La "scopetta", gli "occhiali" e la "cadrega" di fuoco: immagini sforzesche della prudenza nelle allegorie politiche di Leonardo - HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Article dans une revue Iconographica Année : 2010

La "scopetta", gli "occhiali" e la "cadrega" di fuoco: immagini sforzesche della prudenza nelle allegorie politiche di Leonardo

Résumé

This paper illustrates a specific episode of intersection between Renaissance politics and the arts: Leonardo da Vinci’s engagement with Ludovico the Moor and the Sforza court in Milan, at the end of the 15th century. The artist created for his patron a lot of emblems and allegories, intended to support his controversial political conduct, especially before the formal acquisition of the ducal title. In fact, until his nephew’s death (1494), Ludovico officially acted as a factual governor in Gian Galeazzo Sforza’s name, even if his actual authority resulted undisputable to everyone. Consequently, an attentive texture of political dissimulation was predisposed by him, while arranging his own succeeding to the nephew. A propagandistic recourse to the conceptual category of prudence was therefore fundamental: in its double significance (both of prevision capability and of preservation/maintenance), this virtue was perfectly suitable to mark Ludovico’s actions as a tutor of Galeazzo (and of his state, too), especially on the basis of a symbolic association between his nickname (the Moor) and the mulberry tree, whose prudential attitude in budding had been recognized since Pliny the Elder. In his several projects for emblematic representations (as documented by drawings and writings), Leonardo used, together with the mulberry branches, Ludovico’s other heraldic attributes (as the little brush for dresses, a metaphor of his aim to clean Italy from the foreigners), in combination with specific images of prudence: so, the spectacles in a drawing at Bayonne, where Ludovico is presented as an Egyptian Pharaoh, appear as a foresight amplification.
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Dates et versions

halshs-01380832, version 1 (17-10-2016)

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  • HAL Id : halshs-01380832 , version 1

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Marco Versiero. La "scopetta", gli "occhiali" e la "cadrega" di fuoco: immagini sforzesche della prudenza nelle allegorie politiche di Leonardo. Iconographica, 2010. ⟨halshs-01380832⟩
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