A Friend, an Enigmatic Portrait, and Two Duchesses

Innocenzi, Plinio

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-90449-8_10

Plinio Innocenzi²

913 Accesses

Abstract

Leonardo was an affable and gentle person, and during the course of his whole life, he was surrounded by the affection of his many pupils and friends. In Milan, as we have seen in the previous chapter, he enjoyed something akin to brotherhood with Giacomo Andrea, and he also had a very special friendship with the Tuscan mathematician Luca Pacioli who would open to him the doors of the universe of geometry and mathematics.

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Notes

1.
The name of Luca Pacioli is also found in the form Luca Paciolo o Paciuolo e Luca di Borgo.
2.
Codex 250, Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna. A digitalized version is available online: http://www.uriland.it/matematica/DeViribus/Pagine/index.html.
3.
Original text: “supraeme et legiadrissime figure de tutti li platonici et mathematici corpi regulare et dependenti che in prospectivo disegno non è possibile al mondo farli meglio…. facte et formate per quella ineffabile senistra mano a tutte discipline mathematici acomodatissima del principe oggi fra mortali pro prima fiorentino Lionardo nostro da Venci, in quel foelici tempo che insiemi a medesimi stipendij nella mirabilissima citta di Milano ci trovammo.”
4.
Codex Atlanticus folio 288r.
5.
Parisi D (2012) entry on Luca Pacioli. In Enciclopedia Treccani.
6.
Napolitani PD (2013) entry on Luca Pacioli. The Italian contribution to the history of thought. Enciclopedia Treccani, Sciences.
7.
A (2003) Luca Pacioli e la matematizzazione del sapere nel Rinascimento. Cacucci editore.
8.
The work was published by the Venetian printer Paganino Paganini, who would establish a long and fruitful collaboration with Luca Pacioli. Paganino Paganini (or De Paganinis) of Brescian origin moved to Venice in 1483 and printed for Pacioli both the Summa de arithmetica (20 November 1494) and that other famous work, the De divina proportione (1509). The printed version is illustrated with woodcuts of the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci’s polyhedra and the geometrically constructed alphabet with uppercase letters. In 1509 Paganini also printed Euclid’s text edited by Luca Pacioli.
9.
The first edition (Editio princeps) of the Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalita was published in Venice in 1494 and the second in 1523 in Toscolano. This was the first printed treatise on arithmetic and algebra.
10.
A digitalized copy of the Summa is available online: http://jeremycripps.com/docs/Summa.pdf.
11.
Chadwick D, Odifreddi P, Panta A (2009) Antologia della Divina Proporzione di Luca Pacioli, Piero della Francesca e Leonardo da Vinci. Aboca Museum Edizioni.
12.
Codex Urb. Lat. 632. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.
13.
Cervantes A (2009) Luca Pacioli tra Piero della Francesca e Leonardo. Aboca Museum Edizioni.
14.
Original text: “Perché il Maestro Luca dal Borgo, frate di San Francesco, che scrisse sulla geometria dei corpi regolari, fu un suo discepolo: e con la vecchiaia di Pietro, che aveva scritto molti libri, il Maestro Luca li fece stampare tutti usurpandoli come sue opere...come si è già detto sopra.”
15.
Giorgio Vasari. Le vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani, da Cimabue insino a’ tempi nostri: descritte in lingua Toscana da Giorgio Vasari Pittore Aretino. Con una sua utile et necessaria introduzzione a le arti loro. Florence, 1550.
16.
Mancini G (1915) L’opera “De corporibus regularibus” di Piero Franceschi detto Della Francesca, usurpata da fra Luca Pacioli. “Memorie della Regia Accademia dei Lincei.” Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, vol. XIV: 441–580.
17.
Picutti E (1989). Sui plagi matematici di frate Luca Pacioli. Le Scienze. February 1989: 72–79.
18.
Keele KD (1983) Leonardo da Vinci’s elements of the science of man. Academic Press.
19.
Gilbert C (1964) Entry on: Iacopo de’ Barbari. In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. Treccani, Volume 6.
20.
Cervantes A (2011) Il doppio ritratto del poliedrico Luca Pacioli. De Computis, Spanish Journal of Accounting History. 16: 107.
21.
Virtual Archive veneziano-ESPRIT Project 20,638, www.tridente.it/venetie/fhome.htm.
22.
Albrecht Dürer: 1) Self Portrait (1493), Louvre, Paris; 2) Self Portrait at 28 (1500), Alte Pinakothek, Munich.
23.
Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino (Gubbio, 1472–Fossombrone, 1508).
24.
Luca Pacioli (2006) De viribus quantitatis. Transcription from the codex 250 of the University Library of Bologna by maria Garlaschi Peirani. Giunti.
25.
Amedeo Agostini (1924) De viribus quantitatis by Luca Pacioli. Journal of mathematics, vol. IV:165–192.
26.
Bano D, Tonato S (2011) I giochi matematici di Fra’ Luca Pacioli. Edizioni Dedalo, Bari.
27.
Problem LXXII.
28.
Mackinnon N. The portrait of Fra Luca Pacioli. The Mathematical Gazette, 77,130–219. The Mathematical Association.
29.
Chastel A (1986) A fly in the pigment. FMR English Edition, April/May: 61–79.
30.
Glori C (2013). Il misterioso doppio ritratto di Luca Pacioli e dell’allievo e la duplice decifrazione del cartiglio di Capodimonte. www.foglidarte.it/images/stories/013e/glori-pacioli.pdf.
31.
The Pala di Brera, which is located in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, is a tempera on panel (248 × 170 cm) attributed to Piero della Francesca and executed between 1472 to 1474.
32.
The attribution has been done by the art historian Ivano Ricci. Ricci I (1940) Fra Luca Pacioli l’uomo e lo scienziato (con documenti inediti). Sansepolcro. Stabilimento tipografico Boncompagni.
33.
Cesaroni FM, Ciambotti M, Gamba E, Montebelli V (2010) Le tre facce del poliedrico Luca Pacioli. Quaderni del centro internazionale di studi Urbino e la prospettiva.
34.
Ludovico Sforza so called Il Moro, Duke of Bari from 1479, the Duke of Milan from 1480 to 1499. (Vigevano, July 27 1452–Loches (France) July 27, 1508).
35.
Isabella d’Este (Mantua 1474, Ferrara 1539) was the eldest daughter of the Duke of Ferrara, Ercole d’Este I, and Eleanor of Aragon, daughter of the King of Naples. After the death of her husband, Francesco II Gonzaga, in 1519, with whom she had nine children, she became regent of Mantua on behalf of her firstborn son Federico II Gonzaga. It was thanks to the deft political and diplomatic actions of his mother Isabella that Francesco II from 1530 gained the elevation to Duke of Mantua by Emperor Charles V.
36.
Raffaele Tamalio. Voice over Isabella d’Este, Marchioness of Mantua. Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. Volume 62 (2004).
37.
Pizzagalli, D (1999) La dama con l’ermellino. BUR, Milano.
38.
La Belle Ferronnière, or Portrait of a lady is an oil on panel (63 × 45 cm) by Leonardo da Vinci, dated between 1490 and 1495. The painting is now at the Louvre Museum in Paris.
39.
The painting by Leonardo da Vinci is now located in Krakow in Poland. It is an oil on panel of size 54.8 cm × 40.3 cm, realized between 1488 and 1490.
40.
Kemp M (2004) Lezioni dell’occhio: Leonardo da Vinci discepolo dell’esperienza. Vita e Pensiero, Milano.
41.
Ames-Lewis F (2012) Isabella and Leonardo: The Artistic Relationship between Isabella d’Este and Leonardo da Vinci, 1500–1506. Yale University Press.
42.
Kemp M (2013) Leonardo and the supposed portrait of Isabella d’Este,
http://martinkempsthisandthat.blogspot.jp/2013/10/leonardo-and-isabella-deste.html.
43.
Isabella of Aragon was born in Castel Capuano on 2 October 1470 and died in Naples on 11 February 1524.
44.
There is a description of the Feast of Heaven by Jacopo Trotti, ambassador of the Este family in Milan.
45.
Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio or Beltraffio (1467–1516) joined Leonardo’s workshop on his arrival in Milan together with Marco d’Oggiono and Gian Giacomo Caprotti (Salai).
46.
Besides the portrait of Boltraffio, there exists a remarkable marble bust by Francesco Laurana, sculptor active in the Neapolitan Court, which reproduces with probability Isabella of Aragon.
47.
The mystery of the Mona Lisa, the answer in the DNA?
20/04/2012-culture/www.nationalgeographic.it/popoli/news/monna_lisa_isabella_leonardo_figli-977873.
48.
The comment of one of the most famous scholars of Leonardo, Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor of art history at Oxford University, was terse and final: “The silly season on Leo never closes.”
49.
Rocco F (2013) Leonardo e Luca Pacioli, l’evidenza. Fondazione Palazzo Coronini Cromberg.
50.
Sanvito A (2009) Leonardo da Vinci e gli scacchi. Scacchi e scienze applicate. vol. 27.

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University of Sassari, Alghero, Italy
Plinio Innocenzi

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Innocenzi, P. (2019). A Friend, an Enigmatic Portrait, and Two Duchesses. In: The Innovators Behind Leonardo. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90449-8_10

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90449-8_10
Published: 28 June 2018
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-90448-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-90449-8
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