200 Barlow Rd
Fairfield, CT 06824
USA
On October 24, 1503, Leonardo da Vinci received the key to the “Hall of the Pope” in the Florentine church of Santa Maria Novella, to use as a workshop in which to execute the preparatory cartoon for his giant fresco of the Battle of Anghiari. Intended for the most prestigious of locales — the Palazzo Vecchio, seat of the republican government — Leonardo’s mural was to be the artist’s greatest public triumph in his native city. In the following year, his ambitious younger rival Michelangelo was commissioned to undertake his own monumental battle scene on the same wall of the town hall’s grand council chamber. Neither painted vision now survives. This talk traces the fascinating history behind Leonardo’s and Michelangelo’s greatest “successful failures.”
Dr. Dennis Geronimus, Associate Professor of Art History, New York University, will present a lecture, “Climax/Anticlimax: The Palazzo Vecchio Battle Frescoes by Leonardo and Michelangelo, Revisited,” on February 23, 2017 from 5-6pm in the Diffley Board Room, Bellarmine Hall.