15th Century And Earlier

An exhibition that sheds new light on Leonardo da Vinci’s anatomical work opens at The Queen’s Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse, in August. Long renowned as one of the finest artists of the Renaissance, Leonardo was also one of the greatest anatomists the world has ever seen. Almost 500 years after his death, Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Man, part of the Edinburgh International Festival, uses 21st-century technology to explore the modern relevance of Leonardo’s anatomical research. Thirty sheets of his groundbreaking investigations into the workings of the human body will go on display alongside images prepared using the latest medical technology. The juxtaposition shows how far-sighted Leonardo’s work was, and how relevant he remains for anatomists today.

Previously, four tests undertaken by Prof. John Asmus, nuclear physicist, who digitised the brushtrokes of both paintings, established scientifically that both the 'Earlier Version' [ie, the Isleworth picture] and the 'Mona Lisa' in the Louvre would have been executed by the same artist. This brushstroke analysis identifies conclusively an artist in the same way that DNA or fingerprints identify criminals'.

New tests on a painting billed as the original version of the Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci's 15th century portrait, have produced fresh proof that it is the work of the Italian master, a Swiss-based art foundation claims.

The tests, one by a specialist in "sacred geometry" and the other by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, were carried out in the wake of the Geneva unveiling of the painting, the Isleworth Mona Lisa, last September.

"When we add these new findings to the wealth of scientific and physical studies we already had, I believe anyone will find the evidence of a Leonardo attribution overwhelming," said David Feldman vice-president of the foundation said.

Surprised that @britishlibrary Leonardo manuscript viewer did not embed "horizontal flip" functionality to make text more accessible.

Shown to the public for the first time, the Museo del Prado is presenting The Agony in the Garden with the Donor Louis I d’Orléans (1405-1407/1408), a previously unpublished work acquired by the Museum in 2012. Following a lengthy process of restoration it will now be placed on display in the permanent galleries and represents a major contribution to the field of Early French Painting. The aesthetic and pictorial merit of the painting, recently restored with the sponsorship of Fundación Iberdrola, combined with the rarity of works from this school, make this panel a unique example of enormous historical importance given that it is the only known panel painting to depict Louis d’Orléans. With a possible attribution to Colart de Laon, Louis’ painter and valet de chambre, the panel will be presented in a special display until 28 April in Room 51A, alongside X-radiograph and Infra-red reflectograph images of it and a video that shows the different stages of its restoration.

In conclusion, over the centuries faces have been reconstructed from skulls for different reasons: religion, teaching, and more recently forensics, anthropology and archaeology of ancient or more or less famous people. The techniques are changing, and new more reliable methods are being studied. Nevertheless, it is clear that facial reconstruction methods and their traditional guidelines present some inaccuracies, and the challenge will be to increase the degree of accuracy of facial reconstruction.

If Ghiberti thought he was at Assisi it's good enough for me. If you look at his evolution between the Arena Chapel in 1305 and the Bardi Chapel in 1325, the St Francis cycle could be the same painter in the 1290s. The secondary figures in the Arena Chapel are like figures from Assisi. Giotto is the moment painting starts walking on two legs. I don't think he ditched the icon style overnight.

So accomplished is the presentation here of our inner biology, it’s easy to overlook the fact that Leonardo isn’t just progressing anatomical understanding. He is also inventing biological drawing. Today, we live in a world of plentiful biological illustration, and all these methods of explaining the inner body are familiar to us: the section, the inner close-up, the view across the cut, the map of the arteries, the exploded joint. In Leonardo’s time, they all needed to be invented. Here he is, turning abstract knowledge into a tangible and understand­able visual coding.

The final room is dizzyingly impressive. It records his most sustained effort to turn his ­anatomical knowledge into a published treatise. Somehow, he gets to know the professor of anatomy at the university in Pavia, and the two of them embark on a thorough investigation of the skeleton and its muscles. A few of the sheets of intense, insightful drawings that result — a set of views of the inner workings of the human hand; a series of cross sections of the human shoulder in motion; the first accurate drawing of the human spine — are downright miraculous.

These sensitively shadowed drawings of body parts achieve so much more than is demanded of them. There’s a sense of movement, a thoroughly con­­vincing corporeality and, above all, that uniquely Leonardoesque sense that you are somehow able to look through the human skin to a precisely observed inner reality: not an abstracted diagram of the stuff of life, but the stuff itself.

The unobservable is being ob­served here. And this utterly ­convin­cing sense of reality is ­Leonardo the artist’s greatest gift to ­Leonardo the scientist.

This will be one of the most important exhibitions ever to be devoted to the work of Raphael (1483-1520) and his studio and the first to focus on the final phase in the artist’s career when he became the most influential painter in Western art.

Organised in collaboration with the Musée du Louvre (where the exhibition will take place following its showing at the Museo del Prado), the 40 paintings and 30 drawings that comprise this exhibition will be displayed chronologically. As such they will cover the last seven years of Raphael’s life, from the start of the pontificate of Leo X (1513) up to the artist’s death in 1520. This period includes famous works such as the Saint Cecilia Altarpiece (Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale) and the portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, from the Louvre. Space will also be given to the work of Raphael’s principal pupils and followers, Giulio Romano (c. 1449-1546) and Giovanni Francesco Penni (1488-1528), who worked under the master’s close supervision on the late commissions he received.

It's a pity you (and The Guardian) displayed the photo of the painting before cleaning.

'Mona Lisa copy may have been painted by Leonardo's lover'

Last month, a copy of Leonardo's most famous painting rocked the art world with revelations about its provenance.

Two weeks after it went on show to the public at the Prado, the museum's conservation team believe they are closing in on a conclusion about the painting's authorship.

The most likely candidate is Gian Giacomo Caprotti, the apprentice known as "Salaì" - which translates as "Little Devil" - who went to work in Leonardo's workshop when he was ten years old.

Many historians believe, though it is not proven, that Salaì was Leonardo's lover. He is presumed to be the youthful model for Leonardo's paintings 'St. John the Baptist' and 'Bacchus', as well as numerous drawings.