Some of you may remember,
from a notice
in "The New York Times" in 2001,
when Marcello Simonetta,
who was then a professor
at Wesleyan,
discovered an encrypted document
in an Italian archive.
More importantly,
because of course,
an encrypted document,
it doesn't do one any good
unless one can read it,
he found the book
that enabled him
to decode the document.
And it was a letter
that implicated,
in a... absolutely
riveting fashion,
Federico da Montefeltro,
the duke of Urbino,
the creator of the Gubbio
studiolo in this museum,
in the conspiracy to murder
the two Medici brothers
Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici.
I think probably a good number
of you, possibly all of you,
know that the plot was only
half successful.
It took place in the Cathedral
of Florence, in April of 1478.
Giuliano was killed,
Lorenzo managed to escape,
and set about
to set the scores right.
Marcello had a vested interest,
because the letter was addressed
to one of his ancestors,
Cicco Simonetta,
an advisor with
the Sforza court of Milan,
and he plays a large part
in Marcello's book.
Now, all of us have this
wonderful idea of the Medici
as patrons of the arts,
of this great moment
of enlightenment in Florence.
And of course, Lorenzo was
himself a poet as well,
and I thought it was fitting
just to open up
with one of the...
with one of the...
with little parts
of a longer poem
that he wrote to set the stage
for, inappositely,
for what took place thereafter.
"Into a little close of mine
I went one morning,
"when the sun,
with his fresh light
was rising
all refulgent and unshent."
Then he jumps all the way
to the end. I am.
"Soon, autumn comes,
"and the ripe, ruddy freight
is gathered.
"The glad season will not stay.
"Flowers, fruit and leaves
are now all desolate.
Pluck the rose, therefore,
maiden, while 'tis May."
Lorenzo plucked maidens...
(laughter)
...but he plucked men, too.
And he made them suffer.
There was a vindictiveness
that is shocking
to modern taste and eyes.
And we now have two books
about this
that have come out recently.
If what you are interested in
is violence
of an order that will leave you
practically numb,
I recommend Lauro Martines's
"April Blood,"
and it will take you
through the whole realm
of Renaissance vengeance,
and you will discover ways
of doing away with a person that
you thought un... impossible.
(laughter)
I thought, you know,
Quentin Tarantino could not
make a movie of this,
because it would be way,
way beyond the pale,
and I consider him
way beyond the pale anyway.
If, on the other hand,
you're interested
in the intrigues
of the whole conspiracy,
try Marcello's book.
And it takes you right inside
the correspondence
going between these people
as they gather up the energy
for this unsuccessful plot.
Of course, remember
that the plot backfired.
It didn't backfire only
because Lorenzo came back,
but because he comes back
stronger and it really is
the prelude to Florence
losing all of its freedom
and turning
into a Medici dukedom,
which is... you remember,
they tried a second time
to get rid of the Medici
in 1494, after Lorenzo's death.
They expulse the Medici,
and the Medici come back
with greater power than ever.
Well, Marcello did his
undergraduate work in Rome
at the University
of La Sapienza,
he got his doctorate at Yale,
and in addition
to teaching at Wesleyan,
he served as the cultural
director and advisor
to the American board of the
Foundation of Art and Culture.
Some of you may have seen
the exhibition he organized
on "Federico da Montefeltro
and His Library"
at the Morgan Library.
It was a beautiful
little exhibition
with marvelous manuscripts
and a great portrait of Federico
and his son Guidobaldo.
And in addition,
he has been the editor
of a number
of important publications,
including one that's
particularly close to my heart,
and very different
from the Medici,
which is the commentaries
of Pius II,
the great Sienese humanist.
And when you read-- this is
Pius's own autobiography,
and it takes you into another
side of the Renaissance world
of learning and of culture,
and is really a marvelous,
a marvelous thing.
And with that, I think we'll
turn it over to Marcello.
Marcello.
(applause)
Thank you very much, Keith,
for your very warm introduction.
It's a pleasure
to be here tonight.
It's a very cozy, intimate room.
I can hear the cell phones
ringing already,
so it's a good sign.
(laughter)
So Keith has done a very nice
job introducing me,
introducing, also, the topic,
so I will try to jump into it
rather quickly.
And then, hopefully,
we have some time
to chat at the end of this talk.
Also, for who is interested,
we might even go up to
the studiolo
and take a look afterwards.
So, the Gubbio studiolo...
I consider the Gubbio studiolo
one of the best-kept secrets
of The Metropolitan Museum.
This gorgeous,
inlaid wood-paneled room
often escapes the attention
of visitors,
when-- who don't dare take
an extra turn,
overwhelmed by the monumental
and solemn beauty
of the recently
and stunningly renovated
medieval art wing.
I'm not sure how many of you
have spent more than
three minutes in the studiolo.
I'll force you tonight
to spend a bit more time
in this fantastic room.
I also have a very strong
personal connection
to the studiolo, because when
I started writing my book,
"The Montefeltro Conspiracy,"
I came often to this room
and spent some time in it.
I used this space as a sort of
a time-traveling machine.
In fact, the first chapter
that I wrote,
which is now chapter three
of my book,
was set in the Gubbio studiolo
precisely on July 2, 1477.
On that day,
the lord of the studiolo,
Federico da Montefeltro,
the duke of Urbino,
dictated a mafia-style
threatening letter
to be encoded and sent
to my ancestor Cicco Simonetta,
the chancellor of
the Sforza dukes of Milan.
Don't worry-- you don't need
to have read the book
to be here tonight.
If you already have,
I hope you will be able
to learn more about the art
and history of this period,
but if you haven't,
I hope you'll be able
to understand
what I'm going to say,
and, also,
maybe you will want to read
the book.
So when I spent
my dreamy half hours
traveling through centuries
and trying to imagine
how it was like
to be in that room
on a summer in 1477,
I noticed that the average
visitor spent no more
than one to two minutes
in this room.
Hardly looking at the amazing
trompe l'oeil panels,
and, at most, uttering
an occasional "wow"
when they actually came closer
and watched the minutely
and obsessively illusionistic
details
of the panels.
So my aim tonight is to go
a bit deeper
in the perception
and the understanding
of this beautiful room.
Now, first of all,
how on earth did the studiolo
get to The Met?
This is quite
an extraordinary story,
which I'll tell you
very quickly,
but if you're interested
in more details,
you should read the fabulous
two-set volume
by Olga Raggio, who--
this is my book in Brazilian,
you can forget about that--
(chuckles from audience)
...work by Olga Raggio,
who was the former chairman
of the Department
of European Sculpture
and Decorative Arts at The Met.
And today's lecture is actually
dedicated to her memory.
So after the death of the last
duke of Urbino in 1631,
the Montefeltro and
the Della Rovere Duchy,
was devolved to the Church,
and steadily declined
to the point that all its
treasures were seized or sold.
The famous library of
illuminated manuscripts,
the crown of Federico's
humanist reputation,
was forcibly transferred
to the Vatican library,
whereas the Gubbio studiolo
was sold to the Roman prince,
Filippo Massimo Lancellotti.
And it was installed
in his Piccolomini villa
at Frascati, south of Rome,
in the mid-1870s.
Now, let's fast-forward
to the 1930s,
when Adolph Loewi,
international art dealer--
and also interior decorator--
set up his prestigious firm
in Venice
at the Fondamenta Malcanton.
The grandchildren of
Prince Lancellotti sold
the intarsia to Loewi,
and in mid-January 1938,
the crates containing
the panels,
the letter frieze,
and the two-part ceiling
were shipped from Frascati
to Venice.
Now, these were not easy times
for anyone,
but especially for
a Jewish art dealer.
And tonight is Rosh Hashanah,
so Shana Tova to who believes
in the Jewish tradition.
Loewi was a good businessman
and a smart man.
Only a few weeks after receiving
the crates,
in March 1938,
he traveled to Turin
to meet one of his best clients,
the Swiss silk manufacturer
and collector Werner Abegg.
On September 21, 1938,
Abegg received the full set
of photographs
of the studiolo panels
and expressed his strong
interest in buying it
in order to decorate his castle
in Germany.
On September 25, Loewi wrote to
Abegg from Lausanne,
that the Gubbio woodwork
had been disassembled
and stored under Abegg's name,
prudently,
at an Italian shipping company.
Loewi asked Abegg
to send $15,000
under his name to New York,
where he was planning
to relocate.
In the meantime,
the Italian police raided
Loewi's Venetian office--
so just in time--
claiming that he
had been engaging
in illegal currency
transactions.
But, in fact, cracking down
on a Jewish foreign national
now that the racial laws,
also in Italy, were in place.
On February 1, 1939,
the Loewi family sailed
from the Dutch port of Le Havre,
arriving in New York
on February 9.
Since Abegg had backed down
from his initial offer
to own and share the studiolo,
Loewi asked the Italian director
of his firm,
whom he had left
in charge in Venice,
to ship the studiolo crates
via Marseille.
By May 15, the panels
were safely delivered
at the Tomitch Workshop
on 1554 Third Avenue,
between 87th and 88th Street.
At that point, Loewi engaged
in an intense negotiation
with The Metropolitan Museum
that was only a few blocks away
from his storage
and by November 30, 1939,
the panels belonged
officially to The Met.
The installation
of the Gubbio studiolo
was complicated
and lengthy operation.
It lasted almost 26 years,
from 1941 to 1967.
And then the restoration took
almost another 20 years,
and it was done under the expert
supervision of Olga Raggio.
So...
just one week ago,
the city of Gubbio
inaugurated a handmade replica
of the Gubbio studiolo,
and it was produced
for an undisclosed budget,
but my informants tell me
it cost almost
two million euros.
(soft laughter)
Interestingly,
in the Italian papers,
Mr. Loewi's story was passed
completely under silence
and referred to-- I quote--
"many vicissitudes."
So this is the new kind of PC
in the post-fascist Italian era,
which we hope will end soon.
(laughter)
Okay. Having said that,
I am sure you understand
I am more than happy to move
from the miseries of the present
to the glories of the past.
Now, I want to give you
a quick
geographical context here.
And I am showing you
the map of Italy
which actually was on display
at the little show
that Keith has mentioned.
It's a map of Italy
which is part of
a Ptolemy series of maps
and descriptions of countries
and cities
and was made in the workshop
of the famous book maker
Vespasiano da Bisticci.
Mind you, the theme of Florence
runs through this all talk
but I am trying to focus more
on Montefeltro than the Medici
in this first part.
So we're going to be visiting,
of course, Urbino,
because that's the source of
every single thing
that Federico does.
As well as Gubbio,
which is... here is indicated
with its old Latin name.
Then we're gonna go to Florence,
and we'll also take a little
trip to Volterra
and then to Rome.
So my little tour will end
in the Eternal City,
where I actually am from.
So, Gubbio.
Gubbio is a beautiful
medieval town
strategically located
on the slope of a steep hill
about 50 miles south of Urbino,
then the capital of
the Montefeltro territory.
Federico da Montefeltro
was born in Gubbio in 1422,
bastard son of the local lord
Guidantonio.
Federico's refined taste
in art and culture
was the result of his
excellent education.
As a teenager, Federico went
to one of the best schools,
the Yale of the Renaissance,
also known as the "casa
gioiosa"-- the Joyous House--
an elite institution
just outside of Mantua.
Other students included
the future marquis of Mantua,
Ludovico Gonzaga.
Classical authors from
Greek and Latin antiquity
were taught by the famous
humanist Vittorino da Feltre.
There was also serious martial
and athletic training
and it is no surprise that
Federico took seriously
the education of his son,
who embodied the living hope
of survival for the long-term
plans of his duchy.
He also hired the best teachers
and bought the best books
available,
or actually commissioning them,
as you will see very soon.
Federico's son was also born
in Gubbio in January 1472,
so exactly 50 years later.
And this was not the first son,
but the actual only son
that survived him.
So in their native town,
Federico refurbished a palace
in which he commissioned
a studiolo.
And the Gubbio studiolo mirrored
the one built earlier in Urbino.
In the summer of 2007,
I had the pleasure of curating
a little show
at the Morgan Library,
entitled "Federico da
Montefeltro and His Library."
With the help of my friend,
photographer and bibliophile
Fabrizio Fenucci--
who is here and came from Italy
for this lecture,
and I am grateful for that--
we reconstructed
the Urbino studiolo
using high-resolution
digital pictures.
We also brought this work of art
that Keith has already
mentioned, this double portrait,
which I could entertain you
about for a long time,
but I'm not, tonight.
(woman speaks indistinctly)
Yes?
WOMAN:
Hi. I'm told that
you need to back off from
the microphone a little bit.
- Oh.
- There's kind of interference.
- Thank you.
(microphone crackles)
Is it better like this?
(audience murmurs agreement)
Oh.
You should have told me before.
(laughter)
(Simonetta laughs)
All right.
Should I start again?
(laughter)
Well, let's pretend that you
understood what I said before.
All right. So the result
was quite stunning,
the result of this digital...
digital reconstruction.
Mm-hmm.
And Urbino studiolo sort of
came alive in the cube
built by Renzo Piano
in the new Morgan Library.
Um... so...
many people thought, in fact,
that we had brought the actual
panels, the wood panels,
from Italy and were scratching
the walls to check.
(laughter)
So for a couple months,
my favorite boasting line
was that while the two studioli
used to be 50 miles away
from each other,
they were now only
50 blocks away.
Whoever had the chance to visit
them both at that time,
at the Morgan
and here at The Met,
probably could gauge the
similarities and differences.
In both of his studioli--
and this is, of course,
the Gubbio studiolo--
Federico da Montefeltro
could gaze
upon the surrounding walls
of the room,
trompe l'oeil images in
the most elaborate inlay wood
of objects that looked so real
one could have reached them
and touched them.
Shelves, books and lecterns
are open.
Musical and scientific
instruments,
weapons and pieces of armor
all arranged in a...
a sort of casually
and disorderly fashion.
These were the objects
that befitted
humanist soldier Federico
when he needed solitude
and contemplation.
Now, many of you, I'm sure,
are aware of the distinction
that was so crucial in
the life of the Renaissance,
which was between
the "vita activa"
and the "vita contemeplativa,"
the two lives,
two kinds of lives,
that one needs to be
a complete man.
And obviously, Federico was
a champion in both of them.
And we'll return to this,
this concept very soon.
(clears throat)
So, in the Urbino studiolo,
the ornamented female body...
and this is... Oops.
The ornamented female body
is nowhere in sight.
Three women of pious demeanor
appear in monochrome.
This is one of them, Charity.
And in fact, it's very difficult
to speak about...
a three-dimensional space
on a flat screen,
so from now on, you will have
to bear with me a little.
I'll try to do my best
to give you a sense
of the three-dimensionality
of the space.
But then, luckily, we only have
to walk a few steps upstairs
to look at it again.
So...
Botticelli is in
the subtitle of my talk,
but in fact, there is no proof
whatsoever that he was involved
in any of the making
of this studioli.
Certainly, his hand was not
directly involved,
although his style
and his influence was, probably,
and you can probably see it
somehow in this female figure.
Now, obviously, this is not...
this is not, I emphasize,
as appealing as the ultra famous
Venus born out of the sea
that Botticelli painted.
And, in fact, these studioli are
a heavily male realm.
The portrait of Federico
dressed in a white Roman tunic
is also in the Urbino studiolo.
And he is shown
holding a spear down,
recalling the image of Mars,
the god of war,
in the guise of
the peace-seeker,
as often portrayed
on ancient Roman coins.
Also, possibly,
as I've been instructed lately,
it could be also
the dress of the member
of the exclusive
Order of the Ermine
that was awarded to him
by the king of Naples.
On top of the studiolo...
And here, you can see
this is Charity,
this is the little
portrait of Federico.
There are portraits of 28
great, illustrious men.
So, as I said,
very male-oriented.
Uh, the Gubbio studiolo,
despite today's relatively sober
and stern appearance,
used to be much more of
a feminine space, in fact.
You can see that there is
a lettering going around
this Urbino studiolo, as well,
and you can see it even better--
yes, there he is--
in the Gubbio studiolo.
This gold lettering,
possibly dictated in Latin
by Federico himself--
although he had an army
of humanists and poets
that were serving him,
but he likely to attribute
to himself a few fancy quotes.
(laughter)
So this gold lettering
runs along the top of
the studiolo's paneling--
and you can see it upstairs--
and reads as follows:
"You see how
the eternal students
"of the venerable mother,
"men exalted in learning
and in genius,
"fall forward in supplication
with bare head and bended knee."
Now, who is
the venerable mother?
And who are the women to whom
these men-- very important men--
go and kneel in front, behead...
Sorry, not beheaded, I will talk
about beheading later.
(soft laughter)
Um, bareheaded.
Well, the venerable mother
happens to be
Mnemosyne, also known as
the goddess of memory.
And she is the mother
of all the liberal arts,
which you see here,
united in the page.
Now, the parentheses refer to
the fact that the paintings,
unfortunately, are either
missing or have been destroyed.
Uh, the Berlin paintings--
Dialectic and Astronomy,
on which I'm actually going to
focus in the next few seconds--
were destroyed in Berlin
just a couple years--
under the bombs of the Allies,
as you can imagine--
just a couple years after
the studiolo was actually saved
on this side of the...
of the pond.
So what's left, actually, is
only the two panels in London,
which are mentioned later.
So these are the two
Berlin panels.
And so the painting of
the several liberal arts
encircle the upper walls
in an encyclopedic homage
to the duke's erudition.
Each of the arts, embodied by
an allegorical female figure,
handed her precious gifts
to a powerful,
bareheaded male figure,
as you can see here.
So you have Federico
and this is Ferrante of Aragon,
his employer and friend.
Not as cultured as he was,
in fact.
So, from the corner
of his left eye...
As you probably know,
Federico was deprived
of his right eye in a joust,
not in battle,
but in a sort of a game.
So, from the corner
of his left eye,
Federico could catch a glimpse
of his own portrait
in which he was shown kneeling,
his red felt hat resting
on the elegant carpeted steps.
Just above him in the picture,
a shield with the Montefeltro
coat of arms--
you can see it here--
held by the imperious
Montefeltro eagles,
surmounted a metal sconce.
To the right of the figure,
a painted window frame opened
onto a room with an open door,
the traditional symbol
of the gateway to knowledge.
Federico's seen offered...
being offered a thick volume
by a woman,
the allegorical figure
of Dialectic,
one of the liberal arts.
Dialectic or Logic is
the queen of the trivium,
which lays the foundation
of language and thought,
along with grammar and rhetoric,
the two sisters liberal arts
that pertain to language.
The book Federico receives
has a golden clasp
and is decorated with an image
of the... a nude Hercules.
And this depiction emphasizes
the strength
of his logical reasoning
and the stringency
of his mental acuity
as much as
of his military action.
So, let's take a look...
at the courtyard
of the Urbino Palace.
It goes without saying
it is much fancier
than the Gubbio Palace.
You can see that...
there are two sets of friezes
that run across
this square courtyard.
The same principle, I believe,
applies also to the studiolo.
Not only in the frieze,
which you already saw--
this is the frieze--
but, in fact,
also on top
of each of the paintings.
And we have some fragments
of these original frieze...
that composed this writing
that you can barely read.
But don't worry.
We'll get to read it very soon.
So, I'm going to do a little bit
of magic here.
The reconstruction of studiolo--
this is the one that's been
proposed by several scholars,
including Olga Raggio.
And I'm not convinced by it
for a very simple reason--
that, as you can see,
this is the west wall.
This is the north wall,
and this is the south wall.
But if you go upstairs,
you'll notice immediately
that these are interrupted
by the east wall,
which actually occupies
the windows.
So, in order
to have this disposition,
you would have an interruption
in the frieze,
and the frieze would read
funnily.
So, let me do my magic.
Let's put this here,
put this here, put this here,
da-da-da, da-da-da, and here is
the studiolo as it should be.
So, if you go to the studiolo,
you have to try to picture
these large paintings
very colorful, although, here,
for good reasons,
I-I just did it
in black and white.
(clears throat)
And that made the room
much more interesting
and symbolically charged.
It looks a bit funny
to have that white wall
on top of the panels,
and who knows?
Maybe one day we will be able to
reconstruct the full studiolo.
Unfortunately, the three panels
that are lost--
we don't even know
how they looked like.
For all we know, they could be
sitting in some living room
in Pescara or, you know, in--
(laughter)
I don't know-- Göttingen.
Everything is possible.
But certainly, the two ones
that exist in London belong
to the studiolo, and, you know,
some scholars disagree
with that,
but I definitely don't think
this is the case.
So I sort of set up the space,
and I hope you can picture it
in its original richness,
and I shouldn't forget
to mention the ceiling,
which is a gorgeous
original piece.
And not many people-- distracted
by the beauty of the panels--
actually bother to look up,
but next time you go, please do,
because
it's an extraordinary work
of decoration and gold friezing.
So, back to the studiolo.
When and where was
the studiolo made?
The only firm document
we can rely on is a contract
dated May 22, 1477,
which commissioned
the gold letter frieze,
which means
that the construction
must have been well underway
by then.
Perhaps it took longer
than expected.
Delays, as we know, are part
of any real estate enterprise.
And personally having
been recently subjected
to the painful rite of passage
called "gut renovation"...
(laughter)
...in a New York City apartment,
I know the feeling very well.
However, the client being
the most demanding and generous,
but also
most unforgiving employer
and patron of arts of the time
and not just a poor intellectual
like me...
I would not, not have wanted
to be late
if I were the contractor
of Federico da Montefeltro,
if you know what I mean.
(laughter)
So, in this contract,
the contractor is actually
the Sienese architect
and multitasking artist
Francesco di Giorgio,
a true Renaissance man
and a sort of
Leonardo da Vinci look-alike,
whom Federico employed both
as a military engineer
to build weapons and fortresses,
and as a refined decorator.
The painter on the frieze...
of the frieze--
so the golden lettering--
was assigned
to a not very well-known...
Maybe Keith knows him,
but he's the only one.
Bernardino di Nanni Pietro.
(clears throat)
So, let's turn to the more
visual parts of this talk.
I've given you a lot of facts
and dates and names.
I want to just now turn more
to the visual.
(clears throat)
First of all,
I'm going to be focusing just,
for the sake of time, on a
couple of objects that you see.
I could do it for pretty much
every object in the studiolo,
but we would run out of time
very quickly.
So, just keep in mind this, too.
The sphere on the right
and the lectern
with a book on the left.
Now, in terms of visual models,
the studiolo has a long
and very interesting tradition,
and this painting was probably
the inspiration,
for many studioli,
including Federico's one.
This painting happened
to be part
of Lorenzo de' Medici's
personal collection.
It came from his father's
collection, Piero's collection.
And I think
it's pretty safe to assume
that Botticelli was influenced
by it
when he painted this fresco
in the Church of Ognissanti,
portraying Saint Augustine.
Now, you immediately see
the armillary sphere,
the classic astronomical
and geometrical device
used to measure the stars,
but also earthly
military artifacts,
such as towers and moats,
as illustrated in Roberto
Valturio's book of arms.
Here. Where is it?
So, these are other examples--
sorry--
of the armillary sphere.
This is a father of the church,
and look at the beauty
of this manuscript
made for Federico
with a little perspective
and all the objects here.
We could spend a lot of time
looking at them,
but no,
we're not gonna do it today.
So...
this is Roberto Valturio's
book of military art,
and as I said,
the armillary sphere could be
used for both things.
So, we're approaching
more the visual,
but also the exciting part
of the talk, I hope,
which is the part in which
I try to connect the Medici
and Federico in ways
that I haven't done in the book.
(clears throat)
First of all,
let me give you a little bit
of background history here.
The relationship between
Federico da Montefeltro
and Lorenzo de' Medici started
early on.
His senior by almost 30 years,
Federico was hired
by Lorenzo in 1472
to crash the rebellion
of the city of Volterra.
The fearful mercenary
fulfilled the mission,
and besieging and sacking,
salvaging the city,
he also took some time pillaging
the private library
of a Jewish merchant called
Menahem ben Aaron,
and taking all of his books
in his Hebrew collection.
So he sort of did a lot
of shopping
while he was doing this.
(laughter)
So Lorenzo ordered--
we are still in 1472--
ordered lavish celebrations
in Florence
to honor Federico's deed.
The condottiere was welcomed
triumphantly to the city
in the manner
of an ancient Roman hero.
He received banners embroidered
with his coat of arms,
along with splendid textiles
wrote with gold.
He was granted
Florentine citizenship
and was promised
a glorious silver gilt helmet
embellished with animal
and a figure of Hercules
subduing a griffin,
which was the symbol
of the city of Volterra
that he had pretty much
wiped out.
A few months later,
along with the helmet,
Federico received
a highly precious,
beautifully illuminated codex.
This codex...
was Cristoforo Landino's
"Disputationes Camaldulenses."
In the preface of this work,
Federico was celebrated
as the supreme champion
of both the contemplative
and the active life, the master
of war who aimed for peace.
Upon receiving
this magnificent manuscript,
Federico wrote a letter politely
thanking both Landino
and, sort of dismissively,
in a somewhat patronizing
and condescending way, Lorenzo,
the most skilled "young man"
whom he embraced as a son
with particular benevolence
and as a brother with honor.
Lorenzo himself appeared
as one of the speakers
in Landino's dialogue,
championing action
over contemplation,
and chose none other than
Federico as a model,
but still in the fictionalized
dialogue of Landino's work.
These are the laudatory words
that... on statesmanship uttered
by the fictional
Florentine friend, Lorenzo.
"In our times, we have
Federico da Montefeltro,
"Prince of Urbino,
whom I doubtlessly consider
"worth comparing to the best
captains of the ancient era.
"Many and most honorable
are the virtues
"of such an excellent man.
"His penetrating wit is
passionate about everything.
"He gives himself
the leisure and the company
"of the most erudite
and cultivated men,
"while reading many books,
listening to many disputes,
"participating in many debates,
as well as being a man
of letters in his own right."
We actually don't have
any real work by Federico,
but it's okay.
A bit of flattery.
However, if he had allowed
his speculations
to reprise the vigilant hold
on his state
and a strong hand
on his soldiers,
he would have been reduced
to nothing.
So, I won't go into
the detailed, sort of,
and complex relationship
of the two,
because that's what
I wrote about in my book.
What I want to talk about
instead, briefly,
is a new thing that happened,
over the summer,
and believe it or not,
thanks to Facebook.
(laughter)
I'm part of a small fan group
for Federico da Montefeltro,
duca di Urbino.
(laughter)
Yes.
And believe it or not,
some interesting things happen
on Facebook.
(laughter)
And... What happened here?
Come on.
What happened was that suddenly
I was sent
over Facebook this letter.
Now, this an unpublished letter
that is held,
preserved
in the Gubbio archives,
so that seemed to be
just sort of godsent
for this talk.
And it happens to be
the same exact code
that was used in the letter
that I talk about in the book
that reveals
the nasty background
of the Pazzi conspiracy.
This one is slightly less nasty.
Slightly.
But it's very interesting to see
that the same exact code
was used among the three men
that were the closest
to Federico,
and they were communicating
about basically controlling
the whole of Italy.
This letter happens to be sent
to a man called
Giovanni Battista Mellini,
who was in Naples serving
for Federico and for Ferrante,
the king that you've met before
kneeling in front
of the allegorical liberal art.
And he talks
about a lot of things.
We don't need to get
into details.
I will publish this letter soon,
although I haven't
decided where yet.
(clears throat) And it does
sort of introduce us
to the nasty world
of what I call
the Montefeltro conspiracy.
I'm happy
to answer questions about this
later on, as well,
but I just wanted to show you
the Urbino codex
that contains some--
not all-- some of the symbols,
especially the ones
referring to people or powers
that actually recur
in both of the letters:
the Ubaldini letter
that I published in the book
and in this new,
newly surfaced letter.
(clears throat)
And as Keith has mentioned,
my ancestor Cicco Simonetta
happened to be involved
in these matters
pretty intensely.
But it's not about him
that I want to talk about.
It's about this guy
that you know very well.
This is a bust
portraying Lorenzo de' Medici,
the Magnificent.
In fact,
I should be showing you this,
because this is how
he looks like.
Because it'd been painted over,
but originally
it was a polychrome bust
that is now preserved
at the National Gallery
in Washington.
I'm gonna skip over quickly here
showing just the cast
of characters.
This is also a bust,
a beautiful bust of Giuliano,
the younger brother
who unfortunately gets killed
in the conspiracy.
He looks very cocky here,
doesn't he?
And it didn't last very long,
this cockiness, unfortunately.
And then we have
another Botticelli painting,
the famous
"Adoration of the Magi."
This is the 1470 one
in which both Lorenzo
and Giuliano are portrayed,
along with Botticelli himself,
who, in the typical fashion
of the self-portrait
of an artist in the painting,
is looking at us
and sort of inviting us
inside of this frame.
Today I heard another lecture
by someone else
talking about
the "Adoration of the Magi."
Not this one, but the next one
Botticelli did in 1480
that was acquired
by Andrew Mellon in 1931--
guess what--
from the Hermitage Museum.
And Andrew Mellon
paid a lot of money
to get it from the Russians
and sort of paid this money,
also,
because he wanted to show
how great he was
against the Soviets.
But this one, instead,
is more interesting
because it shows how close
Botticelli was
to the family.
He, in fact, puts himself
in a pretty prominent position
near the kneeling Medici
or the bending Medici
in front of the Virgin Mary
and the newly born Jesus baby.
So, here's our friend Botticelli
looking at us pretty intensely.
Now, as I try to say in my book,
I think that Botticelli
was one of the most mischievous
artists ever.
And we have several testimonies
about this
that we read,
for instance, in Vasari.
Vasari details
all the terrible practical jokes
that he would play
on his colleagues and friends.
(clears throat)
So, skimming quickly
through what happens
after the Pazzi conspiracy,
this is the famous Pazzi Medal.
It portrays...
As you can see,
it's a mirror image
of the two brothers,
and you have on both sides
the two sides of the Duomo.
Oh, sorry. I went too fast.
And you see the two lecterns,
which, of course, hold the Bible
or whatever book they're reading
in church.
And you can see
the two mirror images.
On the one hand,
you have Lorenzo,
who represents
the public safety,
and he survived the attack.
And on the other hand,
unfortunately,
you have Giuliano,
who represents
the public mourning,
and he died.
And they both are made
into these huge,
sort of Botticelli-like angels
that dwarf the little figures
of these petty conspirators.
Now, as Keith
has mentioned before,
in the aftermath
of this bloody conspiracy,
all-- almost all--
of the conspirators
were killed
in several interesting ways.
Some of them were thrown
out of the high windows
of the Palazzo Vecchio,
called Palazza della Signoria.
Some of them were first gutted
and then hanged.
Some of them were...
you know, various combinations
of those things, anyway.
We don't need to get into
too many gory details tonight.
It's Friday night.
But what I really want
to talk about here
is this drawing,
which I talk about in the book,
about which a new idea
sort of arose in my mind
while I was writing
this lecture.
And this is a famous sketch,
and it's done
by the very young Leonardo,
who, at the time, was not nearly
as famous as Botticelli.
And Leonardo drew him,
drew this man
who was the actual killer
of Giuliano de' Medici.
He drew him dressed as a Turk
in mockery of him.
Why as a Turk?
Not because he wanted
to make any anti-Muslim jokes,
but because, in fact,
he had tried
to find escape
in Istanbul, Constantinople,
and had been sent back
by the sultan,
who was a good friend
of Lorenzo
and said,
"Oh, look who I have here.
"I'm gonna send him back to you.
(laughter)
"Take care of him,
good care of him."
(clears throat) So, this is
a famous sketch, as I say,
and you probably can see
that this is the writing,
typical writing of Leonardo.
It is not encoded.
It's simply the mirror writing
that he was practicing normally.
And what it does,
it describes the colors
of the dress,
of the Turkish hat
and the robe and everything
that Bernardo Bandini Baroncelli
was wearing
at the time of his execution.
Now, this is
an interesting drawing
that, in fact, was talked about
by our friend
Keith Christiansen in 1994.
He wrote a little note
to the editor of the prestigious
"Burlington Magazine"
because a scholar,
a friend of ours
whom we won't mention
because we shouldn't,
published this drawing saying
that this was a dancing figure.
Keith took a good look
at the drawing
and said,
"Well, I don't think so.
"Try to reverse the drawing,
and you'll see that something
else is going on here."
And I cannot reverse
the drawing, unfortunately,
but I can point you
to a little detail
that is crucial in this drawing.
Now, this drawing--
and Keith made the first
suggestion in this direction--
is definitely connected
to the Pazzi conspiracy.
So, what happened?
In July of 1478,
so just three months
after the conspiracy itself,
after all the deaths
had been sort of washed down,
literally,
the waters of the Arno River,
the Florentine Signoria
charge Botticelli
with a large, life-size fresco
of all the conspirators
that had been hanged
or variously killed
to be painted on the very walls
of the Palazzo della Signoria.
Now, this is known.
We have several testimonies
that show us this.
We, unfortunately,
don't know how this looked like
because why?
Because in 1494-- the date
that Keith mentioned before,
which was the date
of the expulsion
of the Medici from Florence--
at that point, Lorenzo had died,
and his very incapable son Piero
really didn't deserve
to stay in town much longer.
So, at that point,
part of the natural,
spontaneous revolution
that followed also destroyed,
unfortunately,
the paintings
that Botticelli had...
the frescos
that Botticelli had made
on the walls
of the Palazza della Signoria.
(clears throat)
Now, the idea that came to me
is that, in fact,
this man should be,
of course,
one of the conspirators.
But which one?
In a very thorough
and nice volume
on Filippino Lippi,
a scholar called
Jonathan Nelson imagines
that this could be a guy called
Napoleone Francese,
who was the only one
of the whole gang
who actually escaped prison
or execution
in the aftermath
of the conspiracy.
In fact, what I think it is
is the portrait of
Bernardo Bandini himself
before being executed.
Because being hanged
from the foot, upside down,
like a tarot card,
that is used for the condemned
in absentia.
So, most likely what happened
was that all the killed,
the executed, were put
in the painting in July, 1478,
when Botticelli did his fresco.
And, of course,
that was far from the date
in which our friend Bernardo
was to be caught
and sent back to Florence.
So he had to finish the fresco,
and he put the figure
of this guy upside down,
hanged from his foot.
Then, when Bernardo Bandini
was in fact captured
and sent back and executed,
that fresco became
suddenly outdated.
So, our friend Leonardo
certainly did a sketch,
but now the question is
did he in fact paint,
instead of the original
Botticelli fresco,
this small figure
of a hanged man
in the actual frescoes
on the path to the Signoria?
Unfortunately, even if he did,
we will never know.
But it's sort of a nice idea
to play with.
So...
let's go back to the studiolo.
What we know for sure
is that the war
between Florence and Rome lasted
between April 1478
and March 1480,
but it did not prevent
the circulation
of deluxe artistic goods
commissioned
by Federico in Florence.
As the second volume
of the Montefeltro Bible,
which has actually been
reproduced, and, I'm told,
is the best-selling deluxe book
of The Met shop.
Um...
So this book was to be the jewel
in Federico's sumptuous
collection.
And the duke could not bear
the thought
of losing it to the Florentines.
It had been produced, obviously,
in the workshop
of Vespasiano da Bisticci.
So the huge manuscript had been
completed on June 12, 1478,
so just a few weeks after the
Pazzi conspiracy had occurred.
The volume was dedicated to the
Church commander, I'm quoting,
"...engaged in defending
the Christian religion,
no less than adorning it."
Lorenzo, which, at the time,
had been called
by the Pope Sixtus IV, who was
also behind the conspiracy,
as I show in the book without
any reasonable doubt,
he was called by the same pope,
"Son of Iniquity and Perdition"
and had been ex-communicated
and sent to hell,
sort of preventively.
(soft laughter)
And so, you can imagine
that Lorenzo,
who certainly wasn't deprived
of a good sense of humor,
appreciated the irony of being
able to release
the most precious Bible
ever made, to date,
to his enemy,
Federico da Montefeltro.
And of course, you know,
he received it,
Federico received it
very politely
and thanked for it.
This was on the eve of the war
that almost destroyed Lorenzo.
Now, so why I mention this?
Because the theory about
the Gubbio studiolo
is that it was made
between 1478 and 1480
by a Florentine workshop,
namely the workshop
of Giuliano
and Benedetto da Maiano.
And I'm not gonna sort of
question the fact
that it was most likely
produced there,
and maybe finished later,
but I'm pretty sure
that by the time that
that 1477 letter
that I read you the contract,
and when the frieze
was commissioned,
the work, as I said,
must have been way
under completion.
Because you don't do a frieze
before doing the cabinetry.
It just makes no sense.
Ask any contractor in New York,
they will tell you the same.
(audience chuckles)
So this is the portrait
that Botticelli made
of Giuliano de' Medici.
I've just been told by Keith
that this painting
will come to New York
for a wonderful show
on Renaissance Italian portraits
to begin at the very end
of the year 2011.
So you're gonna be able
to admire it here,
if you don't go to Washington.
And I could tell you a lot
about this painting,
and one thing is for sure,
that it was painted after
the death of Giuliano,
and there are many reasons
to think that.
But what I really want
to talk about here
is what happens after
in Botticelli's career.
This is sort of
a part of my book
that I'm very sort of proud of.
And not many people seem to have
read the last part of my book.
I notice that all the reviewers
talk about the rest of the book,
but none of them-- except
for the "Washington Post."
So I want to,
in this wonderful room,
just to reiterate a couple
points I tried to make
in a sort of quick fashion.
So this is the Sistine Chapel
as it looked like in the 1480s.
And, of course, the ceiling
was not yet painted
by Michelangelo.
And the people involved
in this enterprise
were Pietro Perugino, the only
known Florentine painter,
and then three
Florentine artists,
Ghirlandaio, Cosimo Rosselli
and Botticelli.
As I observed in my book,
the artist that the pope,
who was not particularly
smart in terms of art,
the artist that he most liked
was Cosimo Rosselli.
Why? Because he used
a lot of gold.
Let me say a couple words
about this pope.
This pope was Sixtus IV,
and he had been the general
of the Franciscan Order.
When he became pope,
he sort of forgot his vow
of humility and poverty.
(audience chuckles)
And he commissioned this
gorgeous, monumental chapel,
which is called Sistine Chapel
after him.
So he had artists decorating
both sides--
the sides of the walls--
of the chapel.
On the one side
was the Moses Cycle.
On the other were
the Jesus Cycle.
So New Testament and
Old Testament episodes
are sort of put in
an interesting parallel,
put one in front of the other.
And they comment,
sort of, on each other.
Now, I want to focus
very briefly
on one of these paintings,
which was, by all means,
painted by our Botticelli.
I talk at length
about this painting
in the last chapter of my book.
But there is a little detail
that I didn't talk about
in the book
that I want
to just point out to you
in a sort of careless,
half-jokingly way.
Now, do you see this
little thing on top?
Does it look like a smiley
to you?
It does to me.
Well, it's very strange
because if you look down
in the painting,
the same exact profile
of the little smiley,
you have this guy and this guy,
who are, respectively,
Aaron and Moses,
the religious or spiritual
and political
or military authorities
of the Jewish people.
And we know that the profile
is exactly the same,
exactly the same
as Sixtus IV,
the pope who has asked
the same painter who had painted
the condemned co-plotters
against de' Medici,
who has painted a portrait
of Giuliano after he died.
So you can imagine how
enthusiastic he was
to go and work for the guy
who had been behind
the whole bloodshed, all right?
So guess what?
He looks exactly like him,
except, of course,
for the beard, which is hardly
a disguise.
And, mind you,
the little smiley's on top,
so nobody can actually see it
standing.
Try and see it when you go back
to the Sistine Chapel,
you can't.
But it's the kind of detail
that the mischievous Botticelli
would have put there
just to warn people of what his
real intention about this...
This is a punishment of the
rebels against authority are,
so the Florentines had been
rebelling against Florence,
in the papal version,
because, guess what,
they didn't let themselves
be killed in the main church.
And so, the pope excommunicated
Lorenzo and the city
because they didn't
let themselves
be killed in the church.
And then, as a sort of payoff
for the peace agreement
they'd reached,
he was sent-- Botticelli was
sent-- to paint the same chapel.
Okay?
So now let's take another look
at the same painting.
This is the face of Korah,
the terrible rebel
that has made
Moses and Aaron so angry,
he's about to be crushed by...
and actually sent into fire.
Now, let me show this again.
This is Korah,
and this is someone
that you've seen, I'm sure,
in a sort of slightly
well-known painting
called the "Primavera," yes?
And of course,
there are many interpretations
of this painting,
and I've provided one.
I'm not gonna repeat it here.
But I just want
to go to the point
that if this is indeed
an immortal figure--
this may be Athanasia,
could be Zephyrus,
could be whatever
you want it to be--
and is literally instilling life
into the whole painting,
this is indeed a vendetta that
Botticelli's privately taking
in a painting
that is made exclusively
for the Medici family,
exclusively for their view
and for no one else.
Sort of taking the piss
out of the Sistine fresco
that he himself has made under
the threat of being killed.
In fact, Botticelli
was never paid
for his job in Rome, by the way.
So let me just finish
by quoting something else.
This is unfortunately
the only possible...
the only record that we have
of what used to be
the altarpiece
of the Sistine Chapel.
And of course, Sixtus IV,
the commission... the sort of
patron of the same chapel,
was kneeling there
and waiting for the Madonna
to go up in the sky.
This is an Assunta.
Now, it's not there anymore.
Ha.
Used to be here.
This was a painting
that originally was covering
the altarpiece of the most
sacred Catholic chapel, okay?
It's the chapel where the popes
from then on will be elected.
And the altarpiece has been
destroyed, and the altarpiece
used to portray the very pope
that commissioned the chapel.
What's going on here?
Well, first of all,
Federico dreamed once
to be portrayed
on that very altarpiece.
We have a letter,
that I published in my book,
in which he complains
to an ambassador
that the pope's nephew has,
in fact, destroyed the project
of having himself, Federico,
the captain of the army
of the church,
to be portrayed
on the very altarpiece.
So Federico's not there,
but neither is Sixtus.
And why is that?
Well, take a look at this
little drawing by Michelangelo,
and you see, this is the space.
And Michelangelo,
in his preparatory sketch,
had in fact kept
the space for the altarpiece,
because obviously,
there's no way an artist,
even as ambitious and as
respected as Michelangelo,
could dream of destroying
an altarpiece.
And who is the one
who destroyed this altarpiece?
I won't tell you. You're gonna
have to read the book.
(laughter)
But,
I'm gonna end
on a little different note,
and I'm very glad
that Keith started this,
or actually, ended
his introduction on a poem.
And the poem is actually here.
Now, if you go back
to the studiolo,
you'll see there's actually,
there are many scribbles
that are made to look
as if they were text,
but they actually aren't,
they're sort of "coded."
But this is actually a full page
from Virgil's "Aeneid."
And it's from book ten,
and it describes the combat
between Turnus and Pallas.
And so, at the end
of this combat,
which-- a very valiant combat--
Pallas dies,
and Virgil comments...
"Lifetimes are brief
and not to be regained,
"for all mankind.
"But by their deeds
to make their fame last,
that is labor for the brave."
So this becomes Federico's motto
after his death.
In fact, this little thing here
is the symbol
of his son Guidobaldo
'cause this panel
was finished after his death.
But it's on this note that
I would like to finish my talk.
And of course, I've told you
only half of the story,
but you can read the other half
in the book.
Thank you very much.
(applause)
