A few weeks ago, I took part in the press viewing of “Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Florence, c.1504” at the RA, but only got myself to finish and publish the review just now. The exhibition will be open until 16 February 2025, and I highly recommend you visit. It is located at the Gabrielle Jungels-Winkler Galleries on the far end from Piccadilly, right next to Burlington Gardens, the street, and inside Burlington Gardens, one of the two main buildings of the RA.
All pics (c) BerkeleySqB. Pic #1 shows painting attributed to Francesco Rosselli and workshop,
View of Florence from the Southwest, c.1495.
MICHELANGELO, LEONARDO, RAPHAEL, FLORENCE, C.1504 AT THE RA
All visitors at the press viewing had been given strict instructions on which artworks were completely off limits and which could only be photographed in so-called studio-shots, showing the exhibition space, not mainly the artwork, perhaps showing more than one work and some visitors.
Pic #3 Unknown Italian artist after Leonardo da Vinci, enlarged and retouched by Peter Paul Rubens,
The Battle of Anghiari (The Fight for the Standard), c.1550s and c. 1600-08. Pic #4 Raphael, Studies
for the Trinity of San Severo, and sketches after Leonardo, c.1505-1506.
Moreover, the lighting at the venue is mainly aimed at protecting the art and not so much at providing perfect conditions for bloggers to take pictures. So my apologies in advance for the photos in this article, many of which have been taken from weird angles and are of poor quality.
Pic #5 Raphael, Two male nudes seen from behind, c.1505; pic #6 Marcantonio Raimondi, after
Michelangelo Buonarroti and Lucas van Leyden, Three male nudes, one seen from behind, climbing
the bank of a river (climbers); Pic #7 Michelangelo Buonarroti, Studies of Male Heads, Helmets
for Soldiers and Facial Features, c.1504-05.
THE THREE TITANS AT MICHELANGELO, LEONARDO, RAPHAEL, FLORENCE, C.1504 AT THE RA
The concept of the exhibition is fascinating. In 1504, the three most brilliant artists of the Renaissance all lived in Florence for a short while. Leonardo and Michelangelo had been born in Florence, respectively Florence’s province: Tuscany. Both of them were returning from lengthy stays abroad. Leonardo was in his early 50s. Michelangelo was half his age, a rising star, brash, combative, and already sporting the famous boxer’s nose, which he had broken in a fight with a rival sculptor.
Pic #8 Bastiano da Sangallo, after Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Battle of Cascina (The Bathers),
c.1532; Pic #9 on the right, Raphael, The virgin and child with the infant St John the Baptist (The
Esterhazy Madonna), c.1508.
LEONARDO AND MICHELANGELO HATED EACH OTHER
We know that Leonardo and Michelangelo hated each other with gusto. We have an eyewitness account of a public spat between the two, somewhere near the Ponte Santa Trinità: Michelangelo hurled insults before walking off “to leave Leonardo with his face red because of these words.” On another occasion Michelangelo ridiculed Leonardo because of his lack of formal education. When Raphael died at the young age of only 37 years, Michelangelo belittled him and publicly announced that “everything he knew he learned from me.” Sweet guy.
Pic #10 Michelangelo Buonarroti, Study for St Matthew and battle scene, c.1503-05; Pic #11
Leonardo da Vinci, sheet of various studies (recto), Horseman attacking another, Cogwheels
and lever action, with notes, c.1503-04; Pic #12 Leonardo da Vinci, Galloping horses, and
foot soldiers, c.1503-05.
WHAT WAS THE OCCASION FOR THE GATHERING?
On 25 January 1504, the city’s 30 most prominent artists, including Leonardo and Botticelli, met to advise on an appropriate location for Michelangelo’s nearly finished David. Leonardo was working on a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, also known as the Mona Lisa. Young Raffaello Sanzio, better known simply as Raphael, in his early twenties, had decided to come to town to learn from the two great masters and to rub shoulders with potential rich clients.
Pic #13 Leonardo da Vinci, Horses and soldiers, and Angel of the Annunciation; Pic #14 Leonardo
da Vinci, A Rearing Horse, c. 1503-05; Pic #15 Leonardo da Vinci, Horse and rider, and studies
for Leda and the Swan, c.1503-05.
The exhibition explores how the three artists influenced each other, including their rivalries and collaborations, as well as the many cases where they more or less openly copied from each other. By the end of 1507, Michelangelo and Leonardo had both left Florence again. The former had gone to Rome to work on the Sistine Chapel, the latter had signed up to do work for the French king.
Pic #16 Leonardo da Vinci, Manuscript K, c.1503-07; Pic #17 Piero di Cosimo, The virgin and child
with the infant St John the Baptist, c.1490-1500.
MICHELANGELO, THE VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH THE INFANT ST JOHN THE BAPTIST (THE ‘TADDEI TONDO’)
The centrepiece of the exhibition is the so-called Taddei Tondo (pic #38). It was around the time Michelangelo had finished his David, that he began work on this round marble relief of the Virgin and Child with the Infant St John the Baptist. ‘Tondo’ is the Italian term for a round painting or relief. This particular one had been commissioned by Taddeo Taddei, a wealthy wool merchant. Hence the name.
Pic #18 Michelangelo Buonarroti, Studies of an outstretched arm, c.1506-08; Pic #19 Leonardo da
Vinci, Head of a horse, c.1503-05; Pic #20, Studies of male nudes on horseback, and figure study,
c.1506-08.
The relief depicts St John presenting baby Jesus with a goldfinch, a symbol of his Passion. While the little man turns away from the bird in fear, he is at the same time turning back to accept his destiny. Sadly, it was never quite finished, but we know that Mr Taddei loved the work nonetheless and gave it a prominent location in his giant mansion. Since 1830, it has been part of the RA’s collection. During WWII it spent some time at Aldwych tube station to protect it from the Blitz. The work is Michelangelo’s only marble sculpture in the UK.
Pic #21 Leonardo da Vinci, A rearing horse, and heads of horses, a lion and a man, c.1503-05; Pic #22
Male nude, c. 1504-06; Pic #23 left side, Michelangelo Buanarroti, Seated male nude, c.1504-06.
RAPHAEL’S STUDIES FOR A VIRGIN AND CHILD, HIS ESTERHAZY AND HIS BRIDGEWATER MADONNA
Taddeo Taddei was also a patron of Raphael during the latter’s time in Florence. It probably was while he was a guest at Taddei’s home that Raphael copied Michelangelo’s Taddei Tondo. In a few quickly sketched lines he captured the distinctive twisting pose of the Child in the Virgin’s lap.
Pic #24 Edition of Cicero’s letters annotated by Agostino Vespucci, a Florentine chancellery official,
notes include references to Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa; Pic #25 Michelangelo Buonarroti, Male
nude seen from behind, c.1504-06; Pic #26 Michelangelo Buonarroti, Anatomical studies, c.1504-06.
He continued to explore variations of this composition in preparatory sketches for his own Virgin and Child works (pics #33-36), the Esterhazy Madonna (pic #9 and feature photo), and the Bridgewater Madonna (no photography permitted). The Esterhazy Madonna is named after the fact that the painting ended up in the Prince Esterhazy collection some time in the 18th Century. Similarly, the Bridgewater Madonna had been purchased by the Duke of Bridgewater for £3,000 in 1792 and is to this day owned by the family, even though on permanent loan to The Scottish National Gallery.
Pic #27 Leonardo da Vinci, Legs of a male nude, c.1504-06; Pic #28 Leonardo da Vinci, The Virgin
and Child with St Anne and the Infant St John the Baptist (‘The Burlington House Cartoon’),
c.1506-08; Pic #29 Raphael, after Leonardo da Vinci, Leda and the swan, c.1505-08.
THE BURLINGTON HOUSE CARTOON
Leonardo’s The Virgin and Child with St Anne and the Infant St John the Baptist, better known as The Burlington House Cartoon, is another masterpiece (pic #28). Many of you will know, but for those who might not: cartoon is a term used to describe a full-scale preparatory drawing made during the Renaissance for a tapestry, fresco, or oil painting. The word “cartoon” comes from the Italian word cartone, which means a large sheet of paper or card. While only roughly 140 x 105cm in size, the Burlington House Cartoon still used 8 cartones. Burlington House is the main building of the Royal Academy of Art (funnily enough not the one where you can see the Cartoon today).
Pic #30 2nd of 2 main gallery rooms. Pic #31 Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Battle of Cascina (‘The
Bathers’), c.1504-06, Diagram after the copy by Bastiano da Sangallo, reproduced to the approx-
imate scale of the cartoon.
For some time in the past, the Cartoon had been part of the permanent collection of the RA, and that is when it received its nickname. It is the only remaining large-scale drawing by Leonardo. This particular work had caused quite the stir when it had first been exhibited, as contemporary records show. Most scholars believe that it was made around 1506-08 as a proposal for an altarpiece in the council chamber of Florence’s town hall, the Palazzo Vecchio.
Pic #32 Raphael, after Michelangelo Buonarroti, David, c. 1505-1508; Pic #33 & 34 Raphael, The
Virgin and child with the infant St John the Baptist and a lamb, c.1508.
UNKNOWN ITALIAN ARTIST AFTER LEONARDO DA VINCI, ENLARGED AND RETOUCHED BY PETER PAUL RUBENS, THE BATTLE OF ANGHIARI (THE FIGHT FOR THE STANDARD)
In 1503 the walls of that council chamber were still bare. Leonardo and Michelangelo were commissioned by the city’s government to produce two monumental murals showing Florence’s important military victories. As expected, a fierce battle of one-upmanship commenced.
Pic #35 left side, Raphael, Study for Virgin and child with infant St John the Baptist, c.1505-06, Pic
#36 Raphael, Studies for a Virgin and child, c.1505-07.
While neither mural was ever completed, the preparatory sketches by the two artists and copies of their cartoons made by later artists give us an idea about the planned murals. The Battle of Anghiari, where Florence had defeated Milan in 1440, was Leonardo’s subject of choice (see pic #3). In the centre of the magnificent battle scene we see four officers in ferocious combat. Various of Leonardo’s smaller sketches exhibited here show scenes from the planned mural.
Pic #37 Girolamo Savonarola, Predica dell’arte del ben morire; Pic #38 Michelangelo Buonarroti,
The Virgin and Child with the Infant St John the Baptist (The ‘Taddei Tondo’), c. 1504-05
BASTIANO DA SANGALLO, AFTER MICHELANGELO, THE BATTLE OF CASCINA (‘THE BATHERS’)
As we know, Leonardo spent a good part of his time designing war machinery and weapons, and we can imagine him joyfully drawing a bloodbath. Michelangelo, on the other hand, even though occasionally involved in the depiction of bloody conflict, decided to just be himself for the commission at hand. He liked naked blokes just as much as the next man, possibly a bit more.
Pic #39 Michelangelo Buanarroti, after Giotto di Bondone, Two figures from the ascension of
St John the Evangelist; Pic #40 Michelangelo Buanarroti, A kneeling man seen from behind,
c.1490-94; Pic #41 Michelangelo Buanarroti, The virgin and child, c.1504-05.
So while as his official motif he picked an actually bloody battle, the Battle of Cascina, which was fought against the Pisans in 1364, his work (cp. pics #8 & #31) simply showed nude soldiers, having cooled off in the River Arno, dressing hurriedly for battle. The exhibition’s brochure explains that “these two profoundly different approaches offer an insight into their differing visions of what art could achieve. For Michelangelo, the body – foreshortened and in action – was the primary vehicle of expression; for Leonardo, it was the face, whether of man or beast, conveying emotion.”
Pic #42 left side, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Male Nude (recto), c. 1504-05; Pic #43 left side,
Michelangelo Buanarroti, Studies for the infant St John the Baptist, c.1504-05.
RAPHAEL, AFTER MICHELANGELO, DAVID
When Raphael arrived in Florence from Siena, a few weeks after Michelangelo and Leonardo, at the age of 21, one of the first things he did, was to draw Michelangelo’s giant sculpture of David (pic #32). He didn’t agree with the oversized hands and the extreme muscly body, so he corrected those features.
Pic #44 Michelangelo Buanarroti, An old man wearing a hat (‘The Philosopher’), c.1490-94. Pic #45
2nd of 2 main gallery rooms.
THE HISTORIC SETTING FOR MICHELANGELO, LEONARDO, RAPHAEL, FLORENCE, C.1504 AT THE RA
At the time in question, Florence, while still an epicentre of fine art, was far from the glory years of the first generations of Medici rulers, Piero and his son Lorenzo the Magnificent. The populace had just rid itself of the backward theocracy of the monk Savonarola and reinstated the republic. The Italian peninsula kept on being invaded and ransacked by foreign armies. City states changed ownership as frequently as a guinea at Smithfields. In 1499, Milan, where Leonardo had risen to fame, had been overrun by the French, only to be taken over by Pope Alexander VI’s psycho son, Cesare Borgia, who now had to be regularly paid off by Florence in order to keep him at bay. Luckily, Florence’s leader, Piero Soderini, was a safe pair of hands. In his employment was a young diplomat called Niccolò Machiavelli.
Pic #46 Michelangelo Buanarroti, Group of three male nudes, and the virgin and child, c.1504-06.
MACHIAVELLI AND LEONARDO, MICHELANGELO’S DAVID
Machiavelli and Leonardo had been friends for many years. Under Soderini’s orders, the two titans had started work on redirecting the river Arno to deprive their enemy city state, Pisa, of their water supply and to provide a direct route for Florence to the sea. The work was never completed, even though some early drawings survived. Meanwhile, Michelangelo did the last finishing touches of his David, a short walk across town. David’s importance cannot be overestimated. It spoke to the citizens of Florence at a time of imminent danger: the underdog who slays the giant Goliath. This city was not ready to give up.
CONCLUSION
While the exhibition might disappoint some because of the focus on mainly relatively small-scale drawings, I loved the way it was curated. You really get a feel for the intense rivalry between these three masters and how they affected each other’s development. 4.25 out of 5 in my book.
Looking for more London art and culture? Why not check out my posts about MoCo, London’s new museum for modern and contemporary art, Frameless, the immersive art experience, White Rabbit Red Rabbit at Soho Place, The Unseen at Riverside Studios, The Other Place, After Antigone, The Lehman Trilogy, and Hansard at the National Theatre, Wish List at the Royal Court, and McGregor’s MADDADDAM with the Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House. I’ve also blogged about my recent rowing expedition in the Northwest Passage, my visit to Papua New Guinea, Ellie’s and my trips to Bhutan, Nepal, and Tanzania, and that time I stand-up paddleboarded the Thames source to London.
