treatise on Painting” remained, in which Leonardo writes that he wanted to create a large-scale work. It was supposed to consist of a number of episodes. The huge space of the wall made it possible to place on it a large number of people participating in the battle. But the plan was not realized.

Two geniuses

Michelangelo painted his cardboard "Battle of Kashin" in his own workshop. Two geniuses did not seek to compete with each other. They worked at different times and did not want to compete. However, in a sense, the competition still took place. When da Vinci depicted horses, he understood that he was the best at them. And Michelangelo also used his most powerful skill - the display of naked male bodies. Like da Vinci, Michelangelo did not complete his work. She remained only on cardboard. And for several months, two cardboard boxes were in the same room. At this time, both of these creations were a school for all artists: both young and experienced. They came to them and made copies of them.

"Battle of Anghiari"

Here is what Adolfo Venturi writes about this extraordinary work that Leonardo had to perform for the Council Hall of the Palace of the Signoria:

“Leonardo resorted to the image of the raging elements in order to express the hatred that grips people who are mixed up in a fierce battle. The picture is a terrible bunch of people merging into one, like the foam of a wave; in the center is a group of horses, as if thrown out by a terrible explosion. People and horses are seized with convulsions, twisted, intertwined like snakes, mixed up, as if in a fierce battle of the elements, in a crazy fight ...

This image of a hurricane is followed by other images - horses galloping, rearing up, jumping, biting the bit, a young warrior galloping swiftly on a war horse, as if rushing in flight, a horseman lost in a cloud of dust raised by a whirling gust of wind ... "

…But let's get down to the facts. The contract, signed on May 4, 1504 in the presence of Machiavelli, provided for the payment of an advance payment of 35 florins to Leonardo, which was subsequently supposed to be deducted from the fee. Every month he received 15 gold florins for current expenses, undertaking to complete the work no later than the end of February 1505. If by the specified date he at least starts drawing a picture on the wall, then the contract can be extended. And then he will be compensated for all costs.

Never before had Leonardo received such a lucrative commission. On October 18, he again enrolled in the corporation of Florentine painters - proof of his intention to settle in Florence! Machiavelli won.

Leonardo demanded premises for himself and his entire team. On October 24 he was handed over the keys to the Pontifical Hall of the Convent of Santa Maria Novella and the adjoining rooms. In addition to a new workshop and several living quarters, Leonardo also received a spacious room in which he could safely prepare cardboard, a kind of additional workshop for private use.

A long preparatory period began, evidenced by many documents, checks confirming payments made at the request of his employees and suppliers, as well as a large number of preliminary drawings. When the cardboards were completed, he, alas, could not start the main work. The papal hall was in extremely poor condition, the roof and windows required urgent repairs. The rainwater came right into the room. On December 16, the Signoria decided to repair the roof so that Leonardo could get to work. All this took a very long time. However, this time the delay was not the fault of Leonardo. It was not until February 28 that the materials necessary for the repair of windows and doors were received, as well as for the construction of a large mobile scaffolding, with which it was possible to reach any part of the wall.

The scaffolding was built, of course, according to the drawings of Leonardo himself. It was impossible to do without them, given the size of the planned fresco "Battle of Anghiari". It was necessary to paint the surface of the wall 18.80x8 meters.

The bricklayer, who was doing the repair work, made a passage in the wall separating the Papal Hall from the vast adjoining room, which was personally occupied by Leonardo. Now he could freely move from one room to another.

To obtain the necessary information about the Battle of Anghiari, Leonardo turned to Machiavelli, who composed an entire epic especially for him. It turned out to be a fascinating story about an extremely bloody battle, in the midst of which Saint Peter himself appeared! The historical truth is very far from what Machiavelli came up with. In reality, only one person died at Anghiari, and one more fell from a horse. In a word, the event was devoid of grandeur. It did not at all correspond to the ideas about the war that Leonardo was going to express in his fresco. His sketches in notebooks testify to this.

Leonardo set about creating cardboard, on which he depicted the appearance of a beast called a man, seized by his most ferocious passion - the extermination of his own kind. He showed these atrocities with all ruthlessness. But the human is expressed in the horse's head, whose gaze conveys the horror of death. In addition to his chosen angle of bodies piled one on top of the other, he focuses on typical details that give greater freedom and dynamism to his characters. Artfully constructed composition makes a majestic impression. She delights, shocks, astonishes. And what about Leonardo's contemporaries? Were they able to discern in all this the terrible accusation of war put forward by them? What does it matter, in the end ... The main thing is that Leonardo's bold creation brought success to its creator. He always had a taste for risk - both in his works and in life. A virtuoso master of painting, he interprets the battle with amazing ease, but at the same time with violent passion.

His numerous cardboards, necessary to create such a complex composition, represent various groups of people and horses mixed with each other. In the center are two riders attacking two opponents; their twisted bodies were inextricably intertwined. Below are the mutilated bodies of other people. They have already fallen, already dead. The convulsive grimaces of these naked bodies make a shocking impression. Leonardo had a habit of first portraying his characters completely naked, and only at the very end of the work to dress them in appropriate clothes, believing that this was the only way to achieve the greatest likelihood. On another cardboard there is a river, on the bridge over which another battle takes place. When depicting a group of horsemen, Leonardo fully demonstrated his skill as an animal painter, acquired by him in Milan: the horses he painted rear up, gallop, lie on the ground, bite and fight like people. Years of work on the "Big Horse" have borne fruit, endowing the painter with the ability for extreme accuracy and realism of the image. People and horses with their disfigured features convey all the ferocity of the world. The image is cruel, but at the same time sublime.

As was the case with "St. Anne" in the Church of the Annunciation, these cartons aroused great interest. This time Leonardo was also offered to put the cardboards on public display, opening the doors of the Papal Hall for everyone to see his “Battle of Anghiari”. And again, the Florentines, friends, rivals reached out ... Due to the fact that the artists saw this famous "Battle", we have some idea about it. Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, Sodoma (pseudonym of the artist Giovanni Bazzi), Lorenzo di Credi - all reproduced what they saw. Even Rubens made a copy of the central group much later. Who hasn't copied the Battle of Anghiari before it disappeared, falling victim to the jealous brush of Vasari!

Even the incredulous and touchy Michelangelo secretly copied individual fragments ... Subsequently, he often used them in his compositions with horses - rearing up, running at a gallop.

Although Leonardo receives few orders, the whole world knows him, and everyone has their own opinion about him. He is truly famous, even if his fame does not benefit him. But at that moment he needs money more than wide recognition. This means that it is necessary to finish the work as soon as possible, and this has always been a problem for Leonardo ... The main difficulty in painting a fresco was for him the need to work “without rewriting”, moreover, on such a large space!

Before proceeding to transfer the image from cardboard to the wall, Leonardo covered it with a new layer of plaster in order to make it flawlessly even and smooth. He decided to use the "revolutionary" painting technique, which he had previously tested on part of the wall and on small panels. The result satisfied him. He abandoned the fresco painting technique, from applying paints to plaster that had not yet dried. Instead, he decided to resort to the encaustic technique, advocated by Pliny the Elder. Didn't find anything newer than Leonardo! This technique is akin to applying tempera to dry plaster. Leonardo did not forget what a sad fate befell his "Last Supper" in Milan. He doesn't want to take any more risks. He wants what he writes on this wall to remain forever. However, when creating such a large-scale and defiantly bold work, wouldn’t it be better to resort to the “coloring” technique? Botticelli himself, foreseeing the sad fate of Leonardo's new work, tried to persuade him to use a simpler technique, but he remained adamant. With the incredible enthusiasm inherent in great inventors, he gets to work.

The preparatory work progressed successfully until that fateful day, which Leonardo called the day of the catastrophe and the date of which he accurately indicated in his notebooks: “On Friday, June 6, when thirteen o'clock rang in the bell tower, I started painting the hall in the palace. However, at the very moment when I was about to apply the first brushstroke, the weather suddenly deteriorated, and the alarm bell sounded the signal for everyone to return to their homes. The cardboard was torn, the earlier brought jug of water was broken, and the water, spilling, soaked the cardboard. The weather was terrible, it poured like a bucket, and the downpour continued until the evening; it was dark, as if it were already night. The cardboard came off ... "Leonardo had to put it back in place, after restoring it in its original form. He stubbornly continued to work, simultaneously experimenting with paints, composing new mixtures, selecting new varieties of oil and wax, composing new types of plaster. Since the first results disappointed him terribly, he had to, discarding the thought of fate taking up arms against him, to try something else. He did not want to retreat, on the contrary, he passionately desired to succeed, to overcome all obstacles ...

Here is what Vasari says about this: “Leonardo, abandoning the tempera technique, turned to the oil, which he purified with the help of a distillation apparatus. Precisely because he resorted to this painting technique, almost all of his frescoes came off the wall, including The Battle of Lngiari and The Last Supper. They collapsed, and the reason for this was the plaster he used. And at the same time, he did not save materials at all, spending six hundred pounds of gypsum and ninety liters of rosin, as well as eleven liters of linseed oil ... "Today we can say with confidence that it was following the recommendations read from Pliny the Elder that caused the destruction of both famous creations of Leonardo .

The search for a masterpiece turned into a real detective story Leonardo da Vinci. Fresco by Leonardo Battle of Anghiari lost forever, taking 500 years of history with it? Or is there hope that it has been preserved and will be opened?

April 1503, Florence. The Medici family was expelled from the city, and Florence became a Republic. It was necessary to strengthen this young Republic, new symbols were needed, and the head of Florence, Pier Soderini, invites two outstanding artists to sing the Republic. Michelangelo is 28 years old, 51 years old. On the walls of the Great Salon of the Five Hundred, the main Hall of the Communal Council in the Palazzo Vecchio Palace of Florence, two geniuses choose subjects that glorify the victorious battles of the troops of the Florentine Republic - the Battles of Anghiari and Cascine.

Two huge walls opposite each other, two geniuses, promising and mature, two different personalities: wary and furry, elegant and mysterious. One artist is distinguished by indefatigable diligence and commitment, the other by inconstancy and windiness. This grand commission was supposed to be a great competition between two geniuses, but it didn't work out... there was no winner or loser. Michelangelo prepared a sketch Battles of Kashin , and was recalled to Rome by the Pope. Leonardo conceived a huge field Battles of Anghiari , full of horsemen fighting for the Banner, but leaves work and returns to Milan in May 1506.

Here is what Leonardo wrote about the beginning of work in his notes: “Today, June 6, 1505, Friday at 1 pm, I began to paint in the palace. As soon as he touched it with a brush, the weather turned bad, the cardboard tore, the bowl cracked, and water spilled, it became dark as at night, and until the evening there was a downpour of great water. Is this a “successful” beginning, an omen of the unfortunate fate of the work of a great artist?

Tavola Doria, Tokyo, sketch for the Battle of Anghiari worth 80 million euros

What happened between June 1505, when Leonardo began work on the fresco, and May 1506, when he left Florence? Where is it Battle of Anghiari , which the sculptor Benvenuto Cellini recognized as the "world school" of creativity? The last concrete fact of this detective is the existence of a fresco by Leonardo on the wall in 1549. The Florentine writer Anton Francesco Doni wrote in 1549 Florence guide, where it says: "Climb the stairs to the Great Hall and note the a group of horses and riders, which will seem to you a miracle". Further, the facts regarding the fresco by Leonardo are already running out. Battle of Anghiari and the speculation begins.

For several decades since the beginning of the sixteenth century, the walls of the Great Hall have been left unchanged. Meanwhile, the political situation in Florence has changed radically. The Florentine Republic was defeated, and the Medici dynasty, Cosimo I, returned to power. Naturally, his thoughts are turned to the Great Salon, it is necessary to turn it from a place of glorification of the Republic into the main hall, emphasizing the power and power of the Medici. 1555- , painter, architect and historian, receives an order from the ruler of Florence CosimoIMedici.

The order is grandiose, not only for decoration, but also for the reconstruction of the Great Hall of the Council of Five Hundred. The ceiling is raised by seven meters according to the Vasari project, and the hall acquires modern dimensions - a length of 54 meters, a width of 23 meters, a height of 18 meters. On the walls of the Salon Vasari solves the problem of what to do with the existing fresco by Leonardo - to destroy or save? This is not the first time Vasari has faced such a dilemma; he has already encountered the works Giotto and Masaccio, and chose Save. Could he do otherwise with the work of Leonardo, whom he admired, and destroy it?

The work of a genius undoubtedly delights Vasari, here is what he wrote in Biographies of the most famous painters about Battle of Anghiari . “... painted a group of horsemen fighting for a banner, a thing that was recognized as outstanding and executed with great skill ... in this image, people show the same rage, hatred and vindictiveness as horses, of which two are intertwined with their front legs and fight with their teeth with no less bitterness than their horsemen fighting for the banner; at the same time, one of the soldiers, clinging to him with his hands and leaning on him with his whole body, lets his horse gallop and, turning around ... grabs the flagpole, trying to force it out of the hands of the other four.

Two of them protect it each with one hand and, raising their sword high with the other, try to cut the shaft, while an old soldier in a red cap with a cry holds the shaft with one hand, and with the other, with a high curved saber, prepares a furious blow to immediately cut off both hands of those two who, gnashing their teeth, with a fierce look, are trying to defend their banner. I do not give you all the descriptions of Vasari, take into account that the chapter on Leonardo in his book occupies 9 pages, of which 1 page is entirely devoted only to the description Battles of Anghiari. Vasari makes it clear to us that he saw this fresco and thoroughly studied it up close, here is the gnashing of teeth, and the old soldier in a red hat, and ferocity, and bloodthirstiness, and “it is beyond words how Leonardo painted the clothes of soldiers.”

It is no coincidence that in Vasari's first work for the Old Palace Defeat Pisa at San Vincenzo numerous coincidences of poses, characters, swords, banners and horses. For comparison, we have copies of Battles of Anghiari (their authors were, then an unknown artist, whose work was engraved by Lorenzo Zaccia, and then by Rubens), but they could have been made not from a fresco, but from cardboard - a life-size sketch of Leonardo. Cosimo Medici also admired the work of Leonardo, to the point that in 1513 he pays to install wooden structures along the wall to protect the fresco from Spanish soldiers. The motive for the destruction of Leonardo's work is, firstly, political, it is impossible to leave evidence of the victory of the Republic over the Signoria Medici in the main representative Hall, and secondly, the state of the fresco. Vasari noted that “having decided to paint with oil on the wall, he (Leonardo) made up such a rough mixture to prepare the wall that, as he continued to paint this hall, it began to drain, and he quit work, seeing how it deteriorated.”

37 years old Italian engineer Maurizio Seracini looking for a fresco by Leonardo Battle of Anghiari . They say that it was this enthusiastic scientist who served Dan Brown as the prototype for one of the characters in the book. The Da Vinci Code . There have been many opponents over the years, but there are also many supporters of the search, for example, Professor Carlo Pedretti, the world's leading expert on the work of Leonardo da Vinci. They are both sure that Vasari kept the masterpiece, and to this day it is in the Great Council Hall. There are grounds for optimism.

Vasari's hint on the flag "The seeker will find"

Vasari could well have saved Leonardo's work, and he left us a rebus on his work The Battle of Marciano on the east wall of the Grand Salon. Only one of the numerous images of the banners has an inscription, moreover, a mysterious one - "He who seeks, he will find." It is difficult to associate it with the battle or with the glorification of the Republic. The inscription is "wrong", it does not follow the wavy outline of the flag. An unforgivable mistake for Vasari, as if he wanted to draw attention to this green flag at the very top of the Battle, where no spectator could see it from below. The analysis of the green paint of the banner and the white paint of the inscription was carried out in 1975. We came to the conclusion that both paints are of the same age, the inscription on the banner is not a later addition, but was also made by the author Vasari. Another extraordinary discovery when examining the walls of the hall with a radar and a television camera with infrared radiation - under this flag with the inscription there is empty space, i.e. there is a double wall. The next stage of research, after numerous approvals, passed from November 27 to December 2, 2011 at night so as not to interrupt the normal work of the Museum of the Old Palace of Florence. It was impossible to get close to the side of the studied space under the work of Vasari, because. it occupies the entire wall and ends with a cornice, the space behind is also closed by numerous buildings, rooms, etc. In addition, blindly creeping up from behind, you can damage Leonardo's fresco if it is inside behind the wall erected by Vasari for his Battles of Marciano . It was decided to drill microscopic holes in the wall, picking out areas of damage on the Vasari fresco or recent paints applied by the restorers so as not to damage it. Then launch the probe into the hole between the two walls. Naturally, the surface that was supposed to be examined was very extensive, and it was allowed to make several holes and analyzes. There was an opportunity to miss, and not get on the fresco of Leonardo.

Composition Battles of Anghiari Leonardo was represented, but he helped with the sizes drawing from the Oxford Museum. Drawing of the head of a screaming old man of an unusually large size with small charcoal-filled tattoos along the contour. According to art historian Martin Kemp, this is not a copy, but piece of cardboard, which Leonardo used to work on the fresco. Prior to the expansion of the Vasari wall, the size of the surface for Leonardo's work was 20 meters by 10 meters, and the dimensions of the head drawing presumably determined the dimensions of the entire fresco. Scientists knew that by the time of Vasari, only the central part remained from the fresco, so they were looking for a fragment measuring 5 by 4 meters on a surface of 12 by 14 meters. Marked 14 places for microscopic holes, where it could be preserved Battle of Anghiari . Of course, the places were not chosen optimal for discovering the hidden fresco, but those where the poor preservation of the sections of the Vasari fresco allowed this to be done. The very first hole and the probe determines what is behind the brick wall with the Vasari fresco Battle of Marciano air circulates, that is, there is a cavity, and the inner surface of another wall is 3 centimeters from the wall with the Vasari fresco. The enthusiasm of researchers can be imagined. But ... we are in Italy, and immediately the controversy turned into serious accusations of opponents of research: 60 holes were drilled, Vasari's work is endangered. The prosecutor's office opens the case, the investigations are stopped. Only 6 micro-holes were made, 6 analyzes were taken from the surface of the inner wall. After a month and a half, they were allowed to study in the laboratory.

Carlo Pedretti presented the results. As you understand, at the time of Leonardo there was no industrial production of paints, as it is now. Therefore, each artist used his own paints, and their composition of paints by Leonardo and Vasari is different. . Firstly, found traces of calcium carbonate, a composition that covers the entire investigated area of ​​the surface of the inner wall, an organic material used as a primer. The second important discovery: the presence of an area of ​​red color, pigment and binding substance, typical of wall painting. So, not a fresco, but a painting on the wall, exactly what Leonardo wanted to do, and what influenced the destruction of the work. The next important analysis showed on this red surface traces of black paint applied with a brush. The composition of this black paint caused euphoria to the researcher, because it contains an unusual chemical ratio of manganese and iron compared to the normal one used by all artists. 2010 Louvre publication concerning studies of two works by Leonardo - Mona Lisa and John the Baptist , showed exactly the same composition of black paint in these works in relation to manganese and iron. Besides, Mona Lisa Leonardo is writing in Florence at the same time he is working on Battle of Anghiari . Evidence obtained: on the inner wall behind the wall with the Vasari fresco Battle of Marciano is a work by Leonardo. From historical documents it clearly follows that he wrote on this wall of the Great Council Hall in Florence. There is a painting, the colors coincide in composition with two works by Leonardo, according to documents, it was he who painted on this wall. Gotta give credit Giorgio Vasari, envy did not win, did not destroy Leonardo's fresco, but found an unusual way to save it for posterity. Another question is what state Battle of Anghiari on an inside wall? Will we ever see her? How to open it without destroying Vasari's work? So far, there are no answers to these questions.