Thirty years ago, Emanuel Winternitz, the Curator of the Department of Musical Instruments at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, complained of the scant attention devoted at that time to the study of Leonardo da Vinci as a musician.
The only references quoted in this context were Vasari’s observations in Lives of the Artists and those of Leonardo himself in his Treatise on Painting.
Despite the fame that he enjoyed during his lifetime, Leonardo was consigned to oblivion for almost three hundred years. Until the Louvre was opened in 1800, he was remembered only for his Treatise on Painting, a book which was a best-seller from the time of its publication in 1651.
Velázquez, with his keen interest in culture, had a first edition of the book in his large library.
Leonardo is better known to us today, thanks to a number of recent discoveries: notarial records, drawings, letters, the reconstruction of his musical instruments, and particularly the chance discovery of the previously lost Madrid Codices I and II, which were found in 1965 in the National Library of Madrid.
Accounts of Leonardo as a musician are to be found in the works of his earliest biographers: Paolo Giovio (Dialogi di viris et foeminis actate nostra florentibus), Anonimo Gaddiano (Book on Painting), Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo (Gli sogni e raggionamenti) and Vasari (Lives of the Artists). It is nevertheless Leonardo himself who provides the most information about his relationship with music. A glance at the chronological data will help us to appreciate the connection between music and Leonardo’s artistic and scientific career. He was born at Vinci in 1452, the natural son of Ser Piero and Caterina. His father, a well-known notary in Florence, had him follow the family tradition by studying Law, but he soon encouraged his son to take up a career in commerce, which would allow the young Leonardo to act as a broker abroad for the powerful Florentine families. To pursue this profession he required a thorough training and so he took up the study of arithmetic. Vasari writes: “ he began to learn many things and then gave them up. Thus in arithmetic, during the few months that he studied it, he made such progress that he frequently confounded his master by continually raising doubts and difficulties. He also studied music and soon learned to play the lira, and, being filled with a lofty and delicate spirit, he could sing and improvise divinely with it.” Arithmetic and music, together with geometry and astronomy, constituted the Quadrivium, the four pillars on which education was founded in the Renaissance.
Music in the age of Leonardo was a reflection of the affirmation of individual personality; it was therefore more in tune with a philosophy that valued simple, expressive melody over and above the artifice of counterpoint. Italian musicians sang or recited from memory in their own native language, with or without accompaniment on the lute, the lira da braccio, the viola da gamba, the portative organ, the mandolin or the tabor. There are accounts of many poet-singers or popular composer- singers, among them Leonardo Giustiniani, a great improviser of verses who accompanied himself on the lute and whose poems were also set to music by such famous European composers as Johannes Ciconia and John Dunstable, both of whom wrote settings for his ballata “O rosa bella”. Benedetto Chariteo recited verses from Virgil and accompanied himself on the lute. Serafino d’Aquila, Panfilo Sass and Andrea Mazdue improvised verses in Latin, the language used almost exclusively by the Flemish musicians who visited and worked in Italy. Florence boasted Baccio Ugolini, Lorenzo the Magnificent’s ambassador, who had acted in Poliziano’s Orfeo, Antonio di Guido, Bartolomeo Tromboncino and Leonardo himself. In cultural circles, as well as in the society of merchants and artisans, music was both highly prized and widely cultivated. It was quite usual for singers to improvise songs on their own poems as well as the finest Italian lyric poetry.
Music in the age of Leonardo was a reflection of the affirmation of individual personality; it was therefore more in tune with a philosophy that valued simple, expressive melody over and above the artifice of counterpoint. Italian musicians sang or recited from memory in their own native language, with or without accompaniment on the lute, the lira da braccio, the viola da gamba, the portative organ, the mandolin or the tabor. There are accounts of many poet-singers or popular composer- singers, among them Leonardo Giustiniani, a great improviser of verses who accompanied himself on the lute and whose poems were also set to music by such famous European composers as Johannes Ciconia and John Dunstable, both of whom wrote settings for his ballata “O rosa bella”. Benedetto Chariteo recited verses from Virgil and accompanied himself on the lute. Serafino d’Aquila, Panfilo Sass and Andrea Mazdue improvised verses in Latin, the language used almost exclusively by the Flemish musicians who visited and worked in Italy. Florence boasted Baccio Ugolini, Lorenzo the Magnificent’s ambassador, who had acted in Poliziano’s Orfeo, Antonio di Guido, Bartolomeo Tromboncino and Leonardo himself. In cultural circles, as well as in the society of merchants and artisans, music was both highly prized and widely cultivated. It was quite usual for singers to improvise songs on their own poems as well as the finest Italian lyric poetry.
An example of this amateur musicianship can be seen in Verrocchio, who improvised on the lyre and taught Leonardo music. Giorgione, too, was an excellent lute player, while Bramante recited poems accompanying himself on the lyre, as did Marsilio Ficino and Girolamo Savonarola. In the following account, Villari describes the feelings of Savonarola when the latter decided to enter a monastery: “on 23 April 1475, he sat down and, taking his lute in his hand, sang so sad an air to its accompaniment that his mother was inspired with a foreboding of the truth, and, turning suddenly to him, piteously exclaimed: ‘Oh, my son, this is a token of separation!’ But Girolamo, making an effort, continued to pluck the strings with trembling fingers, without once daring to raise his eyes.”
The harmony of the soul
Popular musical expression was to be found in the music of song and dance. The most widespread were forms such as the frottola and the barzeletta of Tuscany, with its dominant upper part, ideal to be sung by three or four voices. They were usually accompanied on the lute because of its vertical consonance. These popular songs were included in the festivities at the Court of the Medicis, gradually becoming transformed into carnival songs similar to the frottola . These were the songs that Leonardo would have heard as a child in the streets of Florence during carnival and the Calendimaggio festivals. When Leonardo decided to leave the workshop of Andrea Verrocchio, his interest in music led him to take lessons with Antonio Squarcialupi, the illustrious organist of Santa Maria del Fiore, who was also Lorenzo the Magnificent’s music teacher.
One fact is crucial to a proper understanding of the period: the spread of printing, which played a vital role in the dissemination of music. The first printing press to print music from movable type was the now legendary press of Ottaviano Petrucci in Venice, who printed his first book, Harmonicae Musices Odhecaton, in 1501. In 1511 he opened a workshop in Fossombrone, disseminating the works of masters such as Josquin, Isaac, Obrecht... and frottola music in eleven books of which ten survive to the present day. That was the beginning of printed music; the industry grew rapidly, with new printing presses appearing at an extraordinary rate. Petrucci’s rival, Andrea Antico, had workshops in both Rome and Venice and therefore also played a significant part in the increased circulation of music books.
Italy was a magnet for foreign musicians, including Willaert, Dunstable, Ockeghem, Obrecht, Binchois, Compère, Dufay –whose motet “Nuper rosarum flores” was performed at the consecration of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence after Brunelleschi’s cupola was completed in 1436– and particularly Josquin Desprez. The most admired musician of his day, Josquin was maestro di capella at Milan Cathedral. Martin Luther, himself a musician, wrote of him: “Other masters must do as the notes wish, whereas Josquin is master of the notes, which do his bidding.”
Although there is some disagreement among the biographers, it seems that Leonardo moved from Vinci to the Tuscan capital in 1460 or 1464 (not in 1470) and embarked on his life in the cultural melting pot that was Florence at a time when it was one of the three or four most important cities of the age. Once there, his father took him, as we have already mentioned, to the workshop of Andrea di Cione, also known as Verrocchio, who, according to Vasari, “was a sculptor, a master of intarsio, a painter and a consummate musician”. Considered the most prestigious in Italy, Verrocchio’s workshop numbered among its pupils Lorenzo di Credi, Perugino and Francesco di Simone, and it was frequented by such figures as Sandro Botticelli and Antonio and Piero Pollaiuolo. It was a centre of humanistic thought in which Leonardo acquired both conceptual and technical knowledge in the fields of painting, music, science and humanism. There he came into contact with his future patrons, the Medicis and Ludovico Sforza (Il Moro), Duke of Milan. All manner of objects were produced at the workshop and all kinds of creative activities were pursued: painting, sculpture, the manufacture of processional banners, diverse items for festive occasions and, significantly, musical instruments. Verrocchio held Leonardo in high esteem and took great pains to teach him the skills of the artist and musician. It was during this period that Leonardo began to study singing and various instruments and, very probably, the art of instrument building. Although no score of Leonardo’s survives, and in fact scarcely one or two musical phrases remain, a testament to his musical knowledge has been preserved in his drawings of musical instruments, his hieroglypha and his writings.
The harmony of the soul Popular musical expression was to be found in the music of song and dance. The most widespread were forms such as the frottola and the barzeletta of Tuscany, with its dominant upper part, ideal to be sung by three or four voices. They were usually accompanied on the lute because of its vertical consonance. These popular songs were included in the festivities at the Court of the Medicis, gradually becoming transformed into carnival songs similar to the frottola . These were the songs that Leonardo would have heard as a child in the streets of Florence during carnival and the Calendimaggio festivals. When Leonardo decided to leave the workshop of Andrea Verrocchio, his interest in music led him to take lessons with Antonio Squarcialupi, the illustrious organist of Santa Maria del Fiore, who was also Lorenzo the Magnificent’s music teacher.
One fact is crucial to a proper understanding of the period: the spread of printing, which played a vital role in the dissemination of music. The first printing press to print music from movable type was the now legendary press of Ottaviano Petrucci in Venice, who printed his first book, Harmonicae Musices Odhecaton, in 1501. In 1511 he opened a workshop in Fossombrone, disseminating the works of masters such as Josquin, Isaac, Obrecht... and frottola music in eleven books of which ten survive to the present day. That was the beginning of printed music; the industry grew rapidly, with new printing presses appearing at an extraordinary rate. Petrucci’s rival, Andrea Antico, had workshops in both Rome and Venice and therefore also played a significant part in the increased circulation of music books.
Italy was a magnet for foreign musicians, including Willaert, Dunstable, Ockeghem, Obrecht, Binchois, Compère, Dufay –whose motet “Nuper rosarum flores” was performed at the consecration of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence after Brunelleschi’s cupola was completed in 1436– and particularly Josquin Desprez. The most admired musician of his day, Josquin was maestro di capella at Milan Cathedral. Martin Luther, himself a musician, wrote of him: “Other masters must do as the notes wish, whereas Josquin is master of the notes, which do his bidding.”
Although there is some disagreement among the biographers, it seems that Leonardo moved from Vinci to the Tuscan capital in 1460 or 1464 (not in 1470) and embarked on his life in the cultural melting pot that was Florence at a time when it was one of the three or four most important cities of the age. Once there, his father took him, as we have already mentioned, to the workshop of Andrea di Cione, also known as Verrocchio, who, according to Vasari, “was a sculptor, a master of intarsio, a painter and a consummate musician”. Considered the most prestigious in Italy, Verrocchio’s workshop numbered among its pupils Lorenzo di Credi, Perugino and Francesco di Simone, and it was frequented by such figures as Sandro Botticelli and Antonio and Piero Pollaiuolo. It was a centre of humanistic thought in which Leonardo acquired both conceptual and technical knowledge in the fields of painting, music, science and humanism. There he came into contact with his future patrons, the Medicis and Ludovico Sforza (Il Moro), Duke of Milan. All manner of objects were produced at the workshop and all kinds of creative activities were pursued: painting, sculpture, the manufacture of processional banners, diverse items for festive occasions and, significantly, musical instruments. Verrocchio held Leonardo in high esteem and took great pains to teach him the skills of the artist and musician. It was during this period that Leonardo began to study singing and various instruments and, very probably, the art of instrument building. Although no score of Leonardo’s survives, and in fact scarcely one or two musical phrases remain, a testament to his musical knowledge has been preserved in his drawings of musical instruments, his hieroglypha and his writings.
One fact is crucial to a proper understanding of the period: the spread of printing, which played a vital role in the dissemination of music. The first printing press to print music from movable type was the now legendary press of Ottaviano Petrucci in Venice, who printed his first book, Harmonicae Musices Odhecaton, in 1501. In 1511 he opened a workshop in Fossombrone, disseminating the works of masters such as Josquin, Isaac, Obrecht... and frottola music in eleven books of which ten survive to the present day. That was the beginning of printed music; the industry grew rapidly, with new printing presses appearing at an extraordinary rate. Petrucci’s rival, Andrea Antico, had workshops in both Rome and Venice and therefore also played a significant part in the increased circulation of music books.
Italy was a magnet for foreign musicians, including Willaert, Dunstable, Ockeghem, Obrecht, Binchois, Compère, Dufay –whose motet “Nuper rosarum flores” was performed at the consecration of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence after Brunelleschi’s cupola was completed in 1436– and particularly Josquin Desprez. The most admired musician of his day, Josquin was maestro di capella at Milan Cathedral. Martin Luther, himself a musician, wrote of him: “Other masters must do as the notes wish, whereas Josquin is master of the notes, which do his bidding.”
Although there is some disagreement among the biographers, it seems that Leonardo moved from Vinci to the Tuscan capital in 1460 or 1464 (not in 1470) and embarked on his life in the cultural melting pot that was Florence at a time when it was one of the three or four most important cities of the age. Once there, his father took him, as we have already mentioned, to the workshop of Andrea di Cione, also known as Verrocchio, who, according to Vasari, “was a sculptor, a master of intarsio, a painter and a consummate musician”. Considered the most prestigious in Italy, Verrocchio’s workshop numbered among its pupils Lorenzo di Credi, Perugino and Francesco di Simone, and it was frequented by such figures as Sandro Botticelli and Antonio and Piero Pollaiuolo. It was a centre of humanistic thought in which Leonardo acquired both conceptual and technical knowledge in the fields of painting, music, science and humanism. There he came into contact with his future patrons, the Medicis and Ludovico Sforza (Il Moro), Duke of Milan. All manner of objects were produced at the workshop and all kinds of creative activities were pursued: painting, sculpture, the manufacture of processional banners, diverse items for festive occasions and, significantly, musical instruments. Verrocchio held Leonardo in high esteem and took great pains to teach him the skills of the artist and musician. It was during this period that Leonardo began to study singing and various instruments and, very probably, the art of instrument building. Although no score of Leonardo’s survives, and in fact scarcely one or two musical phrases remain, a testament to his musical knowledge has been preserved in his drawings of musical instruments, his hieroglypha and his writings.
The harmony of the soul Popular musical expression was to be found in the music of song and dance. The most widespread were forms such as the frottola and the barzeletta of Tuscany, with its dominant upper part, ideal to be sung by three or four voices. They were usually accompanied on the lute because of its vertical consonance. These popular songs were included in the festivities at the Court of the Medicis, gradually becoming transformed into carnival songs similar to the frottola . These were the songs that Leonardo would have heard as a child in the streets of Florence during carnival and the Calendimaggio festivals. When Leonardo decided to leave the workshop of Andrea Verrocchio, his interest in music led him to take lessons with Antonio Squarcialupi, the illustrious organist of Santa Maria del Fiore, who was also Lorenzo the Magnificent’s music teacher.
One fact is crucial to a proper understanding of the period: the spread of printing, which played a vital role in the dissemination of music. The first printing press to print music from movable type was the now legendary press of Ottaviano Petrucci in Venice, who printed his first book, Harmonicae Musices Odhecaton, in 1501. In 1511 he opened a workshop in Fossombrone, disseminating the works of masters such as Josquin, Isaac, Obrecht... and frottola music in eleven books of which ten survive to the present day. That was the beginning of printed music; the industry grew rapidly, with new printing presses appearing at an extraordinary rate. Petrucci’s rival, Andrea Antico, had workshops in both Rome and Venice and therefore also played a significant part in the increased circulation of music books.
Italy was a magnet for foreign musicians, including Willaert, Dunstable, Ockeghem, Obrecht, Binchois, Compère, Dufay –whose motet “Nuper rosarum flores” was performed at the consecration of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence after Brunelleschi’s cupola was completed in 1436– and particularly Josquin Desprez. The most admired musician of his day, Josquin was maestro di capella at Milan Cathedral. Martin Luther, himself a musician, wrote of him: “Other masters must do as the notes wish, whereas Josquin is master of the notes, which do his bidding.”
Although there is some disagreement among the biographers, it seems that Leonardo moved from Vinci to the Tuscan capital in 1460 or 1464 (not in 1470) and embarked on his life in the cultural melting pot that was Florence at a time when it was one of the three or four most important cities of the age. Once there, his father took him, as we have already mentioned, to the workshop of Andrea di Cione, also known as Verrocchio, who, according to Vasari, “was a sculptor, a master of intarsio, a painter and a consummate musician”. Considered the most prestigious in Italy, Verrocchio’s workshop numbered among its pupils Lorenzo di Credi, Perugino and Francesco di Simone, and it was frequented by such figures as Sandro Botticelli and Antonio and Piero Pollaiuolo. It was a centre of humanistic thought in which Leonardo acquired both conceptual and technical knowledge in the fields of painting, music, science and humanism. There he came into contact with his future patrons, the Medicis and Ludovico Sforza (Il Moro), Duke of Milan. All manner of objects were produced at the workshop and all kinds of creative activities were pursued: painting, sculpture, the manufacture of processional banners, diverse items for festive occasions and, significantly, musical instruments. Verrocchio held Leonardo in high esteem and took great pains to teach him the skills of the artist and musician. It was during this period that Leonardo began to study singing and various instruments and, very probably, the art of instrument building. Although no score of Leonardo’s survives, and in fact scarcely one or two musical phrases remain, a testament to his musical knowledge has been preserved in his drawings of musical instruments, his hieroglypha and his writings.
One fact is crucial to a proper understanding of the period: the spread of printing, which played a vital role in the dissemination of music. The first printing press to print music from movable type was the now legendary press of Ottaviano Petrucci in Venice, who printed his first book, Harmonicae Musices Odhecaton, in 1501. In 1511 he opened a workshop in Fossombrone, disseminating the works of masters such as Josquin, Isaac, Obrecht... and frottola music in eleven books of which ten survive to the present day. That was the beginning of printed music; the industry grew rapidly, with new printing presses appearing at an extraordinary rate. Petrucci’s rival, Andrea Antico, had workshops in both Rome and Venice and therefore also played a significant part in the increased circulation of music books.
Italy was a magnet for foreign musicians, including Willaert, Dunstable, Ockeghem, Obrecht, Binchois, Compère, Dufay –whose motet “Nuper rosarum flores” was performed at the consecration of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence after Brunelleschi’s cupola was completed in 1436– and particularly Josquin Desprez. The most admired musician of his day, Josquin was maestro di capella at Milan Cathedral. Martin Luther, himself a musician, wrote of him: “Other masters must do as the notes wish, whereas Josquin is master of the notes, which do his bidding.”
Although there is some disagreement among the biographers, it seems that Leonardo moved from Vinci to the Tuscan capital in 1460 or 1464 (not in 1470) and embarked on his life in the cultural melting pot that was Florence at a time when it was one of the three or four most important cities of the age. Once there, his father took him, as we have already mentioned, to the workshop of Andrea di Cione, also known as Verrocchio, who, according to Vasari, “was a sculptor, a master of intarsio, a painter and a consummate musician”. Considered the most prestigious in Italy, Verrocchio’s workshop numbered among its pupils Lorenzo di Credi, Perugino and Francesco di Simone, and it was frequented by such figures as Sandro Botticelli and Antonio and Piero Pollaiuolo. It was a centre of humanistic thought in which Leonardo acquired both conceptual and technical knowledge in the fields of painting, music, science and humanism. There he came into contact with his future patrons, the Medicis and Ludovico Sforza (Il Moro), Duke of Milan. All manner of objects were produced at the workshop and all kinds of creative activities were pursued: painting, sculpture, the manufacture of processional banners, diverse items for festive occasions and, significantly, musical instruments. Verrocchio held Leonardo in high esteem and took great pains to teach him the skills of the artist and musician. It was during this period that Leonardo began to study singing and various instruments and, very probably, the art of instrument building. Although no score of Leonardo’s survives, and in fact scarcely one or two musical phrases remain, a testament to his musical knowledge has been preserved in his drawings of musical instruments, his hieroglypha and his writings.
The harmony of the soul
Popular musical expression was to be found in the music of song and dance. The most widespread were forms such as the frottola and the barzeletta of Tuscany, with its dominant upper part, ideal to be sung by three or four voices. They were usually accompanied on the lute because of its vertical consonance. These popular songs were included in the festivities at the Court of the Medicis, gradually becoming transformed into carnival songs similar to the frottola . These were the songs that Leonardo would have heard as a child in the streets of Florence during carnival and the Calendimaggio festivals. When Leonardo decided to leave the workshop of Andrea Verrocchio, his interest in music led him to take lessons with Antonio Squarcialupi, the illustrious organist of Santa Maria del Fiore, who was also Lorenzo the Magnificent’s music teacher.
One fact is crucial to a proper understanding of the period: the spread of printing, which played a vital role in the dissemination of music. The first printing press to print music from movable type was the now legendary press of Ottaviano Petrucci in Venice, who printed his first book, Harmonicae Musices Odhecaton, in 1501. In 1511 he opened a workshop in Fossombrone, disseminating the works of masters such as Josquin, Isaac, Obrecht... and frottola music in eleven books of which ten survive to the present day. That was the beginning of printed music; the industry grew rapidly, with new printing presses appearing at an extraordinary rate. Petrucci’s rival, Andrea Antico, had workshops in both Rome and Venice and therefore also played a significant part in the increased circulation of music books.
Italy was a magnet for foreign musicians, including Willaert, Dunstable, Ockeghem, Obrecht, Binchois, Compère, Dufay –whose motet “Nuper rosarum flores” was performed at the consecration of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence after Brunelleschi’s cupola was completed in 1436– and particularly Josquin Desprez. The most admired musician of his day, Josquin was maestro di capella at Milan Cathedral. Martin Luther, himself a musician, wrote of him: “Other masters must do as the notes wish, whereas Josquin is master of the notes, which do his bidding.”
Although there is some disagreement among the biographers, it seems that Leonardo moved from Vinci to the Tuscan capital in 1460 or 1464 (not in 1470) and embarked on his life in the cultural melting pot that was Florence at a time when it was one of the three or four most important cities of the age. Once there, his father took him, as we have already mentioned, to the workshop of Andrea di Cione, also known as Verrocchio, who, according to Vasari, “was a sculptor, a master of intarsio, a painter and a consummate musician”. Considered the most prestigious in Italy, Verrocchio’s workshop numbered among its pupils Lorenzo di Credi, Perugino and Francesco di Simone, and it was frequented by such figures as Sandro Botticelli and Antonio and Piero Pollaiuolo. It was a centre of humanistic thought in which Leonardo acquired both conceptual and technical knowledge in the fields of painting, music, science and humanism. There he came into contact with his future patrons, the Medicis and Ludovico Sforza (Il Moro), Duke of Milan. All manner of objects were produced at the workshop and all kinds of creative activities were pursued: painting, sculpture, the manufacture of processional banners, diverse items for festive occasions and, significantly, musical instruments. Verrocchio held Leonardo in high esteem and took great pains to teach him the skills of the artist and musician. It was during this period that Leonardo began to study singing and various instruments and, very probably, the art of instrument building. Although no score of Leonardo’s survives, and in fact scarcely one or two musical phrases remain, a testament to his musical knowledge has been preserved in his drawings of musical instruments, his hieroglypha and his writings.
It is important to remember that from 1480 Leonardo assiduously attended the intellectual and artistic circles hosted by Lorenzo the Magnificent in the gardens of San Marco, as well as those held at Accademiola, the villa in Careggi, on the outskirts of Florence, which Marsilio Ficino had received as a gift in 1462 from his former patron, Cosimo de’ Medici. There Leonardo met with the greatest humanists of the day: Luigi Pulci, Angelo Poliziano, Giuliano Sangallo, Filippo Lippi, Cristoforo Landino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Leo Battista Alberti and, of course, Ficino himself. The influence of their works is central to an understanding of the Renaissance, as is that of Ficino, in particular, to the development of Platonic thought in Italy. Ficino’s profound knowledge of Greek enabled him to translate the works of Plato into Latin, and he founded a kind of Platonic Academy which was to play a major role in the development of the new philosophy. At these gatherings, as in the artists’ workshops, the lira da braccio and the lute were played, and every occasion was a good excuse for indulging in song. The “lyre of Orpheus” gave access to glittering institutions, cured afflictions of the spirit and was the remedy for melancholy. Musicians also believed that the true purpose of human activity was the plenitude of beauty and metaphysical value; to this end, the arts were classified into a higher harmony, or “music”, which consisted of various levels: reason, imagination, discourse, song, the ability to play musical instruments and rhythmic dance. All of the former culminated in a higher level of attainment, which was universal harmony. At that time, music was the most modern of the arts because of its freedom and capacity for formal abstraction, and also because of its ability to define human emotions. As Italians so aptly put it, “música é il lamento dell’amore o la preghiera a gli dei” (Music is the lament of love or a prayer to the gods).
In his Treatise on Painting, Leonardo writes: “But painting, the servant of the eye, that noblest of the senses, reveals a harmonious proportion similar to the harmonious proportion which results from many voices uniting and singing together, in such a delightful manner that the audience is rapt in intense admiration.” He later goes on to remark: “Do you not know that our soul is composed of harmony, and that harmony cannot be bred save in the simultaneity and the relative proportions of objects which are seen or heard?”
The conceptual differences between Leonardo and those who formed the group close to Lorenzo the Magnificent grew steadily greater. Leonardo was a scientist and a mathematician, whereas they adhered to Platonic theories and were strongly influenced by certain schools which tended to mysticism and were linked to the figure of Savonarola, whose doctrines inspired little sympathy in Leonardo. Milan, on the other hand, was more conducive to encyclopaedic knowledge, an Aristotelianism tempered by the mathematicians, scientists and engineers at the court of Ludovico with whom Leonardo was able to conduct his research. It was there that Leonardo pursued both his artistic and scientific activities.
In the Treatise on Painting, he states: “Music should be called none other than the sister of painting, and is subordinate to hearing, the sense which follows sight. Its harmonies are composed of the simultaneous conjunction of its proportional parts, which are destined to be born and then die in one or several harmonic spaces. These tempos circumscribe the proportion of the parts, for this harmony is composed as if it traced a circumference, like that which is obtained from the limbs which give beauty to the human form. Painting is superior to music because, unlike unfortunate music, it does not have to die as soon as it is born, and therefore its essence remains. Painting shows one side of a living thing.”
A very similar observation on music is to be found in Alberti’s treatise De pictura.. We have already pointed out that Leonardo had a sound knowledge of music, acquired through conversations with his friends at the Academy, from performances heard at festive events and in the theatre, from his familiarity with the music of Heinrich Isaac and Josquin Desprez, from his acquaintance with Franchino Gaffurio and as a result of the instrument-making skills that he learned from Verrocchio, Lorenzo Gurnasco and the prestigious family of instrument-builders, the Dieufoprugars. Particularly relevant in this context was his relationship with Gaffurio, conductor of the Cathedral choir in Milan from 1484, who published major treatises on music theory, including Theorica musicae (1492), Practica musicae (1496) and De harmonia musicorum instrumentorum opus (1500), with which Leonardo must have been familiar. Gaffurio may have been the subject of the portrait Leonardo painted around 1485 or1487, entitled Portrait of a musician, which, when restored, revealed a sheet of music in the sitter’s right hand with the inscription CANT ANG, possibly an abbreviation of CANT(OR) ANG(ELICUM), an allusion to Gaffurio’s work Angelicum ac divinum opus musicae. Other authors, however, suggest that this could be a portrait of Josquin Desprez, who was also engaged at Milan Cathedral, or even of Atalante Migliorotti.
Playing on a silver lire
After an apprenticeship of almost nine years, Leonardo left Verrocchio’s workshop and established an independent workshop of his own. Later in 1482, he moved to Milan. It seems likely that a major factor in Leonardo’s decision was his impatience at not receiving any important commission in Florence; in fact, during his time there he had only carried out workshop pieces under Verrocchio, in addition to the two paintings of St Jerome and the Madonna of Benois. His departure may also have been influenced by the charges of sodomy unsuccessfully brought against him five years earlier, or by the fact that he was not among the other great painters of his acquaintance chosen by Pope Sixtus IV to work in Rome. It is not known why he left his marvellous painting, the Adoration of the Magi unfinished. It may simply be that, as so frequently was the case, he lost interest in the project, his incessantly creative mind being constantly occupied with more lofty thoughts than the work in hand. The official theory concerning his departure from Florence is based on information provided by Vasari: “Leonardo was invited to Milan with great ceremony by the Duke to play the lira, in which that prince greatly delighted. Leonardo took his own instrument, made by himself in great part of silver [...] to render the harmonies more loud and sonorous, so that he surpassed all the musicians who assembled there. Besides this, he was the best improviser of verse of his time.” Vasari’s observations on Leonardo as a musician are echoed by Gaddiano and Lomazzo.
Gaddiano insists that it was Lorenzo the Magnificent who sent Leonardo to Milan to present to Ludovico Sforza the gift of a silver lyre, and that Leonardo was accompanied by the sixteen-year-old Atalante Migliorotti, his pupil “in the art of playing the lyre”, as well as by Tommaso Masini da Peretola, an extraordinary craftsman and engineer who was nicknamed Zoroastro on account of his fascination with magic and mysterious natural phenomena. The instrument in question was a kind of lira da braccio, built by Leonardo in the shape of a horse’s head. There is a drawing by Leonardo which resembles such an instrument: a horned animal’s skull with strings stretched over a soundbox. and fretted fingerboard. On 23 February 1482, coinciding with the carnival festivities, a music and poetry contest was held in which Leonardo and Atalante were proclaimed the winners. Both during and after the festival, Ludovico conversed at length with Leonardo on the subjects of music and poetry, but at that very moment Leonardo was hatching plans that had nothing to do with either topic: just a few days later, he sent the Duke a letter offering his professional services, including ten specific proposals and listing his accomplishments as a military engineer and an architect.
