The encounter between Miguel Ángel, Leonardo and Rafael who changed the history of art

Finally, the marble colossus, acclaimed as a symbol of the Republic of Florence, settled in the ‘Ringhiera’, at the main entrance of the Palazzo Della Signoria, on September 8. A few months earlier, the Government of the Republic had commissioned Leonardo a monumental fresco, ‘The battle of Anghiari’for the wall of the Great Subsiglio room (Hall of the five hundred), recently built. At the end of August, with the ‘David’ already installed outside the building, Miguel Ángel received the commission of painting another mural: ‘The battle of Cascina’. Shortly after, the city landed Young Rafael.

This is the scenario of the exhibition of the Royal Academy of London that deals with the meeting between Miguel Ángel, Leonardo and Rafael in Florence around 1504. He also deals with the role of drawing in the creative process. The central element of the exhibition is the famous ‘Tando Taddei’ by Miguel Ángel, which is part of the Royal Academy collection since 1830. This work left an indelible mark on Rafael and ended up becoming the model for its ‘Madonna Bridgewater’also in the rooms.

In addition to presenting the ‘Burlington House’ cardboard by Leonardo and new research on him, the exhibition resurrects the places of the mythical encounter Between them when they received the commission to paint the two murals. Neither of the two projects came to complete, but there are some preparatory drawings. Rafael was one of the first to be amazed by these works, and scored a sketch following Leonardo’s composition in the corner of one of his drawings at a metal tip that close the exhibition.

Although Leonardo and Miguel Ángel had grown up in Florence, the reputation of the former had consolidated in Milan and that of the second in Rome. Unlike them, Rafael was born in Urbino and grown up in the sophisticated humanist atmosphere of the Court of Federico da Montefeltro.

Revolutionary

The famous ‘Burlington House cardboard’as Keneth Clark titled it when the Royal Academy was still in that place, it consists of eight sheets of paper glued to each other and later lined with canvas. They represent the Child Jesus playing with a lamb while the Virgin, sitting in her mother’s lap, Santa Ana, tends her hand so that the child separates from the animal. Leonardo had prepared the surface with a reddish brown background of iron oxide. He worked the composition with charcoal, adding blank lights and paying special attention to the modeling of the figures, in particular, to the heads. Other areas, such as Santa Ana’s feet or hand were unsolved.

The very high degree of faces is unusual. This drawing does not seem to be a functional cardboard, it is not punched and, therefore, it was probably never transferred. It should be defined, more adjusted, as a natural scale presentation drawing or “Ben Finito Cartone.”

At the end of the fifteenth century, the Tondi – painting or circular sculptures – had become popular and were a common element of many Florentine palaces. Miguel Ángel explored his potential both in painting and relief. The largest and most complex, was commissioned by Taddeo Taddeiwho was part of a new generation of patrons that reached preeminence at the beginning of the century. Taddei was a member of the art Della Lana, one of Florence’s most powerful guilds at the time. The composition of ‘Tando Taddei’ is revolutionarythe figures seem to be pushed into the edges in a centrifugal effect. The Virgin, in profile, looks at Saint John and tends her hand to bless him, while teaching the Child Jesus what is probably a jilguero, the bird symbol of passion. The child goes back, but at the same time turns to the bird and this movement and contramovimiento summarizes the dramatic tension of the scene. For unknown reasons, Miguel Ángel never ended this tondo.

View of Florence from the Southwest, C.1495 is a table that encourages the trip of our gaze through the city in those amazing years. Brunelleschi’s dome already covered the Duomo, Ponte Veccio linked the two shores of the Arno, the basilicas of the Holy Croce and Santa María Novella had been lifted for some time and the Piazza della Signoria already had its current plant. Florence left a politically agitated decade. The city was a republic but, for 60 years, between 1434 and 1494, it had been controlled by a single family: The Medici. On November 9, 1494, a few days before the French arrived at their doors, Piero de Médici and his family fled ending the Medicea Headquarters, causing a desperate struggle for the control of the city government. In 1502, Piero Soderini had become ‘Gonfaloniere to Vita’ (head of the government for life) with the hope of bringing unity and stability to Florence. He remained in office ten years, until the Medici, backed by Pope Julio II and the Spanish army, finally resumed the city.

The battles

One of the aspects of the Soderini campaign to unify the factions of the divided Florentina policy had to do with propaganda through the works of art and for that purpose it was decided to make a series of Companies for the cityamong them the two battles murals of Leonardo and Miguel Ángel who had to be part of a decoration program for glory of the Florentine Republic released from the tyranny of the medici. Leonardo’s mural had to represent the battle of Anghiari, a Florentine victory over Milan fought on June 29, 1440. The teacher began to work probably in spring, experiencing with an oil technique as novel as failed. However, the following year the mural would be unfinished by being called to Milan.

A year later, Miguel Ángel would receive the commission of the painting that would accompany Leonardo’s. I had to represent the Cascina battlefought against Pisanos. In the spring of 1505, Miguel Ángel marched to Rome to work for Pope Julius II, but returned to Florence the following year and probably resumed the company, although there is no evidence that the design to the wall would never move.

In the drawings to Chalk of Miguel Ángel for this battle are his most successful male figures. The exhibition highlights the vigor of the poses and the forcefulness of the carboncillo that tell us about their effort to understand the more violent movements. Leonardo, on the other hand, chose to interrogate the face as he had done at his last dinner. The drawings represent the culminating point in their study of extreme emotion, they are almost loud. The riders shout and look at an invisible adversary. The ferocity is only matched by the subtlety of its technique and the careful graduation in tones and contours.

The competition between these two Titans revolved around their obsession to see how far they could push the limits of art. For Miguel Ángel el body in scorzo and in action it was the main vehicle of expression; For Leonardo it was the face, already outside of man or beast, contorted by a supreme emotion. In Miguel Ángel, Vasari defined it as the “Submità dell’arte”, but did not know how to qualify the violence of Leonardo’s invention. His figures assault each other with a dyslocado physique of animal grimaces. Horses collide with each other and armor acquire grotesque forms, in a portrait of the crazy war of war