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THE LIFE OF LEONARDO DA VINCI

PART 2

Milan, the year 1482. Letter from Leonardo to Ludovico the Moor.

Go on.

"I have a way to make very light and strong bridges,"

"easily transportable to chase the enemy or to escape".

Prudent. He foresees both possibilities.

Shall I continue? - Mmh? Yes, yes, go on.

"Other easy and comfortable bridges to place and remove,"

"and I have the means to burn and destroy those of the enemy."

"In the siege of... - What? Say it again.

"and I have the means to burn and destroy those of the enemy."

"In siege of a city, I know how to drain the water from moats,"

"and make endless ladders and other relevant tools."

"I have a way to destroy any rock or fortress"

"and I have yet a way to make bombardments very easy to transport."

"Item: I will make..."

"Item: I will make armed carts, secure and unassailable from entry of enemy lines"

"and behind these can follow the infantry..."

"unharmed and without any impediment..."

Armed carts, unassailable...

Unassailable...

Yes. Then the infantry, among the ranks...

Shall I go on? - Yes, yes, yes! Hurry! - Yes, Excellency.

"In times of peace, I believe I can stand comparison with"

"any architect in the construction of public and private buildings."

"Item: I can work sculpture, marble or bronze and painting as well,"

"compare me to any other or whomever you like." - Read slowly! - Yes, Excellency.

"And I can work on the bronze horse, the immortal glory and eternal honor"

"of the happy memory of the lord your father and of the house of Sforza."

Come in.

You're not that Leonardo the musician who Lorenzo dei Medici sent me from Florence,

the one who played that strange instrument, like a lyre...

That was me.

In your letter, you promised many things. Too much.

I also wrote, "If any of the aforementioned things seemed impossible or undoable,"

"I offer to make a test in your park."

It is really true that you Tuscans are all talk. Hey, Cecilia!

Put him to the test. - Domina Cecilia, I ask for nothing else.

Women: The more they shut up, the better. Come here, come! You and your little star.

Cecilia Gallerani... - How is the dog? Did he eat well?

Cecilia Gallerani is 16 years old. She is the favorite of Ludovico the Moor.

He being engaged to Beatrice d'Este, who is only 6 years old at this time,

waiting for his future bride to grow up, distracts himself with Cecilia.

Cecilia is sweet, intelligent and, despite her age, very cultivated.

Writes poetry, in Italian and in Latin.

Between her and Leonardo will spring up a delicate friendship.

Go on. "Women in the house, and men at work."

With the innate sweetness of Lombard women,

which seems to be made on purpose to sweeten the roughness of their men,

Cecilia tempers with her smile the brutality of the Moor's answers.

Ah, for that letter there, we'll see. Meanwhile, take a trip to Milan.

It will not be Florence but we'll chat less and work harder. Go.

Write.

"To the his most Christian Majesty, the King of France."

Ludovico the Moor is crude, clever and cunning.

After the violent death of Galeazzo Maria, his brother,

he never thought to succeed to the duchy in place of his son, Gian Galeazzo.

Indeed, he left to Gian Galeazzo the title and the honors of duke

but little by little, he deprived him of all power.

The young Gian Galeazzo lives in the sumptuous ducal palace

while Ludovico contents himself in an almost modest residence.

But from the stool placed in the cabinet of his secretary,

he controls all the duchy and rules Milan.

The first years in Milan for Leonardo were not easy.

Perhaps more important than the meeting with Moor is his meeting with Lombardy.

Milan is an industrious city, everywhere rutted with water,

through which great boats cross laden with goods.

The ships in every sense cross the city, waterways for commerce and industry.

The waters give life to the mills and the looms:

60,000 textile workers work wool and silk.

Water has always fascinated Leonardo:

Inventor of amazing machines, dreams of freeing us from the bondage of labor,

he does not possess an adequate driving force to operate them.

Steam, electricity, the petrol engine are far away.

On which force can Leonardo count on? Mainly on the impetus of water.

Water, to whose fury all human refuge is in vain.

Water, the element that is never still.

In those years, in Lombardy, he completed a great work:

The junction of the Martesana channel with the inner circle of the canals.

Not only the city, the whole plain is intersected by channels

which, like veins, bring prosperity and life everywhere.

An unmistakable plain, sweet and melancholic,

so different from the geometric precision of the Tuscan landscape.

To understand Leonardo one must first know the land and the people of Lombardy.

In Lombardy, Leonardo will stay for 20 years, his most industrious.

And if you can never forget the Tuscan essence

with all the qualities of the Tuscans: logic, violence, rationality, acuity,

from now on they will be sweetened with something he learns only in Lombardy:

The heartfelt and solemn music belonging to this plain.

The flow of water, fog, farther distances in the haze.

Leonardo rediscovers the faded distances intuited in his youthful landscapes.

In the destined pages of his treatise on painting he thought about writing, he noted,

"If you paint figures in the countryside, paint an interposed fog"

"so that the boundaries of shadows and lights are not rigid and precise."

The fog, The fog that softens, veils, confuses.

And which protects us.

Like evening protects us from the long Lombard twilights.

"Be mindful through the streets upon evening of the faces of men and women."

"How much grace and sweetness you see there."

Even the people of Lombardy are different:

Women have a sweet beauty, almost rapt.

"Great grace of shadows and lights can be seen on the faces of those"

"who sit on the thresholds of those houses that are shadowed."

Maestro Leonardo! Maestro Leonardo, I've been looking for you for two days.

Don't you remember me? I'm de Predis, Ambrogio de Predis. - Ah, yes, of course.

The Confraternity of the Conception has ordered from me and my brother

a polyptych for the church of San Francesco Grande.

In the central panel they want a Madonna. They'll pay 800 imperial lire.

My brother and I have thought of you for the central panel, that of the Virgin.

The Virgin together with an angel.

An angel neither man, nor woman...

An angel who smiles.

An angel who smiles.

After a year in Milan, perhaps due to idleness, perhaps economic necessity,

this is the first job commissioned for Leonardo.

The contract was drawn up on April 25, 1483 and is still in the archive of Milan.

The painting is in the Louvre and is "The Virgin of the Rocks".

The picture represents something new in painting.

Leonardo, to the illusory depth given by the perspective,

adds the depth of air.

"There is" writes Leonardo in his tract on painting,

"Another perspective, which I call aerial."

The great impression produced by it opened the doors of the court to Leonardo.

When you want to see if your painting resembles the person portrayed,

take a mirror and put inside the mirror the living person

and compare the person in the mirror with your painting.

Is it true? - It is!

Bellincioni is the court poet of Ludovico the Moor.

A bad poet, as you can judge for yourself, but Leonardo's friend.

Bellincioni wrote a sonnet. - Beautiful! - Bellincioni, will you read it?

"On the portrait of Madonna Cecilia of which Maestro Leonardo is making."

"Whom do you proceed against? Whom do you envy, Nature?"

"Vinci, who has pictured your star."

"Cecilia is so beautiful today that to her beautiful eyes, the sun seems a shadow."

"The honor is yours but with that picture, he makes you listen and not blab."

"He thinks: How much more beautiful..." - Where are you going?

"...more to your glory..." - My dog! - "How much more beautiful..."

Musetto, here! - Bellincioni, my dog!

Ah, that Musetto! - Bellincioni, my dog! Chase after it!

Musetto!

Taking up the earlier discussion again and working as I do in sculpture and painting,

I can do whichever of the two arts is greater.

The sculptor proceeds by strength of arm,

with a lot of sweat and a dried out face of marble dust that looks like a baker.

While the painter sits with great ease before his picture, well dressed,

and move the brush lightly without any hammering noises.

Indeed, sometimes...

He is sometimes accompanied with music.

Here's Musetto! - Oh, the music! - Another invention of Maestro Leonardo?

Bravo! Play on, ring the bell and beat the drum.

You didn't tell me about this in your letter.

Well done. I've always said this Leonardo is a champion.

Now then, how is this portrait going? - If your Excellency wants to see...

I really do.

It's beautiful. - Seems alive. - And so like...

It is her. But tell me why the dog is not in her hand?

One moment. You may go. - The ermine is a symbol of fidelity.

The beauty of "The Virgin of the Rocks" has opened the doors of the court to Leonardo

and he with the assiduous tenacity he puts into everything,

has become the perfect courtier.

He himself writes:

"If you're talking to man whose good will you want, change many topics,"

"and when you see him listen attentively without yawning"

"be certain that everything you say is what pleases him."

Well done.

I like you because you always say interesting things.

Leonardo is inexhaustible: He praises the Moor with bizarre allegories.

What is it?

This is in the tree, what is it? - A mulberry tree. - Mulberry?

A mulberry, which can also be called... - A blackberry tree. A moor!

A Moor, Your Excellency. A Moor who firmly holds the sail of the duchy!

So well done! - Excellent! - The riddles, the riddles!

A drawn riddle. - Oh, yes! - A drawn riddle!

Let's see! - Give it here.

But what is this stuff? - What is it?

A bell... and this is a pan.

A clock: an hour (now). A bell: rings (I am). A pan: fried.

Now I'm fried. - Now... I'm... fried.

Another! - No, the prophecies! - Prophecies! - Why don't you sing to us?

And what's this? A riddle?

He's also a riddle, eh? - It's a monument.

For Francesco Sforza... - For your father.

No, it's too expensive. With all that bronze you'll need a 100 cannons. 100!

A riddle: What is that thing very much desired by men

and when they possess it they don't know they possess it?

Much desired... - When they possess it, they don't know it.

What? - If you have something, you know. - The riddle is right here!

You want it when you have it... - But if you have it, you don't want it!

It's natural! - What is it? A much desired thing...

Sleep! When you don't have it, you seek it.

But when you have it, you don't know you have it. Sleep! Sleep!

It was easy! - Yes, sleep!

There are some animal hunters...

...that the more they take, the less they will have.

And the more they have the less they will take.

What is it?

The more they take, the less they will have.

The less they have, the more they will take.

The more they take, the less they will have...

The more they take, the less they will have. What is it?

What is it? - It's hard. - The more they have, the less they take...

The more they take, the less they will have. What is it, eh?

How hard it is...

The more they take, the less they have. - No! Who has more, takes more.

What is it, eh? What is it? - Excellency, tell us!

No, no, no! What is it?

You know what it is? Lice!

Do not be amazed: Then lice were very prevalent among the poor and the rich

who dressed in gold and brocade, but seldom changed their shirts.

They used very expensive perfumes, but very little soap.

The courts, especially that of Ludovico the Moor,

were at once extremely refined and savage.

And Ludovico, who gave parties that will remain in history,

performances in which Leonardo was a director, set designer, musician,

not disdaining the most vulgar jests.

Gentlemen, please!

This episode illuminates a strange facet of Leonardo's character.

He lived for years among the powerful, in search of their favor.

He seemed, according to all contemporaries, eloquent, gay, worldly, very elegant.

To entertain the court, he prepared rebuses, riddles

that even today we can read in the Atlantic Index.

And yet we feel that nothing binds him to these puppets.

Years later, when the French will invade the duchy, hunting Ludovico the Moor,

Leonardo, after almost 20 years by his side, notes with icy brevity,

"The duke has lost his state, goods and freedom, and no more work will be done."

Truer, perhaps, this nocturnal Leonardo.

The courtier, who by day proposes riddles to the ladies,

at night, alone continues his anatomy studies.

Maestro!

I have disposed of more than ten bodies, shredding the flesh around the veins,

to lay them bear and draw them.

And to obtain these drawings the love of research is not enough.

You could be prevented from the stomach, from repugnance, or from fear,

living at night in the company of dead quartered and skinned, scary to behold.

And if this does not prevent you, maybe you'll lack the skill of drawing.

All these things, if I have owned them or not,

120 books that I have in mind to finish will demonstrate.

Why did Leonardo begin these anatomy studies?

First, to get to know those bodies that he wanted to draw and paint.

But he is not content to copy living man in various behaviors.

He wants to know the why of those behaviors.

Why the arm takes a certain position and not another.

He studies then the muscles that move the arm.

And not content with that, the bones that support those muscles.

So far his studies, even if very much in-depth, are painter's studies.

But then the thirst to know everything, to investigate everything,

develops in him a passion for the marvelous machine of the human body.

Not just to paint it as it appears on the outside, but know it intimately,

in its complex reality of veins, nerves, organs.

Springing from the problem of drawing an arm that moves,

he would like to find out the reason that made the arm move.

His studies began as a painter, continue as a scientist.

And he'll pursue them, interrupted and restarted again, throughout his life.

This treatise on anatomy, which would've contributed much to the science of the time,

was never finished and never saw the light.

New topics of study distracted Leonardo from this project.

Topics, mind you, which were always based upon his art of painting.

So, studying to give more and more relief to their figures,

he came across, for example, the problem of stereoscopy.

Why do we see it in relief?

Because the two eyes, the right and the left, give us each a different image.

One, a view more to the right, the other a little more to the left.

The superimposition of the two images, that enclose the object from two sides,

gives us the sense of its volume.

But how do we see?

We see through the eye. Leonardo begins to study the eye.

I say sight works in all animals through light.

That light entering the eye penetrates through the pupil.

The pupil changes size according to the darkness or light before it,

because nature repairs the eye, hurt by too much light, with shrinking the pupil.

Nature acts like he who has too much light at home by closing the shutters halfway.

More or less light, the pupil is less or more open.

But how is the image formed in the eye? By the principle of the camera obscura.

When the images, through a hole, enter a camera obscura,

you'll see such images above a white paper with their figures and colors.

And so it does inside the pupil.

Leonardo is among the first to guess the eye is similar to a camera obscura.

But is it really so? How does the image form in the eye? He needs to study it.

But the eye is as soft as a grape and full of liquid, it is difficult to study.

Leonardo gets angry: How can you study the eye without fraying it by cutting?

He then invents what, several centuries later, will be the anatomical preparation.

In the anatomy of the eye, to see inside of it without spilling its humor,

you have to put the whole eye in an egg white and boil it.

And when it is firm, cut the egg and through the eye.

He discovers that the organ for sensing light is the retina, formed by...

From that nerve that starts from the eye and goes to the cerebrum or brain.

The retina, which sees when it is struck by light.

But what is light?

Leonardo also addresses the problem of light,

and lays the foundations for photometry:

The science which measures the intensity of light, which is propagated by waves.

Yes, like the stone thrown in the water is the center and cause of many circles,

so the sound made in the air circularly spreads out

and thus each bright body circularly scatters

and fills the surrounding parts with its images.

We have witnessed one of those wonderful adventures

which characterizes the genius of this man.

From a pictorial problem, other problems, all linked, presented themselves to him.

And he wants to investigate, resolve them all.

But the problems are like the rings of a chain that never ends.

Also that painting treatise so long yearned for will never be written.

There are so many pages scattered here and there in sketches, notes, chapters, codices,

and much study material that like painting will have a more and more slight bond.

From his anatomy studies, he returned home to his deserted dwelling.

The duke has decided to do the horse, but he's in a hurry. Cecilia.

He decided to do the horse, but he's in a hurry. A hurry...

Cecilia! My Domina Cecilia...

The horse: The great monument of by Francesco Sforza on horseback, finally.

It's proven to be of no small use, in the dark in my bed,

repeating with the imagination the forms already studied.

And this is laudable and useful to confirm things in memory.

A monument in honor of Francesco Sforza, founder of the family,

was always a wish of his successors.

15 years earlier, in Nov 1473, the Duke wrote to his engineer Bartolomeo Gadio

to find a sculptor who could cast the monument in bronze.

But the measurements he required, colossal, 7 meters high,

truly intimidated everyone.

Matteo da Civate and Mantegazza proposed riveted copper plate,

but Sforza absolutely wanted everything cast in bronze

and of this horse so talked about no one took up the undertaking.

That's why the letter which Leonardo wrote the Moor, simply said,

"I will do the horse". Almost as if it were a done deed.

Finally, the Moor has decided and Leonardo has no time to lose

because the Moor is in a hurry.

Leonardo wants to compose the perfect horse, of an ideal beauty.

Every horse he meets, he studies and sketches. We find in his notes,

The black of Messer Mariolo: Big, fine neck, a rather nice head.

The falconer's white nag: nice thighs behind, stands in Porta Comacina.

The big horse of Mr Giulio.

At first, following the flaring up horse figure recurring through his work,

he imagines Francesco Sforza striking a fallen enemy.

But then, he returns to a quieter figure,

imitating the now lost Regisole of Pavia.

The Moor's in a hurry, but he doesn't hesitate distracting Leonardo with requests.

Above all the construction of the lantern for the Milan Cathedral.

And even more he continuously requests equipment and decorations

for the greatest feast ever made.

A feast that will come to be called, "The Feast of Paradise".

Careful, slowly with the winch. And keep time!

Put the wedge between the gears, it's too loud! They'll hear it in the hall!

He's a wizard! A true magician!

"The Feast of Paradise" was ordered and desired by Ludovico the Moor

for the Duke Gian Galeazzo's wedding with Isabella of Aragon,

daughter of the King of Naples.

This marriage is part of the Moor's politics,

which at that time, hasn't manifested his intention to seize the duchy.

More slowly, in time with the music!

Isabella was very young.

Thank you. - Give thanks to Ludovico, Isabella.

Thank you.

Just like that.

Hey, the stars! The candles of the stars!

Re-ignite those two there above, they've gone out!

Those two up there, on the right, they've gone out!

He really is a wizard!

It cost dearly, but it's beautiful.

Ready with the fire!

Careful! The graces are starting.

Yes, in time, like that.

Hey, you, get ready! It's time.

We are the three Graces, we've come in your honor,

to please and indulge, and bring garlands to youth.

Oh, glory! Glory! Glory! Glory! Glory!

We are the three Graces, we've come in your honor,

to please and indulge, and bring garlands to youth,

and bring garlands to youth.

Oh, glory! Glory!� -In the car! The mist!

Take the torch. Be ready.

Fire the veil!

Ready with the car! Extinguish the torches! Extinguish them!

And mist, more mist!

To the winch! On the car!

The sun!

Even I didn't expect this.

Of the Feast of Paradise, which all at the time, spoke of with stunned amazement,

the libretto of Bellincioni remains us to complete.

The designs of Leonardo do not remain to us,

so the spectacle you have witnessed is our imaginary reconstruction.

For the inevitable criticisms, we ask pardon.

The Sala delle Asse, Castello Sforzesco. Summer of 1489.

Maestro Leonardo?

It's me, Alamanni.

I brought you the letter. - Thanks.

It was my duty as a friend and Florentine to inform you of this letter.

It's for the Magnifico of Florence and I,

as Florentine ambassador, must send it on.

But first I want to read it to you. - Thank you.

"The excellent Ludovico charges me to write your lord to send him from Florence..."

"send to Florence a maestro who is capable of completing"

"the bronze horse of the monument to Francesco Sforza his father."

"He is convinced that Leonardo da Vinci is not able to complete it"

"due to the great time he takes with it."

Thanks, Alamanni. Marco! - Yes, Maestro?

Marco, come down. We're stopping. - But the colors...

No, not for today: We suspend the work, take back the drawings. - All right...

Milan! Milan is not the only city.

And the Sforza are not the only lords in Italy.

It is not by drawing trees I can bring forth horses

or drawing rags and puppets for the Moor's parties!

However, it is a closed chapter. I'm leaving!

I leave Milan.

Come on, let's go. We're leaving.

What happened then with the Moor is not known,

but Leonardo did not keep his threat and did not leave Milan.

In fact, some time later, he wrote,

"On April 23 I started this book and started working on the horse again".

Everything would seem to be settled but instead, by order of Ludovico,

he begins to waste time and talent on new court performances.

This time it is the wedding feast of the same Ludovico with Beatrice d'Este.

Ah, in Leonardo's studio, there's a new student: Salay.

And here these skins will be the costumes for the wild men!

Ah, the leather costumes. - Bad boy!

In the middle of the tournament, I'll have a group of wild men on horseback break in...

Wild men? - Dressed like eastern heathens: skins, gold, gemmed shields which...

Which...? - Unexpectedly! Because no one must know naturally...

Ah, I see. - They'll lunge themselves toward the tribune to ravish... Get out!

Away! - To ravish the ladies who will suffer a great fear. - Maestro...

Wait for me here. - As you wish.

My Domina Cecilia�

How much work for a feast that will last only a few hours!

When do you leave?

Now. I came by to say goodbye.

The Moor can't do anything. A wife's a wife. And Beatrice knows how to be a wife.

If she is slapped in front of everybody, she's still the wife, while I...

It only remained for me to choose marriage or the convent.

I don't have a vocation, I chose marriage.

The old Count Bergamini, you know him.

Feasts, entertainments, tournaments...

How much your genius is wasted, Master Leonardo.

And I... how much time, how much love wasted, how much...

Goodbye.

Ludovico the Moor marries Beatrice d'Este and Cecilia Gallerani must leave Milan.

So Cecilia, the only woman who has perhaps inspired feeling in Leonardo,

disappears forever from his life.

Gentlemen, please.

Here are the costumes for the knights of the tournament.

The wedding of Ludovico the Moor and Beatrice d'Este, who is now 16,

occurs on January 17, 1491.

For the occasion, the Count of San Severino orders a splendid feast in their honor.

The joust... - Paolo! - Coming!

The joust ordered by San Severino... - The knights are ready for the show!

The joust has remained famous.

Eleonora d'Este speaks in a letter to her husband Ercole, Duke of Ferrara,

"At 6, these illustrious dukes and other noblemen"

"and all the illustrious ladies and duchesses and their children,"

"we started from the castle and went to the square to see the joust." - Iacomo!

lacomo! - That stuff, the cloak! Throw it down!

Go on, throw it! - Take it!

Are the others dressed? - Yes.

Here, Maestro. - Are they all ready?

What are you waiting for? Go get dressed in the room!

Your hat, put it right. - Like this?

Here, this one. The belt.

Down.

Go now.

Let me see. Yes, all right.

Do not leave your hats around. You're fine too, go.

Now Andrea, call those others.

Well then? What are you doing with these boots? Pull them up!

What does it take to get them on? Let's go! Quick!

Whose hat is this? Don't leave stuff about! Hurry!

And get dressed, the horses are ready!

What are you doing here? Tie it well or it'll fall off as you gallop.

And now, let's Leonardo speak as he writes in the Atlantic Code,

"January 26."

"Being in the house of Messer Galeazzo from San Severino to prepare the joust"

"and stripping some grooms to try on some garbs of wild men,"

"lacomo approached one of the purses on a bed with other clothes"

"and stole those dinars he found there."

Come, go.

What's that? Hey, you!

What do you want? - This purse... you threw it on the floor!

I didn't do anything! - Where's the money?

I saw you! The money? - I didn't take anything!

It's empty, you threw it on the floor! The money? - I didn't take it!

Leave it.

Give back the dinars. - But I know nothing about it. - Really?

Let go of me! - You see? I had them there in the jacket, here they are.

He took them from my purse.

Thief!

And a liar.

"Thief, liar, stubborn..."

...and greedy".

Salay? - Yes, Maestro?

Have you ground the colors? - Yes, Maestro.

What are you doing now? - Dusting.

And Leonardo writes,

"lacomo came to stay with me on Magdalene Day, 1490."

"Aged 10."

And now what are you doing? - Finishing up dusting.

"The second day he was with me,"

"I made him two shirts, a pair of socks and a jacket."

"And when I put the money aside to pay for these things,"

"he stole the money from my purse."

"Nor was it possible to get him to confess."

"They were 4 lire. "

With a rare minuteness, Leonardo writes this word for word, as we can read today.

Salay! What are you doing? - Finishing dusting and putting oil in the lamps.

"Item: on September 7th, he stole a scriber worth 22 soldi from Marco D'Oggiono."

But where did I put it?

It was here in the box.

"And then Marco said after having searched..." - Get up!

"he found it hidden in the box of the aforesaid Iacomo."

"There was 1 lira, 2 lire worth of soldi."

"Item: having been donated by Maestro Agostino da Pavia"

"turquoise leather to make me a pair of boots,"

"this Iacomo stole it."

Salay, what are you doing? - Me? - What are you eating?

Nothing! - What nothing? Come to me.

Come on.

Anisette. Anisette confetti.

Whom did you sell that turquoise leather to?

For the dressing of the boots. But for how much?

For... for nothing! - So you sold it? - Yes... no!

You sold it for nothing but you said you sold it. For how much?

For... for... for 20 soldi.

20 soldi worth of anisette?

20 soldi was a huge amount.

Think that a pair of shoes then cost 3 soldi.

"Salay's expenses in the first year."

"1 coat: 2 lire. 6 shirts: 4 lire."

"A lined suit: 5 lire."

"24 pairs of shoes: 6 lire and 5 lire worth of soldi."

24 pairs of shoes in a year? This is enough to define the boy.

Who is this Giacomo? A son of a peasant of Oreno, his name is Giacomo Caprotti.

Leonardo has nicknamed him Salay,

the name of one of the devils in the poem by Luigi Pulci "The Great Morgante".

This devil, installed in Leonardo's house commits one bad deed after another

and Leonardo, with ironic patience, records them one by one.

"We went to dinner with Andrea Di Ferrara."

"Salay ate for 2 and did enough harm for 4."

"He broke three vases and spilled all the wine".

What does Salay represent in Leonardo's life?

Perhaps a need for affection,

someone to take the place of the children he never had, the family he has not.

But why Salay, "thief, liar, stubborn and greedy"?

"Salay the Milanese was vaguely graceful and beautiful" writes Vasari,

"and to him Leonardo taught many things of art".

Salay did not learn much, but Leonardo kept him close because he loved him

and examined him with the coolness of a scientist who studies a wild animal.

Stay still! - I can't!

Move then!

In 1493, the plaster model of the equestrian monument for Francesco Sforza

for the wedding of Bianca Maria Sforza is exhibited to the admiration of all Milan.

We can't let you see it because we don't really know what it was like.

There are only a few drawings by Leonardo and not even the final ones.

There is a wax model of great beauty in a private collection in Florence

studied by Arturo Bovi, maybe the one Vasari speaks about,

"A small wax model was also lost, which was kept perfect."

We can, however, make you hear the praises of his contemporaries in verse and prose.

The poet, Baldassarre Tacconi. - "Ludovico Sforza makes to memorialize his father"

"a great colossus that proud Rome never saw the greater". - Thanks.

Lancino Curzio.

"From the old court Leonardo Vinci raises the eighth wonder..."

Thank you. - "...a great horse!" - Thank you.

The most important testimony is of Giorgio Vasari,

"Those who saw the great model,"

"deemed they never saw anything more beautiful or superb."

The horse was another 7 meters from the feet to the tuft of the head.

To make it into bronze it needed 200,000 pounds of metal.

Up, onward, wake up!

From now on, Leonardo's pages are full of studies for the fusion of the Colossus.

Sangallo and the mathematician Friar Luca Pacioli, come to him in his workshop.

200,000 pounds? No one has ever done such a thing.

Here I see crucibles never built by anyone.

To better make use of the flames, I studied special ovens. - And these alembics?

Dragged from his studies, Leonardo invented the double chamber alembic

which like a hundred other his inventions, will remain ignored in his papers

and only many years later will be reinvented.

The ovens don't give me pause, but the bronze. - 200,000 pounds.

Today the Moor uses all the bronze in canons!

Today Ludovico the Moor is finally Duke of Milan.

His nephew dead, said to be poisoned by him,

but more likely for the vices accumulated in his inept life.

Today, finally, Ludovico the Moor is Duke.

And from today anguish and fear sit indivisible companions by his side.

Fortify... Yes, yes, fortify!

Fortifying Vigevano, Novara, Pavia!

Fortify!

Fortify...

The French press on the borders of his duchy, whose finances are exhausted.

The new duke fortifies, terrified at the idea

that he'll be torn away from what he was at so much pain to conquer.

The bronze destined for Leonardo's horse has already taken the road to Ferrara

to be transformed into cannons.

Where are these cannons? I gave all the bronze he wanted, even a ready one.

For the monument, that Leonardo has become a beast. And he wasn't wrong!

But the duke... - What do you want from me? I'm the Duke of Ferrara?

He says that the expenses for casting are very high.

Ah, yes, money, money! Don't they see it's better for me to defend myself?

The French are on the borders of the duchy. - Shall I read the notes?

Read. - "In Vigevano, 20 cannons and 30 large bombards will be installed

"only after the construction of the ravelin". - Yes, they wait...

"Maestro Zanino the bombardier says..."

"says he can make 3 cannons in a single cast."

A single cast? But that's impossible.

"July 16..."

"Caterina came, July 16, 1493."

Caterina...

Who is this Caterina of whose name we suddenly find in Leonardo's pages?

His mother?

In the note on the death of his father, Leonardo strangely writes,

"At 7 o'clock my father died at 7" repeating twice "at 7".

Even now he repeats again,

"On July 16th Caterina came, July 16th".

What does this mean?

An unconscious link between the news that concerned the father and now the mother?

But was it really his mother?

After so many years of estrangement, neglect, did she come to stay with him?

Did the humble woman of Vinci come to live with her famous son?

And why?

Maybe she was alone, in poverty.

She's not a servant, because Leonardo does not use his usual, "came to stay with me"

or "came to 4 ducats a month".

Leonardo simply writes "she came".

But he does not write "my mother", he only writes "Caterina".

Caterina?

Wait here.

What are you doing here? Come on, get going?

Before everyone, he kept calling her Caterina.

Caterina?

Salay!

But what do you call her in the privacy of your room?

Leonardo lets nothing leak out about himself.

He closes behind doors hiding every feeling with an almost morbid modesty.

Two other notes concern Caterina, opening a window upon Leonardo's life

apparently so starved of affection.

The first one says, "January, 29 1494."

"Caterina: 10 soldi, soldi worth 10 lire."

But another...

Another appears to us unexpectedly in one of the pages of the Forster Codex.

"Costs for the interment of Caterina".

"Costs for the interment of Caterina".

"For 3 pounds of wax: 27 soldi."

"For the catalect: 8 soldi."

"The carrying and placing of the cross: 4 soldi."

"For the carrying of the dead: 8 soldi."

"For the 4 priests and clerics: 20 soldi."

"The bell, book, sponge: 2 soldi."

"For the interment: 16 soldi."

Why, among all the words - funeral, exequies, retinue -

did Leonardo choose the most cruel and terrible: interment?

The event seems to close forever his secret relationship with Caterina

who smiling from the threshold to him as a child while he went by with his uncle.

"Uncle, who is that woman?"

And with his usual minuteness, he notes the expenses.

3 pounds of wax are used for torches,

since the funerals then took place when day turned to evening.

That hour, which he wrote "gives so much sweetness and grace and melancholy"

"to the faces of the men and women in the streets."

The expenses for the catalect remind us that the dead were carried uncovered.

Then Leonardo notes the number of priests who accompanied Caterina:

"4 priests and clerics", a funeral not expensive but not poor.

Hence the expenses for the bell that played during the procession.

Lastly, the "interment".

Maestro Leonardo?

In the infinite, dense pages of innumerable notes, of Leonardo's books

Caterina will never be named again.

Bestir thyself lover for the one beloved.

But if the one beloved is not worthy,

the lover makes himself unworthy.

When the lover has joined the beloved,

there is repose.

When the weight is laid down,

there he reposes.

Bestir thyself lover for the one beloved.

But if the one beloved is not worthy,

the lover makes himself unworthy.

When the lover has joined the beloved,

there is repose.

When the weight is laid down,

there he reposes.

There he reposes.

English subtitles by sineintegral@KG