If William Shakespeare believed that eyes are the windows to the soul, how did Leonardo da Vinci view the nose? Although the Italian polymath has traditionally been associated with artistic mastery and scientific ingenuity, his deep fascination with scents is less well known.
The recently published exhibition catalogue Leonardo da Vinci and the perfumes of the Renaissance delves into this largely unexplored facet of the artist’s life by highlighting his personal involvement with perfume. From Leonardo’s upbringing in Tuscany, where aromatic plants like jasmine and orange blossom flourished in the region’s hilly landscape, to his workspace, which was filled with botanical books and strong-smelling oils, resins, waxes and fats that went into his art, Leonardo’s life was full of scents that aroused curiosity and influenced other aspects of his work. The book itself draws on the multisensory exhibition of the same name curated by historians Carlo Vecce and Pascal Brioist, which was on view last summer at the Château du Clos Lucé in Amboise, France, and contextualized Leonardo’s artistry through the history of Renaissance perfumes, similar to that of the virtual show of 2018 which re-examined South Africa Asian artistry through scent, Bagh-e-Hind.
Combining works of art, scent recipes, and texts by historians and three-dimensional reconstruction experts, the catalog constructs a timeline that traces not only the development of Renaissance scents, but also their impact on Leonardo and his contemporaries. It starts with Vecce’s claim that the polymath’s mother, Caterina, was an enslaved woman which was smuggled from her home in the Caucasus to Italy during the spice trade, introducing scents such as cinnamon, myrrh and musk.
The book continues to draw connections between Leonardo’s childhood and his work as an adult, when he diligently copied recipes for perfumes and made technological sketches for alembic distillation mechanisms. Novelist François Saint-Bris quotes his notebook in the foreword and explains how Leonardo’s experiments allowed him to develop a deep understanding of the relationship between color and smell. ‘Notice how aqua vitae collects all the colors and scents of the flowers within himself,” the artist wrote. “If you want to make azure blue, put cornflowers in it; and wild poppies for red.”
Brioist further explains the continuity between Leonardo’s perfume practice and artistic work, describing how the artist’s preoccupation with scents helped influence his technical and architectural designs. household latrines And horse stables Unpleasant residential gardens for aristocratic patrons. When Leonardo designed plans for what he considered the model city in 1485, he specifically sought to eliminate the putrid odors resulting from overcrowding and poor ventilation.
Leonardo’s obsession with scent may seem a bit intense, but as the essays reveal, perfumes (and scents) played an important role in Renaissance society, where hygienic practices were questionable and disease was rampant. One tactic to ward off disease was the use of fragrant clothing and accessories such as gloves and pouches, which were often worn by the French and Milanese nobility. Accordingly, essayist Paula Venturelli sheds light on Leonardo’s ‘Lady with an Ermine’ (c. 1489–1491), whose subject is depicted wearing a black chain that exemplifies the period’s fashionable, perfumed paternoster beads, for which the book even provides a recipe contains freshly ground bread crumbs, wine and egg yolk. This recipe can also be used to make aromatic knife handles, and for those with a nose for scent there are even directions for making ‘Chypre Birdies’, or sculptures made from perfumed paste, and gloves scented with mixtures of almond oil and musk . rose water. On the other hand, since these recipes came before the advent of routine bathing and expiration dates, it might be better to stick to the store-bought stuff.
