I ‘d like to thank those who wanted me to come here in Rome to give this lecture as this is the first one since This is not Leonardo da Vinci has been translated in English. Most of you know me by following me on the Byoblu channel, and I’m pleased that today they are recording the conference. So tonight we’ll talk about a different Leonardo, different from what I like to define as a myth of papier-mâché, why? Because on Leonardo has been put a Mask, that is the mask of human hypocrisy. Why do I say this? Because beyond one reality, which is the one that you mostly hear, there is an infinity of realities, based on the personal way of seeing things, on the culture of reference, on what is convenient to tell or not. So, what we know today, and what still get repeated on the main cultural channels of public television, or on the thematic channels, is the fruit of a big lie, of a narrative that has been built over the centuries, and today we will see how it was formed, why it was formed, and what actually lies beneath this informative deformation. We obviously won’t be talking only about Leonardo. Leonardo is the most prominent figure of his period, in fact he was a true cultural reference point for his contemporaries because he took the baton from another character who was the absolute reference of the Renaissance movement, character of which never enough is spoken of, Plethon. It is thought that the Renaissance starts from the discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus in 1492. But in reality the Renaissance starts with the beginning of the fifteenth century thanks to Pandolfo III Malatesta who developed a form of patronage. He does it in conjunction with Martin V, for example towards the painter Gentile da Fabriano, that was taken around the courts of Brescia and Lecco. I come from Lecco, and part of Renaissance history, which nobody tells in books, starts from the so called “high lake”. Lake to which Leonardo will then dedicate much of his attention. Therefore we cannot talk about Leonardo out of context, but we have to open a window on the whole Renaissance period. And I don’t allude only to an artistic point of view, which is clearly what makes the strength of Rome, of Florence, and of the entire Italian artistic heritage that the whole world envies us. We need to analyse what the political, economic, financial and cultural developments have been, as it’s them who have sowed the seeds for the modern society. A corrupt society that has lost any kind of ideals and that has created a structure, I would say a superstructure, of cultural references that are totally false and they have been the prelude of a system based on false information, for example, on the denigration of the opponent. So what was supposed to be a cohesive system, based on nature as a whole, it has become an increasingly fractionated system where the parts are opposed to each other. Where the contents have lost completely their importance, and whoever shouts the loudest has biggest chance of imposing his own ideas. So, the analysis that we we’re going to do on Leonardo, it will become an analysis of the whole period, that will help us to understand also the current society. It’s not possible to understand today’s politics and economy if we do not understand what happened in Renaissance. There is a missing piece of growth and of evolution. It’s like knowing a child and meeting him again 50 years later and thinking you know him. But you don’t. So what we will be doing tonight is to look at things from another point of view, a graphic painting technique. Technique developed by Beato Angelico first, Donatello then, and resumed by Leonardo himself and by Dürer, which is called anamorphosis. Therefore changing the point of observation of an object, it will assume a completely different meaning. The main example is the Ambassadors by Holbein where there is a skull drawn at the feet of the two ambassadors which can only be seen in its entirety by moving away from a frontal observation. So what we’re going to do tonight is to change to point of observation to see how everything that we know today about our history and art is completely distorted by the necessity of those who imposed a certain culture that was oppose to what was the root of the Renaissance movement. I’m talking about the Neo-Platonism of pagan origins. We’ll start from a song that was used for the public TV screenplay on the life of Leonardo da Vinci, which is perhaps still today the best screenplay that has been made. Starting from this song we will completely decompose Leonardo and the Renaissance to recompose them in a more correct form. So, this song is presented as a love song written by Leonardo da Vinci. It then became the soundtrack of the TV script of the 70’s, when the Public TV was still doing good works. It was set to music by Roman Vlad who was a Romanian composer and music critic of the time and was sung by Ornella Vanoni. Roman Vlad, to set to music these lyrics, which obviously is not a love song, used one of the 171 musical rebuses in which Leonardo played associating words and notes. So love amuses me, in this specific case. I repeat, this is only one of 171 musical rebuses written by Leonardo. So Roman Vlad did nothing but close his eyes, picked out a number and associate it to a text written by Leonardo a music composed by him. But there is a problem. “But there is a problem” is my trademark. I mean. This is the lyric of “The lover moves”. The text is contained in one of the minor Codex, the Trivultian codex that is preserved in the library of the Sforza castle. As I was saying there is a problem, which is the one that Paola will now highlight to us.The lover moves for the beloved thing, like the leading note and the subtonic, and they join making one same thing. The work is the first thing that is born from the union. If the beloved thing is vile, the lover becomes vile. When the united thing is convenient for its joiner, delight and pleasure and satisfaction follow. When the lover has reached the beloved, there he rests. When the mass is laid, there it rests. The thing known by our intellect. So, what you see written in blue are the words that were sung by Ornella Vanoni, and have been traced back to the love song written by Leonardo. The complete text though, with the additions written in white, it actually assumes a completely different meaning. And it is essential to understand not only Renaissance art, but music and everything that happens in the universe. Because the universe is made by duality, by two opposing forces, always and however. We are used to think of good and evil, light and shadow, heaven and hell, but in reality it’s a duality of energy, one ascendant and one descendant that always coexists, always and however. This dual system, which is composed of vibrations, is translated by the man through music, since ever. Or at least it was translated by man in music up to a certain point in history. Because from the Renaissance onwards, thanks also to whom wanted to deny this kind of knowledge, music became only a recreational aspect. But until the end of Renaissance music was nothing more than the way in which the man narrated, or made perceived to the hearing, that vibration system that determines the form and life of everything that lies in the universe. In a very clean and linear way. So, those lines that have been removed from the lyrics of “the lover moves” are the leading note and the subtonic, which in music are two fundamental notations that are linked to the Tonic and the Dominant and they are, or determine, the harmonization between two different notes, giving a sense of vertical elevation to what until then was, in music, a completely horizontal meaning. Music was composed for superimposition of harmonies and not for single chords, which are the chords of unison, octave, third, fourth, etcetera. I need to be careful here, because I am not a musician. But then I find myself talking about these things and it is paradoxical and it amazes me a lot. It amazes me that Vlad has not come to such a conclusion. And that anyone who has analyzed these aspects of Leonardo before me didn’t get to these conclusions. When the united thing is convenient for its joiner, delight and pleasure and satisfaction follow. Ascending movement. If the beloved thing is vile, the lover becomes vile. Descending movement. To give you a tangible example: Bach. Composer known by everyone as a master of counterpoint music. Bach is a stage name. It is like if Maradona had been called “backheel”. Because Bach, in the Teutonic notation, B A C H is a B-flat, A, C, high-B. It is the B, leading note and subtonic, which approaches the C or the A depending on whether the movement is ascendant or descendant. Verdi in “la Traviata” speaks of “love that is the heart-bit of the universe”. It is a Heart-bit, it’s the ohm. When the lover has reached the beloved, there he rests. The harmonic tension falls, completely. It means that harmony becomes harmonious. The work is the first thing that is composed from the union. The work is not intended as the musical work. That too, but the work is the first emanation of the monad. The Syzygy, the androgynous, the male energy and the female energy combined. Which one is the most outstanding example of the work? The Gioconda. Pay attention here, not the Mona Lisa, but the Gioconda, because the Mona Lisa is not this painting, it is not the one exhibited at the Louvre. The portrait that Leonardo made to Lisa Gherardini, is not the one exposed at the Louvre… Despite millions of people go constantly to observe it. They are not fool. The problem is that all the museums are full of people who go to see things that do not correspond to what we associate them with. Because everything is associated by convenience. A cultural convenience affected by knowledge. We will see many other examples. So the work is the androgynous, which is the element in which male energy and the female energy, those two energies that make up the dual universe, are in perfect balance. So much that Leonardo wrote that “the disunited things will unite and will receive within them the virtue that will give back the lost memory to men”. The lost memory, which is the pre carnal condition, the ethereal or spiritual one. Heraclitus said, or at least he wrote: “What is opposition is accord, and from the discordant things spring beautiful harmony, and all things happen according to strife and necessity”. The reference is again to the duality of the universe. There’s not a coin without its back side. “All things happen according to strife and necessity”. The harmony Heraclitus talks about is the system of vibration I mentioned before, which gives form and life to all what the universe is made of. It is what Dante called “love that moves the sun and the other stars”, and what Verdi in “La Traviata”, described s as “heart-beat through the universe”. It is what Virgil, and then Caravaggio, defined as “amor Vincit omnia” that is not “love conquers all”, as again it gets wrongly translated, but it is “love that binds everything”. It is that vibration, love, which gives form and life to everything that lies in the universe. “The matter is solidified music” Pythagoras said. What you can see here, is a detail of a painting by Verrocchio in collaboration with Leonardo, called “Tobias and the Angel”. The hands of Raphael and Tobias are depicted in a mirror chord. In the center the two chords unite. Again, “what is opposition is accord, and from the discordant things springs beautiful harmony”. This is to stress on how Renaissance art is not the one you get told, where the catholic iconography prevails. Renaissance art, the early Renaissance, that is the Renaissance that you are not told about because comes prior to 1492, hence of the “discovery” of the Americas, talks about a completely different knowledge. One that does not have a Catholic reference, but a deeply pagan one – Neo-Platonism. The movement that gave birth to that regurgitation of humanism of mathematical, astronomical, and musical knowledge that will give life to that thing of which everyone talks about: The Renaissance. If we want to describe it under a graphical profile, it is the yin and yang, black and white, male and female energy, ascending and descending energy. From this association you can understand how there is transversality across all cultural declinations. Because all the cultural declinations refer to the same knowledge. The knowledge through which reality is told. The problem is that each declination becomes a partial truth. Therefore, being a partial truth, and being imposed according to the political ideology of those holding power, it then conditions our daily actions, our knowledge. But it does not correspond at all to what that reality is. In this case does not correspond at all to what the art of the Renaissance was. Ghirlandaio, Sistine chapel not far from here. This Duality is told by a bird that flies from right to left and one that flies from left to right. In the flight the two meet. It is exactly the same thing that Raphael’s and Tobias’s hands do, and it is the exact same thing that Heraclitus told us, four centuries before Christ. This is the meaning underlying everything. Then from here you can modulate and derive any other reading. But everything is based on this. Everything you find in Renaissance art is referred to spirituality and music. Everything. So we have seen how Leonardo’s music of has been completely distorted. Leonardo had a musical knowledge that was absolute. Perhaps music was the preeminent part of Leonardo’s work, of his legacy. But it is completely untold. Either because inconvenient or because nobody has yet deciphered it. And the ways in which this knowledge is misrepresented sometimes becomes even grotesque. This is the musical ca(n)non that is exhibited in a famous museum about Leonardo in Milan. It is presented as a musical can(n)on because it has a wheel through which these canes were spinning and producing music, shooting music. But Leonardo wrote “here I make a wheel made of canes, as scores, with a musical motif called canon. And then I make a wheel with four teeth, each tooth in the stead of a cantor”. So whoever has called this thing musical cannon has a great imagination, to say the least. It takes much more imagination and more effort in making up a lie than in telling things as they are. It would be enough to look at them with the eyes of a child, which is without all those cultural and mental preconceptions that fill the head of each of us. At that point everything becomes extremely simple and linear. “In music, a canon is a counterpoint compositional technique that employs a melody with one or more imitations of the melody played after a given duration. It’s what I told you before. With “The lover moves” Leonardo superimpose, creating a dynamic movement, the harmonies that are equal, making them play with different timing. The greatest counterpoint music composer is Bach, which we have already mentioned earlier. There is also Gesualdo da Venosa in the previous century. A further century earlier there is Giovanni da Palestrina. What Bach is holding here is a triplex canon, which is a counterpoint composition. Again, what one of those 171 musical rebuses that is associated to Leonardo, in reality is nothing but a triplex canon. And we find a first part written through the notes on the score, a second part written through the letters that are associated in singular harmony, note by note, creating relationships of third, fourth, fifth. And the third part, that is the most complicated, and that we are still trying to decipher, is the one made with figures. So what we are told being a musical rebus, in reality it is a canon triplex. We are slowly realizing that the Leonardo’s musical knowledge was not advanced, it was much beyond. So you can understand how, in a very elementary way, and looking at the documents that we have been left with, Leonardo assumes a completely different connotations, not physical, but cultural, of knowledge. And I’m not making anything up. It’s there to see. Goethe said: “What is the most difficult thing of all? To see with your eyes what lies before them”. Why? Because we are really totally bewildered by previous knowledge. We do not go deeper anymore in our analysis. This is the bad habit of today’s society. Everything is a slogan. Everything is opposition. There is no debate, there is no in-depth examination. So what was that musical ca(n)non about? What is the most famous musical cannon that even all children know, and resembles so much that item that Leonardo drew. Those music boxes that you can buy in every petrol station or book shop. “Are you sleeping Brother John”. And I wonder: Shouldn’t be easier to recognize something that has been in the hands of each of us, rather than making up that crap of the musical cannon? But unfortunately this is how things are. And you laugh at the musical cannon, but the same happens when the so called “experts” talk about Leonardo. Leonardo, as I said, had an absolute musical knowledge. He exceeded, in musical knowledge, anyone, not only of his era but also of the following ones. The reference is to Bach. “You hear this harmony, which is formed by unequal intervals, yet measured according to perfect proportions, and reproduced by the movements of the spheres. The grave sounds join the acute ones in ever-changing chords, because these colossal planetary revolutions could not be happening in silence, and nature demands that acute sounds echo at one end and grave sounds respond at the other. So the world of the stars that has the fastest motion rotates with a hasty Argentinean trill, while the submitted lunar motion emits a slow, cavernous sound. So the spheres produce seven distinct tones, and the seven-tone number is the core of all that exists. And the men who know how to imitate on the lyre the concert of heaven have found the way that leads to this sublime realm”. This quote is from a gentleman who lived a long time ago, who wrote a book that that little boy is reading. That little boy is one of the few pictorial remnants in the Medici bank of Milan, and it’s very likely that it represents Leonardo as a child, who reached the duchy of the Sforza at a very young age, in spite of what we are told. Cicero wrote these words, in the De re Publica, tenth book, and he is telling what happens to the music in its absolute. The music of the spheres that is not a philosophical concept, but it is an astrophysical one. It is the way in which man narrates the vibration that underlies the entire universe. And that universe duality is expressed by the contraposition of chords. One other thing. We often hear about the law of the octave. There are people who fill their mouth with this octave law, of 432 hertz. In reality the law of the octave refers to the basic frequency of the earth, which is the Schumann resonance, which is a7.83, not an octave law. The septenary number is the core of all that exists. “And the men who know how to imitate on the lyre the concert of heaven have found the way that leads to this sublime realm”. There have been only three people in history that playing the lyre changed the mood of the people. King David, Orpheus and Leonardo. They did not play it physically, but it is a reference to the knowledge of this music, to the knowledge of that system made up of mathematical and geometric relations which this vibration manifests with. Music that is expressed by the solar motion, which is the motion of the planets rotation around the sun. Clearly each one has different orbits, different gravitation, and therefore it influences, enriching this harmony, creating those chords which then are the chords contained in Bach’s music. Or in Leonardo’s one. We have a complete score from Leonardo on all these notions of music. And I’ve decided to write a new book about this. I’ve finally found an academic, from the conservatory that has finally found a complete synchronicity with all these propositions, jumping on his chair when I showed them to him. So soon we will come out with a book on this. It will be a very complicated path, with this and many other experiences, but all very amusing. But above all pleasant because they give the possibility to probe a knowledge that, if developed in the correct way, I wish, it’ll allow the young generations to have a future completely different from what we have today and perhaps we will be able to build a more peaceful world. So let’s hope we’ll make it happen. For Leonardo, while painting was the figuration of material things, music was the figuration of invisible things. Again this statement, that clearly refers to that vibration compendium, should ring a bell to everyone: “the essential is invisible to the eye” by the “Little prince”. Not by chance the little prince travels, in the original cover made by Saint Exupéry, with some birds that drag him in a flight, why? Because music was represented in the form of birds, as I showed you earlier in the case of the Ghirlandaio. But not because birds are pretty. But because when birds sing they emanate the same vibration. Which is clearly recognizable in this Tibetan musical notation, and which is the same vibration that determines the shape of the clouds. This is physics, even if these affirmations will be contested by the keyboard warriors. But this is it. And this is what the ancients knew and what the ancients handed over with absolute rigor for a very simple reason. Because these laws, that are the laws that underlie nature, are not democratic. Nature is not democratic. You cannot derogate from nature rules, because otherwise, and we have seen it done by man, we make disasters. Because the nature that hosts us is a perfect system. We can only do worse. The one on the left-hand side is defined, even by Pedretti, who was acclaimed as the best among Leonardo’s scholars, as a playful geometric game. In reality It’s the flower of life that collects, or expresses, that vibration compendium that everything refers to, and that is easily readable again in the harmonic structure of a snowflake. And Leonardo wrote “waves of sound, light and water all obey to the same laws”. All refers to this absolute, supreme law. Pythagoras, and actually the Egyptians much earlier than him said: “the geometry of shapes is solidified music”. The vibration determines the form. There is an experiment, which is often done with children, but that in reality it is a scientific exercise done by Chladni, cymatics, where making vibrate a membrane with salt placed on its top, the salt, moved by vibrations, creates geometric shapes. This is the absolute evidence of how vibration determines the shape. And this should remind you how every time we move away from music, intended as repetition of the music of the spheres, we cause damage to our organism. Diseases are the result of an energy unbalance. Even medical science is becoming more aware of this. The relationships are those described by Pythagoras. By making a monochord vibrate, having heard the bells, or the blacksmiths beating on the iron, etc. It has determined the ratios of unison, octave, third, fourth, that are represented by this shape. The joint of harmonics waves created by the monochord. They are those shown by the tetraktis. Tetraktis then narrated by Raphael in the dispute of the sacrament seen before. And try to see what happens. It is the same identical matrix that gives shape and life, not only to a shell, but to everything in the universe. Our DNA, our blood, the leaves arranged along the branch of a plant, everything. The pinecones, everything. Is it now clear how deviating from this knowledge produces repercussions not only on our cognitive or cultural ability, but it determines negative repercussions on our biological aspect? Why once we were so careful in making buildings and cathedrals in a certain way, using colors in another way, or even using words in certain ways? Because everything is vibration, and everything that is vibration is then reflected upon us. When we give a name to a newborn child, paradoxically, we are giving him a vibration imprinting. If we know it then we think about it, if we don’t, we do things randomly.So music, or rather what music represents, is nothing but the vibration genetic matrix of the whole universe. What Leonardo called the motion that is the reason of every life. That is the motion of the planets around the sun. Which is the same motion told by Cicero in the De re Publica, read earlier by Paola. Interesting, isn’t it? But nobody tells it to you. And yet it is written everywhere. And yet it is painted everywhere, and Leonardo knew very well these things. He knew them well. Because clearly Leonardo is not, as they say, a self-learner who woke up one day in the countryside, and since he was in the middle of the countryside drew landscapes in his paintings. Because unfortunately this is what gets told by the so called experts. “Necessity is the teacher and guardian of nature. Necessity is the theme and inventor of nature and the rule of eternal life”. This writing is by Leonardo. The necessity is part of the Er myth, Plato. It is referred to the spindle of Ananke. On the knee of Ananke the spindle was laid, around which the planets spun, creating this harmonic vibration that was compared with the souls, in order to access the kingdom of heaven. So what happens? We, in our actions, have the duty to observe an absolute rigor towards this vibration. Because otherwise everything we do against it we do it wrong. But we owe it, above all, in respect to those who are next to us, because if she vibrates badly or crooked, she makes me vibrate crooked too. Because we are all part of the one same system. This is why the ancients were so careful to strictly adhere to these instructions. Instructions that have been completely lost, and to what purpose? To follow a partial culture. The same partial culture that caused the drift of our current society. Today most of us live crooked. There is someone with a straight vibration, but the problem is that he then gets disturbed by those close to him. But this knowledge was widespread and is contained in all the paintings. The Timaeus. With Plato, in whose shoes, in the school of Athens, Raphael portrays Leonardo. It is said that Leonardo was excluded from the commissions in the Vatican and so he only appeares in this representation. In reality Leonardo, in the Vatican, is represented at least seven or eight times, why? Because all these painters, Ghirlandaio, Raphael, Botticelli, recognized in Leonardo the absolute leader in transmitting this knowledge. Because Leonardo was probably the last of the Hierophant, taking the baton from Gemistus Pletho. Leonardo was an absolute point of reference, and this is the reason why the church has always gone against him, to the point of putting on him that mask of hypocrisy which is what we have opened the lecture with. So when we talk about Leonardo, when we buy books about Leonardo, when we see screenplays about Leonardo, movies, one worse than the other. They are all telling a partial truth. But we live these same partial truths even when we go for example to the Uffizi or to Brera to look at paintings. It is the exact same thing. Because the knowledge underlined in those paintings, and therefore the capability of reading them by what they meant, has been erased. I repeat myself here, this is not a small detail, because it determines in an absolute way our current society. All the defects of our society, in its community, political, economical and social forms, come from these partial reinterpretations.It’s the outcome of a power, which is not an absolute power of cultural heritage, but it’s the result of a drifted power, and crooked, like the history of the discovery of Americas. Who discovered the Americas? No one. It was there, it was inhabited, but it was conquered, re-conquered, extorted, not only to the natives, but also to those who went there before Columbus. And many people went there before him. So that mask, I was saying, tells us that Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452, son of Sir Piero, notary in Vinci, and of a slave named Caterina; that he was self-taught, that between 10 and 14 years was a pupil of the Verrocchio, that he moved to Milan in 1482 to serve Lodovico the Moor. This is what we are told. The strength of this book here is that all these reconstructions that I am making are supported by detailed documentation found in the various museums and archives. And therefore they are unquestionable and documental elements that clash with a narrative that is instead dogmatic, because they are dropped from above. And so let’s analyze them? Not so much for what concerns Leonardo, but because they describe the evolution of Renaissance history that is completely different. Therefore we are today the result of a long succession of lies. The date of birth of Leonardo is fixed by Vasari, De Pagave and D’Argenville between 1443 and 45 and they are the most authoritative biographers of Leonardo. Vasari lived in the 16th century, the other two in the 18th. This because when Leonardo dies he is described as being over seventy years old, or over seventy-five years old. And consequently his date of birth is derived. The only one with a personal experience, because he is the only one who saw Leonardo in life, is Antonio de Beatis who served the cardinal of Aragon. He went in 1517 to meet Leonardo in Amboise just before he died. Two years before. In 1517, by direct testimony, Leonardo was more than seventy years old. Let’s make it 71, we stay close. So this means that Leonardo at least was born in 1446. This information comes from who has seen him personally. So how do we get to place Leonardo’s birth in 1452 and to link him back to Sir Piero in Vinci? At this point we have to make a distinction, even if we have already anticipated a few times earlier, regarding the concept of knowledge. Knowledge is either an enormous opportunity for growth for anyone, and it is that thing that we have seen before, referring to the knowledge of the universe, of the vibrations, of astronomy of the mathematical and geometric laws that governs it. Or, as instead has become in the course of Renaissance, it can be a fact of convenience. What is convenient to know? All that is written in the schoolbooks texts. What is convenient to know? Everything that the dominant culture tells me I have to know, and if you dare telling something different, someone will attack you, immediately. And this is the most deplorable of all things. Because it means knowing what is convenient to know. And this is the worst teaching that you can give to the kids. They become intellectually prostituted to those who give them a job, those who promise them a mark, those who promise them the miracles of an advertised product. But the problem is that knowledge is no longer taught anymore, because if you dare, you get attacked. But today we are here trying to do so. Again, we have a problem. They have. The life of Leonardo and all the greatest painters and architects of his time are all told and narrated based on what Vasari wrote in his “Lives” in 1568, under the privilege and license of Pius V and Cosimo I de Medici. In there we find written: “Truly admirable and celestial was Lionardo, SON of Sir Piero da Vinci, and in the erudition and principles of literature he would have made great profit if he had not been so inconstant and unstable”. He is good kid, but he does not commit. Everything here is written with privilege and licenses of Pius V and Cosimo I de Medici. Be careful when you hear about the Medici family, it’s a bit like talking about the Magnani (mine) family. My brothers and I are distinct individuals. The Medici of the 16th century are not the Medici of the 15th century. So let’s not make of the Medici family the same brush. So let’s have a look at who Pius V was. He was the third Dominican pope of history. General inquisitor of Lombardy, great supporter of the Jesuits and of cardinal Borromeo, who is the one replacing the Sforza. In 1571 he created the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, that is the index of all books that can be read or not. Careful, it’s 1571, but the order was then cancelled only in the 1960’s. In this index ended up people like Battisti, Bevilacqua, Dumas the father, Dumas the son, do you realize it? Do you realize what censorship means? He named Cosimo I as grand duke of Tuscany. When you go to Florence, remember that the residence of the Medici is not Palazzo Vecchio, but Palazzo Medici-Riccardi. Palazzo Vecchio is the residence of Cosimo I, so today the city of Florence is celebrating a lowered grade of the family. We have said that in this version of “The Lives” Vasari writes “Truly admirable and celestial was Lionardo, SON of Sir Piero da Vinci”. Based on this description Benedetto, sorry, Giovan Battista Dei, two were the Dei ,by mere presumption, thinking that Leonardo was the son of the notary in Vinci, finds in 1746, so for three centuries everyone thought that Leonardo was born in the 1440’s, but he finds an inscription on the last page of the notaries book of the alleged grandfather, an inscription in which says “on the 15 April 1452 at 3 o’clock at night Leonardo is born, son of Sir Piero, my Nephew”. And this is the reason why today we assume as date of birth the 15 April 1452. Again, for mere presumption. But again there are documents that speak. Because about “The Lives” the one of 1568, and edited by the Giunti family, renown even today, but the version of 1550, 18 years prior, and edited by Torregiani, I think, you’ll find the name on the book, writes a completely different thing. It doesn’t write “truly admirable celestial was Leonardo, SON of ser Piero da Vinci”, but “So admirable and celestial was Lionardo, nephew of Sir Piero da Vinci, who being a truly good uncle and relative to him, helped him in his youth”. Again I speak now to those who are not here, but that are following from home, those who say that Vasari simply confused uncle and nephew. Beyond the fact that it is anomalous that for a father is stressed the fact of being of help in the youth of a son, it seems redundant to me. In the first version of “The Lives” the relationship between Leonardo and Sir Piero is, for five times, referred to as uncle and nephew. Five times. There is more. There is another text that precedes “The Lives”. It’s the Magliabechiano codex known as The Anonymous Gaddiano. Made ten years earlier, mostly likely, and it states “although he was not a legitimate SON of Sir Piero”. Although. He puts the stress on that. “He was of his mother born of good blood”. And again, she was not even a slave. And Sir Piero was not even the father.So we have seen that the cultural heritage of Leonardo is slightly different from what we are told. A tiny bit more complex. Just minor details, isn’t it?! We have seen that the biographical part of Leonardo’s life is shaky. The one that we are told. So let’s see when Leonardo goes to Milan. We know that on April 25, 1483 he is in Milan because he stipulates the contract for the Virgin of the rocks, with the De Predis brothers. 25 April 1483. The one you see at the bottom is the only autograph signature of Leonardo da Vinci. Any other signature of Leonardo that gets showed to you, and they are many, especially in the screenplays, is not the original of Leonardo. So, we get told that Leonardo arrives in Milan on the spring of 1482, on the basis of this letter, which is the famous letter of employment that he would have written for Lodovico the Moor. But he did not write this one. He obviously did not write it. It is in a completely different handwriting. And so one wonders why of this letter we do not have the original copy? Why we don’t have the copy of Leonardo’s will ? Why we don’t have the original copy of Columbus’ diaries of? How come that all these stories, that are given for granted in our schools, are not supported by original documentation, but instead by interpretations? The best children phase, that is also the toughest for parents, is the one of the Why. Why, why, why. But it is the one that we all must keep on developing. Why? We have always to ask questions. Those who ask questions have doubts. If you have doubts you ask yourself questions. By finding answers you solve your doubts. “Nothing can be loved or hated without prior knowledge of it” Leonardo said. So, we said we have not the original copy of the “resume”, but there are a lot of other documents about when Leonardo went to Milan and why Leonardo went to Milan, that is what interests us the most. Why? Because what pushed Leonardo to go to Milan, I repeat myself, is strongly related to the foundation of our modern society. So it is our duty to know it, because “You have to know the past to understand the present.”. . I didn’t come up with this one, it’s from a wiser man. So once again, we are rescued by documents. “Lionardo was brought to Milan with great reputation to Duke Francesco, who greatly enjoyed the sound of the lyre, to play”. And then, a few pages later “And in short order it reached the hands of Francesco Duke of Milan, being sold to him for three hundred ducats”. We are talking about Leonardo’s musical and pictorial skills, in Milan, at the time of Francesco Sforza. This is from “The Lives”, first edition. There is a problem. Francesco Sforza died in 1466. Then Leonardo must have been to Milan before that, and he went in company of Benedetto Dei, who was the ambassador of the Medici family, who writes in his documents, that again I went to verify personally at the Magliabechiana library. “I was in Milan the year that Francesco Sforza took it with the sword in hand”, 1449, “and when I took the Medici there” 1465. Journey that is celebrated by Benozzo Gozzoli in San Gimignano in the cycle of Sant’ Augustine. So there are documents that attest the fact that Leonardo was in Milan in 1465, 1465 or before, which justifies that representation of before by Foppa, at the Medici bank, with a child, apparently 8 years old, that read Cicero. Not a very common thing. What you see here is a writing by Benedetto Dei, which I have transcribed, to facilitate your reading. It was written on June 15, 1480 and mentions all the people that Benedetto Dei, as ambassador of the Medici family, took to the Milan ruled by the Sforza. We find Leonardo da Vinci. The Anonymous Gaddiano himself, summarizing the life of Leonardo, mentions the moves made by Leonardo between Milan and Florence, from where we can gather not only that Leonardo was in Milan in the 60’s, but that in the 70’s, 76 to be precise, he is accused of that act, that he did not commit, that falls within the conspiracy of the Pazzi, etcetera, etcetera, for which he was accused of sodomy along with other people, including a Tornabuoni, thanks to which Leonardo will be able to defend himself. And the Anonymous Gaddiano specifies that. He said that the accusation pushed him to go to Milan. But that accusation comes, as I told you earlier, from everything that followed the conspiracy of the Pazzi. Conspiracy that not only affects, in Florence, Giuliano and Lorenzo de Medici, but it involves also Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci, the model, lover of Giuliano, who is associated to the Americas. But it also affects Galeazzo Maria Sforza in Milan, in Melzo, and it affects Leonardo. So Leonardo’s moves are dictated by political opportunities, by necessities. Because the climate in Florence had become extremely hostile, and not only for the events of the Americas, but for that Neo-platonic movement of which Florence made itself the cradle. Something that in Rome was not accepted at all, because Neo-Platonism was strongly in contrast with the catholic foundation and therefore threatened to weaken it. And therefore the church attacked it heavily. It attacked all its representatives. See the bonfire of vanities, Savonarola, inquisitions and so on. And therefore that knowledge we started with, was swapped in exchange for freedom. It was a barter. Our lives, our futures, have been bartered, and we know the culprits, they are recognizable and identifiable. However Leonardo got to Milan much earlier. We mentioned his culture, his history. Let’s see now Leonardo’s physiognomy. We are used to link Leonardo with a well-defined image of an old bearded man, with a painter’s hat on his head. In reality, again, to speak about Leonardo’s portraits, means talking about the characters of that time. Because what affects Leonardo, under a biographical point of view, it affects all the other Renaissance characters. The one you see here on the left is Francesco Sforza that leads the cavalcade of the magi, or rather he follows the one leading the Cavalcade of the Magi. But officially he’s said to be Cosimo de Medici. But he’s clearly Francesco Sforza. Cosimo de Medici is represented on the right, in the shoes of an Indio, in the shoes of Pachacutéc, the last Inca emperor that died in 1459. When was the painting done? 1459. This is one of the many evidences for which the Americas have been frequented, not discovered, before Columbus. The same goes for Mathias Corvinus who leads the procession of the Magi in the Medici-Riccardi palace, which was the residence of the Medici, of Cosimo de Medici, who is mistaken instead for Lorenzo the great. Lorenzo is this one, that looks like it’s been hit by a truck, and who is obviously completely different. But placing Mathias Corvinus there, it means creating links between the Hungarian world and the Medici-Sforza world. Mind this: Hungary, Italy ( we are not far now) Greece, Iran, Iraq… all places where knowledge and culture was highly developed have now been, or are about, to be erased. This is deeply concerning. Anyway, I was saying, Leonardo’s physiognomy is used in a totally distorted form. What you see now are Leonardo’s representations that do not correspond at all to what he looked like, but are, for its majority, the ones that have been used in the celebrations of the five hundredth anniversary of his death. A papier-mâché, celebrated with a physiognomy that does not belong to him. Again, a mask. Even the book written by Walter Isaacson, who was head of the Aspen Institute, has been head of the CNN, that obviously had to write his own book about Leonardo, he has used, for cover, an unrealistic image of Leonardo. Yet we have plenty of Leonardo’s portraits. Many and of any age, why? Because Leonardo was recognized in his role of hierophant since he was born. And therefore there are so many portraits of him. Let me stress it again, they are plenty. The Vitruvian man is Leonardo himself. If you walk around Florence you have Leonardo’s statues that are looking at you. In the old sacristy, mausoleum of the Medici family, this one. Bust of deacon there by Desiderio da Settignano, and no one can guess who it represents. In reality it is a portrait of a young Leonardo and his presence in the mausoleum of the de Medici family is justified, for reasons that you will discover by reading the book. The one on the left, the same. You walk through Florence and Leonardo is looking at you. Paradoxically all the representations included in Leonardo’s anatomy drawings are self-portrait. But this one, is the most peculiar of all. I found it a couple of months ago. It was a statue made by Rustici, who was a pupil of Leonardo, probably on a drawing by Leonardo himself, and it had been positioned above the baptistery, that is the most important place for the Florence of the time, facing Medici-Riccardi palace, and it depicts the sermon of the Baptist. Probably the statues were three, all and three referred to Leonardo. The references to Leonardo’s drawings are evident, but this one is peculiar, because the statue is from 1511, and it depicts a Leonardo perfectly super imposable to the sanguine portrait of 1515 preserved in Turin. Why is this important? Not only because it testifies the recognition that Florence had for Leonardo, placing him in the most important place in the city, and therefore recognizing him as an influential character, but also because it tells us that the Leonardo’s physiognomy in 1511 was much older than what his alleged age, 59, would suggest. This corroborates the fact that Leonardo, as I said before, was born much earlier. But it’s not me who says this. It is written in the various documents I’ve shown you. So I was saying that there are many portraits of Leonardo. You can find them everywhere. If you think that this is the rambling of one who got passionate about Leonardo, and that sees him everywhere, there are elements that go beyond any reasonable doubt. And again there are elements that assume documentary value. Careful, a document is not exclusively something written, a document can be a vase, it can be an image, and it can be a painting. So, we know that Leonardo is clearly recognizable by a recurring physiognomy. Leonardo was also recognizable by a slight squint which is funny, because last year came out a thesis developed by an American university, saying that this strabismus was the reason why Leonardo was capable of representing depth in his paintings. So as he suffered of a squint, he therefore could see better in depth. Sadly for them, in Leonardo’s treatise on painting, he describes how landscapes must be done, and he clearly says that, before doing anything, you have to close one eye. So whether you have a squint-eye or not does not really matter. But those geniuses couldn’t get it. The protruding eyes and the dimple in his chin, which are two hereditary characters, which will help us understanding who his real father was; and then he had a xanthelasma. The xanthelasma is fat formation inside the eye. This observation was made in the 70s. This intuition was developed by a Japanese doctor. He went to the Louvre, to see the Gioconda, like so many of you, and being an eye doctor, the first thing he noticed… oh, there is a xanthelasma! The only one who noticed that. It’s a pity that then he went on saying: since she had the xanthelasma, the Gioconda, sorry, Mona Lisa, suffered from cholesterol. A genius. In reality the Gioconda is Leonardo’s feminine portrait. The Portrait of a musician has the Xanthelasma, and it is not by chance that Leonardo is the greatest musician in history. In reality he was not a musician. He was a connoisseur of music. And this is the evidence that Leonardo, also assuming for a second that here he portrayed Lisa Gherardini, which he did not, he would have never portrayed her with a xanthelasma, unless it was necessary to identify a precise person. But there is another element that characterizes the Gioconda, which demonstrates how it is Leonardo’s feminine portrait. And again we have a direct testimony. Paola. We are almost done. “Even if from him, for having contracted a certain paralysis on the right hand, much cannot be expected. He has formed a Milanese group that works very well. And although the Sir Leonardo cannot color with his usual delicacy, he can still make drawings and teach others”. This is again De Beatis when he goes to visit Leonardo, in the 1517, in Amboise. Leonardo goes in Amboise after having had a terrible experience in Rome. Afflicted, he went to France, to the king of France. And the Gioconda, her right hand, has an arthrogenous ganglion. But again comes two Italian doctors, whose findings went viral around the world, on CNN, BBC etcetera, etcetera. They noticed, in a drawing preserved in Venice about Heraclitus and Democritus, and recognizing Leonardo in Heraclitus, which was common in the paintings of the time, they noticed a strange position of Leonardo’s hand, which is inside the dress, they linked it to a trauma that caused the partial paralysis of Leonardo, once adult, on his left hand. It’s a pity for them not knowing that the sketch was the preparatory for a painting in which the right hand becomes the left hand. But no one challenged them with the fact that the drawing reflects a painting that would dismantle their theory. No one. But news went viral around the world anyway. While hardly anything about what I’m telling you tonight is getting reported overseas. So again, the Gioconda, we said, not Mona Lisa, is the portrait of Leonardo’s feminine self, that is the representation of his Res-bis, or spiritual marriage, where the male and female energy are in a perfect harmony. This again leads back to those indications of musical / vibration character to which I referred to at the beginning. But then let’s ask ourselves why Leonardo was targeted, so fiercely. I’ve said it many times. Because Leonardo embodied a different cultural belief, not only for Florence, but for the whole world. And this could not be accepted by the church. Two are the causes that concur to transform knowledge from an individual and collective growth opportunity into a factor of convenience. The spread of Neo-Platonism, therefore of a deeply pagan cult linked to the astronomical and natural laws, etcetera, etcetera, and the “discovery” of the Americas, that was not discovered by Christopher Columbus. There is another video made by Byoblu where I document all these things. In the book there is a whole chapter dedicated to this topic. There is infinity of evidence, from the date of the discovery, to the details of the shipwreck, etc , that can be found in documents from 1420 onwards. But the “discovery” of the Americas strongly conditions not only the life of Leonardo, not only the envelopment of the Renaissance, but it planted the seed for today’s society. So, the spread of Neo-Platonism, reinforced with Plato at the center of the school of Athens, by Raphael, pointing at the sky, pointing at the motion of the stars, and where, according to this cult, man was in full harmony with the laws of the universe, so the fideistic concept linked to a supreme god would be challenged at his foundation. And the “discovery” of the Americas. Briefly, someone talks about Romans, Carthaginians, the Vikings … no no no no. The land was known in its entirety since ever. And there is an element, which resolves any doubts. This map is a planisphere that represents not only all the landmass, but it represents also Antarctica. This presence of Antarctica made some noise because it’s void of ice. In reality it is perfectly super imposable to a planisphere, by adapting an image of Google. So the knowledge of Antarctica, especially the knowledge of Antarctica without ice, makes this representation, but all the representations of the Renaissance, leading back to a period in which Antarctica was accessible to visit and map. Or at least its coasts. But this would suggest cyclical periods of glaciations and deglaciations. This means that when they show us on TV that little girl with the braids to talk about climate change, they are actually fooling us, because climate change is cyclical, it is in history, it has always been there. The real issue is the pollution that a capitalist system, taken to its limits, has caused, and that is creating problems on the earth. But this cannot be said, because those who will govern the rebuilding a new capitalist system wants to link every issue to a climate problem. And the most coward thing they are doing to us is using our children for this purpose, by taking them in the streets to demonstrate for the climate. But the climate is a cyclical fact. This is clear, and it is also demonstrated by these representations, that are not at all fictional. Because their precision cannot be questioned. Therefore the “discover” of the Americas has nothing to do with the Romans, the Vikings, or Columbus. First of all because, I repeat, they were inhabited by a population who had a great civilization. But above all because its knowledge has been documented for millennia. This representation is made by Leonardo. It’s a peculiar representation of the Mediterranean basin made by Leonardo, why? Because it shows us an anomaly in the representation of Puglia, that makes us believe that the two representations have the same matrix. Not by chance the first geographical knowledge arrives to Florence between 1300 and 1400 in the Studium Florentinum, reason why then Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli blah blah blah You will find everything in the book. But this thing is fundamental as the first ones who went to America have had a friendly approach, to the point that Lorenzo the Magnificent, placed to lead the Medici Signoria, is a mestizo. And probably Lodovico the moor was a mestizo too. This would testify the extreme brotherhood between Europe and America or Amerindian peoples. Relationship that then, through those who took possession and ownership of the discovery, that was not a discovery, has been spoiled to take possession of the enormous resources that America had. And above all to control an enormous portion of the world, because the Turks had just defeated, at Constantinople, the Byzantine empire and therefore the western church felt oppressed, and sought new territories to control and to indoctrinate through the use of the Dominican order, the dogs of the lord, then turned into Jesuits. Jesuits… We have one there, right ?! This representation is from 1450. Landi house, Milan. If I tell you Landi house in Milan no one knows what it is, but if I tell you Atellani house, where there is Leonardo’s vineyard, everyone knows. But the Atellani house was acquired by the family only in 1492. Before it was owned by Manfredi Landi, warlord very close to Francesco Sforza. And this representation includes North and South America, Antarctica, Australia, New Zealand and two submerged islands. 1450. But the evidences are many more. I clearly cannot show you all of them, or we’ll be going home in 10 years’ time. But I can plant the seed. You’ll find something in the book, something is written in various articles, etcetera, and etcetera. This representation is by Piero della Francesca, 1451. Again there is a portion of America hidden behind Sigismund of Hungary. Hence again the Hungarians, and Pandolfo Sigismondo Malatesta. The peculiarity of this representation, unlike the one of before, is its geographical precision. There is a small lake in Florida. The coasts are made in such a precise way that it cannot have been made with a sextant. And above all it cannot have been made with a sextant in 1451. There is the area of the great lakes on the top. There is the Delaware, the bay of Hudson discovered by Verrazzano in 1522. It is funny to see that in Florence, on the house where Verrazzano lived, there is written: “in 1522 he discovered Hudson bay, thus demonstrating that even the Florentines could be great Navigators”. Clearly they went there a century earlier. References to the Americas are contained in all the most important paintings of the Renaissance: Pisanello, Beato Angelico, Piero della Francesca, Benozzo Gozzoli, Ghirlandaio, Botticelli, Leonardo, Baccio Baldini. Why? Because the relationship with the Americas was fundamental in the political and economic development of Renaissance. One cannot study the Renaissance without studying these things. But one cannot study economy and politics of today without studying these things. I understand that the level of some MPs today is quite low, but you have to start from here. The same goes for the Neo-Platonism knowledge. This painting is the Spring of Botticelli. If you go to the Uffizi they only tell you : this is the spring of Botticelli. But nobody tells you that the head of the virgin is inscribed in two lungs, described by the fronds of the trees. Why? Because the lungs are linked to the function that the branches and leaves have, of exchanging oxygen. But above all this had already been done by Leonardo. The linkage between fronds and lungs. So Botticelli did nothing but copying him. But why did he place it there? Why did he place the head of the spring, impregnated in an immaculate way, therefore spiritual? Because there it’s where the thymus gland lies, corresponding to the fourth chakra, corresponding to the color Green. And all go repeating these words, without knowing what they mean. In reality Leonardo, or more in general the Renaissance men, identified in the thymus the presence of the spiritual site. That’s why in most of Renaissance paintings there is a referral to the sternum, to identify the thymus. Have you been told this at the Uffizi? Crivelli. Crivelli’s hand is very peculiar because it becomes a way of expressing not only the res-bis, but the spiritual marriage, that is, the conjunction between the male element, the third finger, and the feminine element, fourth finger. United they give life to the marriage, and therefore to the regenerated man, the new man. The 5, the son, the Christ, where the male and female energy are perfectly in balance. It is the expression of spirituality, of purity. And so the same thing can be noticed in the baptism of Christ by Verrocchio. And the same thing, in a different form, is found in the statue of the Moses by Michelangelo, which is Michelangelo’s Gioconda. With one hand he makes the number 3, with the other hand he makes 4. And has the horns that are symbol of light, spirituality. In fact Michelangelo portrays himself in the Moses. Let’s look at this peculiar. When Verrocchio made this painting he wrote “ecce agnius dei”, adding the letter “I”, and with the “D” backwards.. I mean, it wouldn’t have taken long to spot it. He was surrounded by Pico della Mirandola, Marsilio Ficino.. A smack on the head, and he would have correct it…Why they didn’t? Because the Agnus Dei, Lamb of God, in reality it comes from the Agnos of the Greeks. The chaste and pure element. During the spring rituals it was given to women, who abstained from sexual activities, a willow derivative. Then the Agnos, for the Greeks, is the symbol of purity. That’s why the Agnos is associated with Pythagorean greeting. The Hieros Gamos, expression of Ierogamia. But when the Romans translated from Greek to Latin they made it become the story of the Lamb of God, and therefore what do we do in Easter? We kill lambs. This is another thing that you won’t be told at the Uffizi. So everything that is developed by the Renaissance movement is an ancient knowledge that all population out from religious mythologies, but also sometimes within the religious mythology, knew very well, why? Because “the goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature”. This is a quote from Joseph Campbell, an American essayist. But in reality that’s what that nature does without anyone giving her any instruction. She does it spontaneously, she does it because she obeys to the natural laws, which is the most perfect system ever made. But the man, who thinks to be smart, says: “Oh no, I want to do it my own way”. And in the past music become nothing more than the element, or the instrument, that was used to elevate oneself, to resonate in conjunction with the universe so that, as Torquato Tasso said “Music is one of the ways through which the soul returns to heaven”. It is the reason why David played the lyre, Orpheum played the Lyre. But when I tell these things they say I’m crazy. But this is how people mind works. Slogans, rejections. They feel threatened by this knowledge because it means questioning everything. It means feeling naked, and people don’t like to feel naked, because we are educated to be always dressed. The first thing to do is to remove the armor, right?! And I have to experience this rejection every day. If you would like, we are organizing tours both around Lecco, where Leonardo set all of his paintings, where there is a recognizable landscape, except for one, and around in Florence, precisely to re-interpret in this way the Renaissance art and the places where Leonardo lived and painted. These are the words used by Leonardo to express his irritation towards the academics. A bit similar to what I have been telling you so far. Go ahead “I know very well that, not being literatus, to some presumptuous person it will seem reasonable to criticize me for being an unlettered man. Foolish people! They do not know that I could, as Mario said to the Roman patricians, reply by saying: Those who make themselves pride of other’s studies, they will not consider mine. They will say that, not being literatus, I cannot articulate well what I want to debate. They do not know that my studies come more from experience than from other people’s words, words that were master to those who well wrote them, and for master I will take them and I will add in any circumstance”. And as I always answer to anyone who calls me crazy. Alice in wonderland: “All the best are crazy”.
Leonardo da Vinci and the music of the spheres
