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Hidden portrait of Da Vinci is uncovered in manuscript
Nick Pisa in Rome02.03.09
AN Italian science journalist has discovered what is believed to be a self portrait of Leonardo Da Vinci hidden in one of his most famous manuscripts.
Piero Angela stumbled across the faint image as he thumbed through the Renaissance master's Codex on the Flight of Birds.
Close examination of the manuscript, written between 1490 and 1505, revealed the outline of a face hidden underneath the ink handwriting.
A nose, eyes, lips and beard can clearly be seen on the Codex, which is kept in the Royal Library in Turin. Experts believe it is a self-portrait of Da Vinci as a young man.
Mr Angela said: “I noticed there was a drawing by Leonardo hidden between the words on the tenth page of his Codex. After extrapolating the red-chalk portrait with the help of a graphic artist, a portrait of a Renaissance man emerged. Given the similarity, I thought this could well be Leonardo himself.”
Mr Angela said he compared the drawing with other portraits of Leonardo, principally his famous self-portrait dated around 1512-15, asking for help from the police scientific investigation unit in Rome.
He added: “The graphic artist applied digital techniques used to age people or make them look younger, and astonishingly we found an amazing similarity — it was as if the two were brothers.
“We also asked for the opinion of a maxillofacial surgeon, who said the two faces could well belong to the same man at different times in his life.”
Mr Angela said: “Thanks to other drawings present in the eight central pages of this Codex, we think Leonardo worked on these pages between 1482 and 1489, when he was in Milan at the court of Ludovico Sforza. Then these pages were recycled' by the painter to write his Codex.”
Professor Carlo Pedretti, based at the University of California in Los Angeles, and one of the world's leading Da Vinci experts, said: “I am truly grateful for the results of this investigation.
“It is one of the most important acquisitions in the study of Leonardo, his image, and thought.”
Luigi Ripani, of the police scientific unit in Rome, said: “The similarities between the image on the manuscript and that of Da Vinci after we applied our techniques was very striking. I would go so far as to say without doubt the face is that of Da Vinci.”
Reader views (1)
This is an intriguing discovery and quite a beautiful drawing but we should be very cautious though, to so quickly attribute this to either his hand or make the assumption that this is in truth, an “autoritratto”. In fact, I would trust little of the scholarship involved in any type of Leonardo ascription, unless it included the opinions and scrutiny of either Carlo Pedretti or Martin Kemp. This may smack of academic snobbery, however, these men have appraised, studied and examined dozens of supposed “Leonardo originals” over the years and have filtered out the wheat form the chaff. Most official scholars and aficionados have identified several drawings and a few sculptures to be possible portraits/self-portraits, some of these would include Verrocchio’s bronze “David” in the Bargello Museum in Florence, the famous “Turin Portrait”, the presumed clean-shaven self-portrait in the Louvre, as well as, the “Vitruvian Man” actually being a didactic graphic in which he used his own physiognomy. Interestingly years ago, Robert Payne attributed the Turin Portrait to actually be that of Leonardo’s father Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci. One can clearly see the similarity in the lip structure and bridge of the nose, between this newly discovered self-portrait and the “official” one in Turin. Which is known to have dubious origins in the 18th century itself. (?) One of the things that immediately strikes the viewer is the lucid and fluid-like quality of the new drawing.
- David Pritchard, London England
