Did Leonardo Try to Fig-Leaf Michelangelo's David?

Leonardo and the battle of Michelangelo's penis

My love for microhistory inspired me to uncover Leonardo da Vinci's attempt to shroud the greatest nude statue ever

Indecent ornament? ... if Leonardo da Vinci had had his wicked way, Michelangelo's David would have been covered up (in parts). Photograph: Alamy

 

So, I gave the last talk in the 2010 tour of my book The Lost Battles: Leonardo, Michelangelo and the Artistic Duel that Defined the Renaissance, at the National Gallery the other day – which in my eyes was a bit like ending it at the art critics' Wembley – and in the middle of the talk, I found myself recommending a book: someone else's. Since I have offered the same bibliographic recommendation to other audiences at book festivals, perhaps I should take the opportunity of what I promise is my last book-related posting of the year to recommend to you the very same beloved work.

It is called Montaillou and its author is the French historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie. It came out in English in 1978, and is still available in paperback. This is my idea of a magical and liberating history book because it breaks down the barriers of time and space. It allows us to meet, as living and speaking human beings, a rowdy and fascinating company of 14th-century French villagers. Normally such people vanish completely from the historical record. The peasants of Montaillou have names, and their personalities can be glimpsed, because they were interrogated by an inquisitor hunting down the last traces of the Cathar heresy.

I fell in love with this book in the 1980s when I was getting ready to read history at university. I also fell in love with the genre of "microhistory" that it made famous. Today there is a vast field of popular writing about history. But before that, there was microhistory. What I realised while working on The Lost Battles was that the simple, humane project of history books like Montaillou – to bring to life the texture of everyday reality in another place, another time – is actually what I want to do for art and artists.

Thus, a crucial chapter of The Lost Battles is based on a transcript of a meeting that took place in Florence in 1504 to decide where Michelangelo's newly carved David should be put. Artists including Botticelli, Perugino and Leonardo da Vinci were at this meeting and their words were recorded word for word by a clerk. Gold dust! In the transcript, Leonardo says the statue needs "decent ornament" – which I take to mean it needs decently covering up, for only in recent times has the notion of decency lost its connotations of Christian modesty.

Since the book's publication in April, no reviewer has disputed this reading of Leonardo's recorded words. Indeed it seems so natural that you may think I got it from some other book – but in fact this obvious reading of Leonardo's speech has been assiduously avoided by art historians who, I suppose, did not want to mention penises and great art in the same sentence.

So, I can claim to have brought a bit of microhistory to light. Great artists are people, too. And in this miraculously preserved bit of his real speech, Leonardo da Vinci is caught out spitefully attempting to emasculate the greatest nude statue in the history of the world.

 

This article is from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2010/nov/16/michelangelo-david-penis-leonardo

(Reproduction Of) Michaelangelo's David Where It Was Meant To Be

Michelangelo’s David as It Was Meant to Be Seen

Standing on a pedestal high up by Florence Cathedral’s dome, a 400-kilogram (800-pound) fiberglass reproduction of Michelangelo’s David has shown today how the towering sculpture acclaimed for its depiction of male beauty would have looked in the destination first envisaged for it.

Commissioned in 1501 for Florence Cathedral, David was originally supposed to be placed along the roofline of the east end of the Cathedral together with a series of statues.

It never ended up there. On Sept. 8, 1504, after a harsh dispute over the best possible locations for David, the masterpiece was displayed beside the main doorway of the Piazza della Signoria. The sculpture remained there, at the mercy of the elements, until 1873 when it was moved to its present location in the Galleria dell'Accademia.

“During this weekend, we will recall the 16th-century debate. The fiberglass statue of David will appear in all the places mentioned in the dispute,” art historian Sergio Risaliti, who conceived the installation, told Discovery News.

The spectacular event, called “David, the Power of Beauty,” is part of "Florens 2010: The International Week of Cultural and Environmental Heritage," which opened today in the city.



Carved from a single block of marble that two other sculptors, Agostino di Duccio and Antonio Rossellino, discarded for an imperfection, the 17-foot (5.2-meter) naked marble man marked a watershed in Renaissance art and established Michelangelo as the foremost sculptor of his time at the age of 29.

Representing the biblical hero who killed Goliath, the sculpture was conceived as a religious work, according to Msgr. Timothy Verdon, the American director of Florence's Diocesan Office for Fine Art and Cultural Heritage.

SEE ALSO: Long Lost Michelangelo Sculpture Found?

"Because of the special political situation of Florence in 1504, David was valued in a civic sense. The biblical figure was transformed into a symbol of the republican freedom, which at the time was under threat on many sides," Verdon wrote in the weekly Toscana Oggi.

David has raised passions and controversy ever since 1504, when political protesters threw stones at it. In 1527, the left arm was broken in three pieces during an anti- Medici uprising.

In the mid 19th century, it suffered damage due to acid used in the cleaning solution. And in 1991 a mentally deranged artist named Piero Cannata attacked it with a hammer, demolishing one of its toes.

In 2004 the statue was cleaned for the first time in 130 years to remove gypsum and yellowish spots of beeswax.



Photos: A fiberglass reproduction of Michelangelo’s David standing on  Florence's Cathedral. Courtesy of Rossella Lorenzi

 

Article from: http://news.discovery.com/history/michelangelos-david-as-it-was-meant-to-be-seen.html#mkcpgn=rssnws1