THE LIFE OF LEONARDO DA VINCI
PART 4
Salay, stop! Come! Look!
Florence! - How small it is!
Small rooms and houses enliven the wits, large ones depress them.
Let's go!
The Florence that Leonardo finds in the spring of the year 1501
is very different from the one he left 20 years ago.
Of the joyful, gaudy city of Lorenzo the Magnificent, splendid with works of art,
upon the carefree and pagan city a shadow has fallen.
Vain are the fragile and fleeting men and you ready for death.
You know neither the day nor the hour, and yet you seek riches!
Gerolamo Savonarola preached darkly from San Marco,
shaking minds with the threats of damnation and sin.
And all these vanities must be given to the fire for the salvation of your soul!
Only this way, ignorant madmen, you will deserve the highest prize!
To the fire, for the salvation of your soul!
To the fire the gold, the rich garments of the wealthy,
to the fire those images that do not glorify God!
For 4 or 5 years, overwhelmed by the burning words of its prophet,
Florence cried, did penance,
burned many beautiful works of art produced by the genius of the 1400s
judged to be corrupting and immoral.
But then it rebelled and threw Savonarola himself to the stake.
Thus a popular painting of the era represents the death of Savonarola.
Today the city, after the nightmare, tries to forget and recover.
But something has set forever:
That joyful serenity, that spirit of carefree youth
that went with the splendid 1400s.
Times have changed, and to express them today...
What are you doing? - ... there’s a small tortured youth...
Hey, give me the mallet.
... with gnarled hands, who today is just over 25 years old.
Give it over.
Suspicious, violent, closed in himself,
at the same time liable to the most shouted confessions,
Michelangelo is the antagonist born for Leonardo.
The young angry genius of the new generation
and the Maestro, serene in the fullness of his years,
their contemporary presence in narrow Florence...
Oh, Maestro, look: The old man's coming!
...will inevitably lead them to a fight.
It's carnival! Here comes the three Wisemen!
Say the Christmas Witch rather.
The first dispute takes place in front of a huge block of marble
for years abandoned next to Santa Maria Del Fiore
that the Signoria has asked both to sculpt them a statue.
So, Maestro: The base is 4 armlengths... by 3,
and the length... - 4 by 3. - 4 armlengths...
And the length...
and the length...
The length is 12 armlengths.
Beautiful stone, eh? - Beautiful.
Hey!
A shame: From water and sun... it’s a bit spoiled by the weather.
Oh, why are you interested in this marble?
You wrote that the painter is superior to the sculptor
because he works with the mind and not with the muscles.
Leave the muscle work to the young people, who are more robust.
Oh, young man!
Fix that.
Why do you want me to fix things you messed up?
Come, let's go.
Pier Soderini, gonfalonier of the Republic of Florence,
assigned that block of disputed marble to Michelangelo,
so that could make his "David".
Leonardo accepted to execute for the friars of the Servi
a Saint Anne with the Virgin and the Child.
Let's go, come.
The sketch, which would have been transferred to the painting,
was ready in the spring of 1501.
The friars were won over.
Brothers, please, go.
Now people will come, come to see her. Who shouldn't be in the cloister!
Brother, the image is not yet blessed.
But it's so beautiful...
Brother... Open then, let people in.
Brothers, you may open!
There's a big wait, you know.
Come in, come all! - Forward, brothers.
After you.
And here again we hear Vasari,
”For two days went to see her, men and women, young and old,”
“as if it were a solemn feast day,”
”to see that marvel of Leonardo that made everyone wonder.”
Forward, brothers, forward.
“You could see in the face of that Madonna”
”everything that is simple and beautiful that could give grace to Christ's mother.”
The sketch, truly beautiful, is preserved today in London, in the National Gallery.
Are you making a sketch? - What do you think?
I think it’s nice, yes, but...
This is just the sketch: We’re waiting for the painted picture.
If he ever paints it!
Alas, the sketch remained a sketch. Leonardo never painted the picture.
Years later, it is not known exactly when,
relying unfortunately largely on the help of his students,
he painted another Sant'Anna, very similar to this one,
that today is in the Louvre museum.
Michelangelo was right.
But, after having laid eyes on the miraculous sketch,
he will no longer draw as before.
A certain softness of nuance will have stuck to him,
perhaps in spite of his fingers.
Imola. This beautiful and famous map of the fortified city of Imola
was designed by Leonardo in October 1502.
Again and unexpectedly Leonardo has left Florence.
Now he serves a warrior prince and is dedicated exclusively to military art.
A patent letter dated August 18, 1502, still preserved today,
appoints him chief engineer of all castles and fortresses belonging to this prince.
"To all our lieutenants, castellans, captains, soldiers and subjects,"
“we command and order”
“to our dashing and express confidant,”
“architect and general engineer, Leonardo Vinci,”
“who in our commission must survey the places and fortresses of our states,”
“will be given free pass, attending on his orders”
“and deferring to his opinion."
"Anybody presuming to the opposite, will incur our displeasure."
Very good. -"August 18, 1502. Cesare".
"Cesare" is Cesare Borgia, Duke Valentino.
Son of Pope Alexander VI, who nourishes for him an affection made of love and fear,
intelligent, cruel, handsome,
the young Borgia knows no obstacles to his ambition.
Maybe he killed his brother to remain the sole heir.
With this letter you can move safely.
Now, under the pretext of subjecting Romagna to the Church,
he is conquering a state in central Italy with cunning, courage and cynical betrayal.
Starting from here, you will visit all our castles,
proposing and executing, if necessary, the works you consider most necessary.
Pesaro, Cesena, Imola...
Leonardo's meeting with the handsome and cruel prince
is a strange and brief adventure that will end within a year.
Nothing seems to justify a collaboration between 2 people so profoundly different.
Nothing would seem to justify it,
but an unconscious attraction of Leonardo, so meditative and shy,
towards a man of lightning and ruthless actions.
Nor can we deny that Leonardo has always experienced,
he so mild, honest and contrary to any violence,
a fascination with horror.
The caricatures, the corpses ripped apart
and in a small way, but no less indicative, the indulgence towards Salay's misdeeds,
"thief and liar".
"A deep and dark mirror", said Baudelaire of him.
Difficult to discern to the bottom.
From now on, passing in the sheets of Leonardo, whirling,
military machines,
gigantic crossbows.
Besides, he had always been busy with the art of military engineering.
In the famous letter to Ludovico the Moor,
he first offered himself as an inventor and military engineer.
Here, among the drawings dating back to that time,
chariots intended to mow down the enemy.
But beyond these, which are no more than fantasy,
even in the military he will prove a precursor.
Bombs with directional flaps like those of air bombardments,
multiple-burst grenades, then cannons threw simple stone or iron balls,
new types of cannon barrels,
but above all machine guns
and tanks.
But the problem more than any other which interests him while in Borgia's service,
is that of defense.
He draws adjustable batteries
which create a real fire of interdiction, or as we say today, a barrage.
He studies castles and ditches thinking of the very modern problem of fortification.
However, it is not known why, suddenly, just as he had put himself in his service,
Leonardo quits Cesare Borgia.
This fevered adventure didn't last a year.
At the beginning of March 1503, Leonardo left the duke and returned to Florence.
where, from the Bank of the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, he withdraws 50 ducats.
The charming duke Valentino left him nothing.
To survive, he must resort to his savings.
Yes, 50 ducats.
Nanni, write 50.
Please, if you will sign.
On May 14th 1504, Michelangelo's "David" is accomplished.
The marble block disputed with Leonardo is now a stupendous statue.
The 18,000 pound giant takes three days, driven by 40 men,
to cross the narrow streets of Florence until reaching its assigned location.
This location was decided in a turbulent session at Palazzo Vecchio.
Gentlemen, please return to your seats!
The meeting will be conducted with order!
You speak, Pietro Perugino. - I say that...
Please, one at a time. Pietro Perugino.
The grain of the marble is soft, sun and rain would ruin it.
Please, please, one at a time.
Gentlemen, gentlemen! You speak, Ser Botticelli.
It has to be covered. Sangallo agrees.
Of course, otherwise the statue won’t last a 100 years!
Gentlemen, gentlemen... Gentlemen!
Gentlemen, please!
You speak, Maestro Leonardo.
Pietro Perugino speaks truly. The block was too long outdoors
and Pietro Perugino is right: The grain of the marble is soft.
I would propose the Loggia dei Lanzi,
perhaps painted black in the background to give more emphasis to its whiteness.
This... is just a painter's judgment!
He must stay before the Palazzo Vecchio! He’s young, the rain won’t scare him!
Dante well says, "Pride, envy and avarice are the three sparks that warm hearts"!
Again the rivalry between the two titans has reignited.
Only 20 years of age separate them, but they belong to 2 different centuries.
Leonardo belongs to the 1400s, a child of the Magnificent.
Michelangelo is a man of the 1500s, a child of Savonarola.
Irreversible rivalry between the 2, one proud, the other virulent,
and of which Florence, a small and curious city, was enjoying like an entertainment.
The next episode is not taken from Vasari but from an anonymous biographer,
"Leonardo passing by the Holy Trinity Church,"
"where there was a good company of men, disputing a passage in Dante,"
"they called to Leonardo to explain to them that passage".
"... the 515..." - Let's see... It's one of the most difficult passages.
"By chance, Michelangelo passed by and Leonardo said,"
Ask Michelangelo, who knows Dante so well.
You can explain it better, Maestro da Vinci.
And explain also Francesco Sforza's horse
which in Milan you cast into bronze
and didn’t finish it and left it halfdone to your shame.
Stone breaker! Broken nose! Fool!
Fool! - Salay...
I've always taught you not to lie,
don't stray from the truth.
Good day.
A much larger battle will explode soon between the two.
The Signoria has thought of you as one of its most illustrious sons
to perform this great fresco in this new hall. The wall...
We are at Palazzo Vecchio, in the recent Sala Del Consiglio.
The Gonfalonier Pier Soderini charges Leonardo to paint a wall.
Here: The wall... this is the wall.
You will paint the battle of Anghiari,
where the Florentines defeated the Milanese.
Smoke, horses, blood, riot...
In short, see to it yourself.
The contract will be drawn up soon, all right? - All right.
But with another you have...
The first step is taken. - Have you talked to the other one? - Yes...
Let’s take the measurements.
I left the papers on my trunk. - Right away, Maestro.
And the other one?
Who is the other one?
The truth is it's... Michelangelo! - Michelangelo?
Maestro... I’m Brother Pietro da Novellara.
I received a very urgent letter from the Marchesa Isabella of Mantua.
Ah, from her Excellency.
Who urgently prays... - Maestro! Excuse me.
Maestro...
Maestro, this wall...
this wall is yours!
And this one here...
Do you know who it is destined for? For Michelangelo!
I heard them gossiping out there. They'll give it to him to compare you both!
He too will paint a battle: The Battle of Cascina.
You were saying, Father? - Ah, yes...
Her most excellent Marchesa Isabella begs you,
in memory of your visit to Mantua,
she would ask you to make her one of your paintings.
Even a very little one. Very small.
Definitely! As soon as I have time.
Oh, yes, yes, of course. Without any time constraints.
One of your panels, a small one.
Of course. - Then I’ll wait.
The Battle of Cascina...
Leonardo throws himself into his work: No hesitations or regrets this time.
by the side and in comparison with Michelangelo, he will paint his battle.
In Santa Maria Novella, a very ingenious scaffold was built
to create the outline to be painted on the wall at Palazzo Vecchio.
Leonardo made minute notes on the battle.
The battle of Anghiari had occurred 60 years before,
and he questioned the old men who had taken part in it.
There were 40 squadrons of cavalry and 2000 infantry.
Niccolò Piccinino was with the exiled Florentines,
including Rinaldo degli Albizi with a splendid armor! - And still more!
Of course! - And the patriarch, then?
The patriarch, early in the morning, got up in his chariot
and saw from Borgo San Sepulcher Niccolò Piccinino come with his people,
in the middle of a big dust cloud!
Yeah, but the biggest fight was on the bridge. Remember?
He was there, if he remembers. - Yes, I was there!
And you remember? - Oh yes, I remember it well...
Now 65 years have passed,
but the memory I have is still good, even if I'm old.
That morning I will never forget! It was a battle...
Actually, only one man died there... - But the fight was great.
Then, you must go? - Yes, yes.
Come, I’ll show you out. - Thank you.
Leonardo wants to prove not to be just the graceful painter,
the master of shadows who everyone knows,
but to have grit and fight.
Wall against the wall, the two battles, of Anghiari and Cascina,
his and Michelangelo's, will face each other.
This is the measure of himself
he wants to give to the Florentines and to the young who question him.
To the shouts of Michelangelo, he will oppose his own shouts.
“When a bird with big wings and little tail wants to rise,”
“then it will raise its wings forcefully”
“and, turning, will receive the wind under the wings,”
“which wind will lift him up with ease.”
“Like the kite, a bird of prey,”
"which I saw going to Fiesole above the Barbiga’s estate”
“on March 15th, 1505.”
Suddenly, with a fury similar to his battle studies, which he doesn’t interrupt,
Leonardo throws himself into the great dream of giving man wings.
The dream of human flight.
From March 14th, 1505 to April 15th of the same year,
Leonardo transcribed on this little codex
a large part of his preparatory studies made by him for human flight.
The codex underwent, like almost all the books by Leonardo, many adventures:
It was lost, found again, stolen, dismembered, reassembled again.
First of all, Leonardo,
studying why the bird flies, discovers the first principle of mechanics,
that for every action there is an equal and corresponding action.
“As much force is made by the thing against the air,”
“as much is made by the air against the thing.”
To study air resistance, he draws and builds a swinging wing.
And studying the resistance of the air, he invents, by the way, the parachute.
“If a man has a cloth pavilion of 12 armlengths by 12,”
“he can throw himself from any height without doing any damage to himself.”
But to understand how flight happens,
with much patience, he observes in real time for several hours the flight of birds.
“The wings are faster to beat the air than the air to escape from under the wings,”
“air condenses, causing the bird to rise, moving contrary to motion of the wing.”
“The lines of the motions made by the birds in their elevation, are made by 2 lines;”
“of which one is always curved, screwlike,”
"and the other is rectilinear and curvilinear.”
“To give true science to the motion of birds in the air,”
“it is necessary to first study the science of the movements of the winds,”
“which we will compare with the motion of water.”
“When the bird, with its beating wings, wants to rise,”
“he raises his humerus and flaps the tips towards himself,”
“and it condenses the air so, that pushed, it pushes the bird on high.”
All his studies focus on a wing that beats, like that of birds.
He studies it in its smallest details,
but applying to the wing, all the moving parts we find today in the wing of a plane.
This is not the place for a treatise on the flight of Leonardo.
If we have any ambition, it is not to exalt only the scientist or the artist,
but also to understand, as far as possible, Leonardo the man.
With one of those rare, sudden and fleeting phrases,
submerged among annotations, notes, inventions, we find at times in the codices,
even in the small flight codex, on a corner of the last page, we read,
almost scrawled in anxiety or frenzy, under this church design,
a sentence that reveals to us, unexpectedly, the man Leonardo.
"The large bird will take the first flight,"
“from the top of Mount Ceceri,”
“filling the universe with amazement,”
“filling all writings with his fame.”
"And eternal glory to the nest where he was born!"
The large bird will take his first flight
from the top of Mount Ceceri,
filling the universe with amazement...
He will take…
…his first flight…
The large bird will take his first flight…
His first flight!
Filling the universe with amazement!
From the top of Mount Ceceri!
His first flight! His first flight!
His first flight!
His first flight…
Maybe we're wrong but once again we heard the voice, usually subdued, of Leonardo
dissolving in an exalted cry of pride.
In Venice, when it was flashed before him the ability to navigate underwater,
an undertaking never attempted by man.
This too will be an undertaking never attempted by man.
“This tool for flying, made for man,”
“only lacks the soul of a bird,”
“that soul must be counterfeited by the soul of man.”
The short reverie is over:
Leonardo is again himself, precise, detached, cold.
And meticulous as always,
in the same little codex where a while ago he wrote with exalted pride,
he notes,
"On April 15th, I had 26 florins..."
“from the camerlengo of Santa Maria Nova”
This is the Leonardo we know.
Leonardo begins to paint the "Battle of Anghiari",
whose outline is already on the wall,
on June 6.
As we will see later, the "Battle of Anghiari" was lost.
Our reconstruction, is necessarily an approximation,
based on the drawings that remain
and on which the most distinguished scholars have made in-depth studies.
The wall is prepared with a background which Leonardo had to buy,
as we read in the municipality books,
663 pounds of plaster, 89 of Greek pitch and 223 of linseed oil.
June 6. It's Friday, an unlucky day.
This unlucky date and its unlucky events
will only be understood a few years later.
In one of the two recently found codices in Spain, we read, by Leonardo's hand,
"June 6, Friday, at the strike of one, I began to paint in the Palace."
"At the point of laying on the brush, the weather turned ugly"
"and a bell rang calling one condemned to death."
"and the sketches were torn and the color vases were broken"
"and it rained heavily into the evening"
"and the weather was like night".
Leonardo notes this, with meticulous bitterness, these omens
almost in the presentiment that the great work
will be born in an atmosphere of bad luck.
No, no!
See that? He jumped off and flew!
Legend says that Tommaso Masini, without the knowledge of Leonardo,
trying on his master's apparatus, threw himself from the top of a cliff
and, due to lack of force or a blast of wind, he plunged down
seriously injuring himself.
He’s beyond the stream, perhaps. - No, no, I saw it all.
But he’s not over here... - Look, look!
Oh, my God!
Oh, poor man!
A man! It's really a man! - Today, nobody believes this attempt.
But it is a fact that, suddenly, Leonardo's studies show a decisive turning point.
He understands that the flapping wing is a utopia.
Even the helicopter he invented using the motor force
is not of man’s muscular strength.
To realize that it will be necessary to wait for the gas engine.
He turns then towards a firm but not rigid wing .
which allows the flight to hover, what is today gliding.
Because at a certain point a defeated Leonardo, abandons his magnificent dream.
No more mention of it in the pages of his books.
The dream will remain a dream.
He will not arrive flying,
he will not descend like an angel, "filling the universe with wonder",
above the large square of his beloved and hated Florence,
the "nest where he was born".
To this, another bitter defeat is added, just at that time.
Put it there. Maestro! Maestro!
The fire is ready.
Leonardo, as we have already said about the "Last Supper", is not a fresco painter.
In a few months, he designed the huge sketch of the "Battle of Anghiari"
and promises to paint it quickly. - Go ahead.
But he does not want to apply the hasty technique of the fresco
and he makes a new experiment.
Bring more sticks, it needs a lot of heat!
To paint with oil and immediately dry it with intense heat.
This attempt is important:
On it depends whether he'll adopt or not this new technique for the whole fresco.
In those years he painted a portrait that he carried with him everywhere,
to which he sometimes put his hand to, finishing it with infinite patience.
Hey! Hey! Wake up!
No, no, enough. Look, it's perfect.
We have succeeded: It is the ancient encaustic of the Romans.
I found the recipe in Pliny. Touch it!
The procedure was extended to the wall, whose central part was already painted.
You, at the pulley. - Salay, those bags! - Hey, you! Go ahead with the bags!
The counterweight there. - Hey, over there! - And the beam?
The sticks over there!
Come on with the winch! Salay, those bags of counterweight! - Yes, Maestro.
Hurry! - The vents are at the right height.
That vent there! You too! Raise the winch!
From there, I said. Raise it, raise it!
And you, over there, check the pulley. - Now I’ll watch.
It’s attached well up there? - I think so, Maestro.
Raise it, raise it.
Let's try the winch.
The winch should be pulled up slowly.
Hey, up there, does it hold up well? - Very well!
Ready all! That last vent place it there!
Yes, there.
And now, Maestro? - Raise it.
Slowly...
Up, keep going up.
Easy. Up, up.
The fire must be well placed against the wall.
You add wood.
Stop.
Maestro, it’s drying. - It’s drying!
It has to be cooked like an egg! - Madonna, how hot!
In an hour it'll be nice and dry. If it weren’t for the fire, I'd touch it!
You did it, Maestro! You did it!
There, from that part, where there’s no flame...
There’s no flame there, it can’t reach it! - Oh, Madonna!
More fire! - More fire!
I said more fire! - More sticks! - Bring more wood!
Lower it! - Quickly, lower it!
Lower it so we can add wood. - More wood, more wood!
Put more bundles! - The fire has to cover the whole wall!
It's at the top! - More sheaves, quick!
More fire, more fire!
Oh, the other vents! Hurry!
It's up there that heat won't rise!
More fire, more fire!
It doesn’t reach the top... - Silence!
Stop.
Lower the fire.
Lower...
It is the painting above which is flowing... - The fire up there didn’t reach it.
It needed ten vents!
From the middle to the top, the heat wasn’t enough
and the painting is irretrievably lost.
No, no! No need anymore, put it down.
How could it be? - We raced and now it's not needed?
Father? - Yes?
The Marchesa wrote me again about that painting...
...the small one.
But I don’t think this is the moment.
Later, later. Excuse me.
They’ll cook focacce there!
Old people should know proverbs: "Who leaves the old way for the new..."
Shut up, boor!
A shame.
Although I did not like the painting...
Leonardo is not a man to raise his voice.
In the way you’ve seen, Lomazzo, another biographer of Leonardo,
tells how the painting was destroyed.
Vasari only says that the paint flowed.
Leonardo gave up the fresco forever and despite the protests of the Signoria.
Why?
How was this "Battle of Anghiari",
like so many things of Leonardo, also destroyed?
In addition to the drawings you saw, some copies remain.
One in Florence, very brief.
Another in Monaco, called the "Doria Panel", among all the most faithful.
The copies tell us the painting, although damaged, was not completely destroyed,
but survived long enough to be copied.
Until Vasari repainted the whole hall in the sixteenth century.
Another copy at the Louvre, made by a great maestro: Peter Paul Rubens.
It is a drawing, we don't know how faithful.
It takes up the central episode of the fresco,
what Vasari calls the "fight for the banner".
This sketch of Leonardo depicts the same episode,
therefore Rubens reclaims the "Battle of Anghiari".
Evidently, the painting was quite another thing
and they are faithful to the 2 beautiful preparatory drawings of the sketch.
But the whole work has something in it twisted, strained.
Leonardo wanted to beat the young at their own game, with their own weapons,
showing himself with a clarifying, if not a loud voice,
he, the man of subdued voices, of shadows, of subtleties.
And, after all, he was wrong.
He knows he's wrong and maybe, in the innermost part of his soul,
the work’s ruin does not displease him.
Of those years, two or three years of hard work,
with the unconfessed will to rout the young,
to show himself younger than the young,
there's nothing left: Nothing of the flight, nothing of the "Battle of Anghiari".
Nothing...
Nothing is easier for young people to declare that the old are done.
Finished? Of course, tired...
But in those years of enthusiasm and trouble spent in Florence,
between one dream and another, Leonardo also painted a portrait, not very large.
It is of a still beautiful woman, but in the decline of youth
who calm, one hand over the other both spread out on the side of an armchair,
in front of a magical landscape of rocks and waters,
turns her gaze to the spectator, while the lips pose barely a smile.
Who this woman was is not known.
Vasari tells of a certain Lisa, wife of Francesco Del Giocondo,
who Ginevra Benci, who a Florentine loved by Giuliano de'Medici...
Whoever it is, is of little importance. Maybe it's not even a portrait.
It would be a portrait never delivered to the client.
Because Leonardo kept the picture himself and took it with him everywhere and always.
In Milan, where he went again; in France, where he died and the painting remained,
and where today it is the most precious jewel of the Louvre.
Maybe a woman did sit as model, but she was only a pretext.
Because the painting does not accurately portray any woman or anybody,
but represents alone the soul of Leonardo.
In a painting made in Florence
and which should, according to tradition, portray a Florentine woman,
he has painted a landscape as a background
with such precision, it reminds one of the Adda in Paderno.
That Lombard landscape so dear to him
and that sky of Lombardy, "so beautiful when it's beautiful".
If we allow the strange expression,
the "Gioconda" is an autobiographical portrait.
In that disquieting smile, ironic, bitter and yet serene,
in front of that silent landscape,
there is the melancholy awareness of the one who knows.
It is the answer, perhaps unconsciously,
of Leonardo to the arrogant youth of the new generation:
To their violent shouts, he only opposes his silence
and a smile.
Maybe, not all the intended understood this answer,
or didn't hear it, or didn't grasp its true meaning.
But a young man, who was then 20 years old, understood it.
He was born in Urbino and had a soul and a face as sweet as his land.
Pietro! Oh, Perugino! - Leonardo! I'm glad to see you again.
In him there was a great thirst for beauty
and in his soul not even the smallest sign of envy
Are you in Florence? - Yes.
I brought you Raffaello da Urbino.
You know... he really wants to see it.
Good.
What? You want me, Maestro? - Go now.
He’s here.
Ingenious... Ingenious this door. - Well...
Enter. The painting is here.
Ah, but it's immense here! Do you need such a great studio? - Well, you know...
Raphael, it's here. - Enter.
You know, I built... I'm always passionate about mechanics.
The city has changed, the people and I would also say the way of thinking.
And in these years... - Eh, they are difficult years!
You remember, Pietro, when we were in Maestro Verrocchio’s shop? - Of course.
Poor maestro. How many good memories! And these drawings here?
Studies for a machine I wanted to build. It was hanging up there.
But... Raffaello...
What is he doing?
Oh, Raphael!
Are you happy now that you saw her?
Let's go.
Well, what are you doing here?
I'm tired. I don’t go to Florence anymore.
I don’t even feel like I'm home.
Now what will you do? - Maybe leave. I'm going back to Milan.
Mh... Goodbye. - Goodbye, Pietro.
The impression that Raffaello brought back was profound.
In two of his most beautiful portraits, "La Muta" and "Maddalena Doni",
the influence is very evident.
Maestro, that young man was Raffaello da Urbino? - Yes.
He looked and looked and didn't say a single word. - No.
On June 1, 1950, Leonardo left Florence and left for Milan.
Maestro Leonardo! Maestro Leonardo! - Stop, stop him by the door!
There's an order for your return by the excellent Gonfaloniere Pier Soderini.
Go on and count it.
You can keep these at the Bank of Santa Maria Nova. They're 150 gold florins.
It's gold. Gold!
Not copper money, like that time you wanted to pay me
with a sackful of soldi!
150 florins!
I paid the deposit. May I go now? - But when will you finish the fresco?
Well, it shall be done. It will.
Remember, we give you 3 months. 3!
3 months... 3 months' leave, like the military.
3 months to return and keep the pledged commitment
and do that fresco for which you have taken good money!
If you ever finish it, this fresco.
Who knows?
Maestro, Maestro Leonardo!
I know that the Marchesa has sent you a letter from Messer Angelo Del Tovaglia
for that picture... What? Are you leaving?
Even the Marchesa Isabella has rewritten me from Mantua that,
if you can't paint a panel, some small work would suffice,
the child Jesus with the rabbis, if you like.
But certainly, of course.
Reassure the excellent marchesa, reassure her.
Another departure. Will he never find peace?
It is in him or in the hard necessity of events, this restless destiny
always pushing him from one place to another, from one city to another?
Leonardo leaves Florence like one defeated.
How will Milan welcome him?
The dukes, the Sforza, gone
the Moor, who spent his last years in France, a prisoner in the castle of Loches,
Lombardy is now a French province.
The violent persecution against anyone who served the Moor is now forgotten,
but this does not give any assurance of being well received.
However, Leonardo leaves Florence without regrets.
His fellow citizens are strangers to him,
like strangers have been his father, mother-in-law, brothers.
All. Except for Uncle Francesco.
Uncle, who today is a quiet old man and a little air-headed,
lives still in a villa "and does not do anything", like before,
loaded with debts and robbed by everyone, but he doesn't care.
Shrunken by age, in front of this great and famous nephew,
who on the road to Milan stops in Vinci to greet him,
smiles, immutably serene.
Always going about, from one place to another...
Here, everything is a bit in decay.
We need young people to work, but I know 'only...
Did you know Monna Brettone died?
Eh, like that young man who sleeps there. He slept and stayed.
One of your brothers occasionally passes by.
"Uncle, anything nice in your garden? Any eggs?" They only come for this.
And so the expenses are so much, much...
No, no, Leonardo, you don’t have to.
But uncle...
Leonardo, wait!
Take these! They’re from your garden.
I picked them for you this morning. - I cannot, I'm leaving!
Especially for you... - No, uncle, thank you very much.
Please, take these at least: They’re from your garden.
I already have lots of baggage... You eat them, rather! I must leave!
Where are you going? - Milan! - Milan?
But the French are there... - Milan!
Very bad people! Wicked people!
Leonardo! Leonardo...
Bestir thyself lover for the one beloved.
But if the one beloved is not worthy,
the lover makes himself unworthy.
When the lover has joined the beloved,
there is repose.
When the weight is laid down,
there he reposes.
Bestir thyself lover for the one beloved.
But if the one beloved is not worthy,
the lover makes himself unworthy.
When the lover has joined the beloved,
there is repose.
When the weight is laid down,
there he reposes.
There he reposes.
English subtitles by sineintegral@KG