Francesco Melzi
Francesco Melzi (c. 1491 - 1570 ) was an Italian painter of the Renaissance , a pupil and companion of Leonardo da Vinci.
Summary |
The disciple of Leonardo da Vinci
Giovanni Francesco Melzi is from a noble family in Milan. His father is a senator of Milan, and served as captain of the army of Louis XII . "
Leonard is also invited into the city family, the Villa Melzi at Vaprio d'Adda. He even thought of expansion as shown in sketches 225 and 283 ra re Codex Atlanticus, which date from 1513 .
Melzi follows Salai, Leonardo and his servant Battista da Villanis in France in 1516. We know from a document kept in the National Archives it receives from King Francis I of France a pension of 800 crowns for two years (1517 and 1518): "In my. Francisque of Melcer, ytalien gentleman who stands with me said Lyenard, 800 ECU for 2 years. "
On 2 May 1519 , Leonardo died at Clos Luce. By the will of 23 April 1519 , Melzi inherited part of his property . He also wrote a half-brother of Leonard to tell them the news. It is a time in France, since a document tells us that August 20, 1519, it is always in Amboise, pensioned by the King. He returned to Italy probably in 1520 or 1521.
Return to Vaprio d'Adda
Melzi carries with him the manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci. he keeps in the family villa at Vaprio d'Adda. He then tries to draw from these manuscripts Treatise on Painting (Trattato della Pittura) that Leonardo had planned his whole life to write. For that it provides them with acronyms alphabetic note of a small circle each of the passages that seem likely to be included, then writes "nothing about the painting" on the pages it deems unrelated to his project, and calls two scribes responsible for copying them. This work "very advanced, but incomplete" between the Library of the Dukes of Urbino and the Vatican, when it acquired the duchy in 1626 (under reference Urbinas Codex Latinus 1270).
In 1523, Alberto Bendadeo written to the Duke of Este, which has Melzi "as his books that deal with anatomy and many other beautiful things. "
In 1566, Vasari Melzi meeting: "Many of these sheets are found in human anatomy Messer Francesco Melzi, a Milanese gentleman who, from time Leonardo was a handsome youth, very dear to the master, and today a noble and nice old man. " Melzi died in 1570, leaving a son, Orazio, (which will disperse the manuscripts of Leonardo).
Works
The corpus of paintings Melzi is particularly difficult to reconstruct due to lack of documents. Since the research of Wilhelm Suida , it is generally assign three tables, the young man to the parrot collection Gallarati Scotti, and the Pomona Vertumnus the Staatliche Museum in Berlin, and the Flora of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. .
The Young Man with parrot collection Gallarati Scotti
It is the only table Melzi who is both signed and dated (1525).
Vertumnus and Pomona, Staatliche Museum in Berlin
Oil on wood, 185 x 134 cm.
Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo speaks well of Pomona painted by Leonardo da Vinci, but his description, "by Leonard, the cheerful Pomona, where one side is covered with three sails, which is very difficult in this art" (Di Leonardo da una parte Ridente Pomona coperta da veli che cosa be in difficilissima quest 'arte) does not match the table in Berlin.
The representation of the elm and the vine by Melzi is faithful to the myth, as reported in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Vertumnus seduced the nymph Pomona alone, taking the guise of an old woman, and uses an elm which bunches of grapes were "a dazzling dress" for him extol the virtues of love.
Flora, the Hermitage, St. Petersburg
Wood transferred to canvas, 76 x 53 cm.
Abraham Bosse cites Flora attributed to Leonardo da Vinci from the collections of Marie de Medici. It's probably the same picture as that of St. Petersburg. Flora is the goddess of flowers and spring. The table is also called because of the Columbine flower columbine (aquilegia columbine meaning in English), symbol of fertility that the figure holds in his hands .
Drawings
The single drawing is an autograph Melzi blood preserved in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana , signed and dated 14 August 1510. According to Martin Kemp and Michael Kwakkelstein , Melzi took as model a bust now lost to Giovanni Francesco Rustici , a draft of his bald Levite Preaching of John the Baptist, made for the Baptistery in Florence ( 1509).
References
- Serge Bramly, Leonardo da Vinci, 1998, p.403.
- Leonardo da Vinci, Ms F, r1.
- Carlo Pedretti, the Villa Melzi, in the Royal Castle at Romorantin, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1972.
- National Archives, File KK 289.
- The original will of Leonard lost, we know from a copy made by Venanzio of Pagava, preserved at the Library Melzi of Milan.
- Gallica History of Painting in Italy. First volume / Stendhal; [establishment of the text and Pref. by Henri Martineau]. Publisher: The Divan (). 1929 in page 311. Bibliotheque Nationale de France: "In his will (made in Cloux near Amboise), he gave all his books, instruments and drawings by Francis Melzi, it gives Baptist Villani servitore suo, that is to say his servant, half of the vineyard he owns outside the walls of Milan, and the other half Salai, also suo servitore, thereby rewarding good service and pleasant as those of Villani and Salai had rendered. Finally he left Villanis property of water that had been given by King Louis XII. "
- Andr Chastel, preface to the Treatise on Painting by Leonardo da Vinci, Berger-Levrault, 1987
- Vasari , The Vite de 'pi Eccellenti pittori, Scultori architettori th , 1550 and 1568 (French edition under the direction of Andre Chastel , Berger-Levault, 1983).
- Suida Wilhelm, Leonardo und sein Kreis, Munich, 1929.
- The attribution of the Madonna with Child and Lamb Brera Museum Milan Melzi has been abandoned by contemporary critics.
- Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, Idea del Tiempo della Pittura, 1590, Milan
- Cecile Scaillierez, Mona Lisa, nmr, p.30-31
- quoted by Franoise Viatte in Catologues Exhibition Leonardo da Vinci, Drawings and Manuscripts, pmr, 2003, p.360 - 362.
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