The Fresco that Never Was
In 1440, the allied armies of Florence, Venice and the Papal States — actually a motley assortment of no more than around 8,000 troops — was attacked by the vastly superior forces of Milan near the town of Anghiari, close to Arezzo. In a furious clash that — unusual by Renaissance standards — lasted over four hours, Florentine General Micheletto Attendolo held the bridge that led to the allied camp, ultimately driving the Milanese from the field.
In 1503, Leonardo was charged to depict this impressive victory on a huge fresco for the Consiglio Maggiore, the Grand Council of 500 members, in what today is called the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. Getting this contract was quite a coup, because Florence’s president or gonfaloniere, Soderini, wanted Michelangelo to do the job. Although Leonardo’s Last Supper was universally admired in Milan, his reputation in his home town of Florence was quite different. So here was the opportunity to show the Florentines that he was still the leading artist of his day.
On October 24, 1503, Leonardo was officially presented with the keys to the refectory in the monastery of Santa Maria Novella, which would serve as his studio for the Anghiari project. But would he be able to pull off this giant work? Or would the project end in failure, thus satisfying his enemies — including Soderini — and sealing his reputation as a painter who never finished anything?
To paint the massive fresco of the Battle of Anghiari, Leonardo once again assembled a large staff of assistants, just as he had done for The Last Supper in Milan, some ten years earlier. But the project began with a bad omen. On June 6, 1505, when part of the cartoon had already been transferred to the prepped wall, disaster struck. A fierce spring storm hit the city. In the melee, as Leonardo later recorded, “the cartoon came loose,” “water spilled from its jug,” and “rain poured until nightfall.”
The cartoon transfer was eventually restored, and Leonardo next designed an ingenious scaffold that enabled him to move up and down across the vast expanse of the wall. But Leonardo couldn’t help but indulge in his fascination with experimental pigments. The quick-drying tempera technique didn’t suit him; he wanted to move slowly, using multiple layers of oil paints, rather than tempera.
The result was catastrophic. As with the Last Supper, the fresco began to deteriorate almost as soon as Leonardo’s brush left it. Desperate to stem the running paint, Leonardo called for braziers to be hung in front of the painting, hoping that this would make the fresh paint dry more quickly. But actually, it made the paint drip even more.
By early 1506, Leonardo recognized that the fresco was ruined. And yet, what remained was still impressive enough to attract a steady stream of artists and visitors for the next half-century to come. Several copies were made, including an oil painting known as the Tavola Doria (pictured). But in the 1660’s, the fresco was painted over by — of all people — Leonardo’s biographer, Giorgio Vasari. For more about the story, visit http://themonalisamyth.com/ or read my book The Mona Lisa Myth.
