Leonardo da Vinci, “Lady with an Ermine” (1489–91), oil on wooden panel, 21 x 15 inches (54 x 39 cm) (picture courtesy Nationwide Museum of Krakow)
If William Shakespeare believed that eyes are the home windows to the soul, then how did Leonardo da Vinci regard the nostril? Whereas the Italian polymath has traditionally been related to creative mastery and scientific ingenuity, lesser identified is his deep fascination with fragrances.
The just lately printed exhibition catalog Leonardo da Vinci and the Perfumes of the Renaissance dives into this largely unexplored aspect of the artist’s life by highlighting his private engagements with fragrance. From Leonardo’s upbringing in Tuscany, the place fragrant crops like jasmine and orange blossom thrived within the area’s hilly panorama, to his working house, which was stuffed with botanical books and strong-smelling oils, resins, waxes, and fat that have been included into his artwork, Leonardo’s life was teeming with scents that stirred curiosity and influenced different elements of his work. The e book itself pulls from the multisensory exhibition of the identical identify curated by historians Carlo Vecce and Pascal Brioist, which ran this previous summer time on the Château du Clos Lucé in Amboise, France, and contextualized Leonardo’s artistry by means of the historical past of Renaissance perfumes, just like that of the 2018 digital present reexamining South Asian artistry by means of scent, Bagh-e-Hind.
Via a mix of artworks, perfume recipes, and texts by historians and three-dimensional reconstruction consultants, the catalog constructs a timeline that not solely retraces the event of Renaissance scents but additionally their influence on Leonardo and his contemporaries. It begins with Vecce’s declare that the polymath’s mom, Caterina, was an enslaved girl who was trafficked from her dwelling within the Caucasus area to Italy through the spice commerce, introducing scents like cinnamon, myrrh, and musk.
The e book continues to attract connections between Leonardo’s childhood and his work as an grownup, when he diligently copied recipes for perfumes and drew up technological sketches for alembic distillation mechanisms. Quoting his pocket book within the foreword, novelist François Saint-Bris factors out how Leonardo’s experiments allowed him to develop a deep understanding of the connection between shade and odor. “Note how aqua vitae collects in itself all the colors and scents of the flowers,” the artist wrote. “If you want to make azure, put cornflowers in it; and wild poppies for red.”
Additional teasing out the continuity between Leonardo’s fragrance follow and creative work, Brioist particulars how the artist’s preoccupation with odors helped affect his technical and architectural designs, from family latrines and horse stables to residential gardens for aristocratic patrons. When Leonardo designed plans for what he perceived because the mannequin metropolis in 1485, he particularly sought to get rid of putrid smells that resulted from overcrowding and poor air flow.
Pomander from Sixteenth-century France (picture courtesy Musée Nationwide de la Renaissance, Écouen)
Leonardo’s obsession with odor could appear a bit intense, however because the essays level out, fragrance (and odors) performed a big position in Renaissance society, the place hygienic practices have been questionable and illness was rampant. One tactic to push back illness was using scented clothes and niknaks like gloves and sachets, often donned by French and Milanese the Aristocracy. Accordingly, essayist Paula Venturelli sheds mild on Leonardo’s “Lady with an Ermine” (c. 1489–1491), whose topic is proven sporting a black necklace exemplifying the interval’s modern perfumed paternoster beads, for which the e book even features a recipe that consists of freshly floor bread crumbs, wine, and egg yolk. This recipe may also be used to make fragrant knife handles, and for these with a nostril for perfume, there are even instructions on the right way to make “Chypre birdies,” or sculptures made from perfumed paste, and gloves scented with almond oil mixtures and musked rose water. Then once more, contemplating these recipes got here earlier than the arrival of routine bathing and expiration dates, it could be higher to stay to the stuff from the shop.
Bartolomeo Bimbi, “Oranges, Limes, Lemons and Citrus lumia” (1715), oil on canvas, 78 x 101 1/5 inches (198 x 257 cm) (picture courtesy Museo della Natura Morta Villa di Poggio, Caiano)
Barthel Bruyn the Youthful, “Portrait of a Woman of the Slosgin Family of Cologne” (1557), oil on oak, 17 3/4 x 14 1/8 inches (45.1 x 35.9 cm, with the topic holding a small pomander (picture public area by way of the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork)