Raphael, Leonardo and Dante, the triptych of the genius being examined by the Lincei

A work that lasted five years with a wealth of exhibitions, documents and discoveries of great importance. Yesterday, June 16, in the Sala Capitolare of the Senate, an account was given of the great work done for the “Triptych of Italian Ingenuity” by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, as well as all the materials produced in these five years donated to the Senate Library. A journey begun to celebrate the centenaries of Leonardo, Dante and Raphael which involved scholars and academics of humanistic and scientific disciplines and which, born with a celebratory intent, brought new data and discoveries, just remember the discovery of the Egyptian blue in Raphael’s Galatea , which in addition to professing his love for the ancient and the inspiration to that world has made it concrete using the colors of antiquity.

The discovery of Egyptian blue in Raphael’s «Galatea», the new attention on the Gioconda of the National Galleries of Ancient Art, the study on the «libraries» of Leonardo da Vinci and Dante, the investigations aimed at reconstructing the unexplored creative paths of the Poet not only through his readings but also through the lens of what was the artistic representation of his time.

As if by magic, the celebration for the three centenaries, between 2019 and 2021, of the three Italian geniuses Leonardo, Raphael and Dante led to results and discoveries resulting from an interdisciplinary journey with surprising results.

Now the large number of exhibitions, documents and discoveries made to celebrate the so-called Triptych of Italian Ingenuity have been presented and donated by the Accademia dei Lincei to the Senate Library. The journey begun to celebrate the triptych of centenarians has in fact involved scholars and academics of the humanities and sciences in a project that looks at specialists but also at the general public, thanks to an interdisciplinary work that characterizes the institution and distinguishes it from other major academies European. It happened with Raphael: the intent to celebrate the centenary brought new data and discoveries, as in the case of the Egyptian blue used by Raphael in painting the Galatea to profess his love for the ancient and his inspiration for that world, also witnessed from the exhibition still in progress at Villa Farnesina. That relationship with the Ancient, which gives its name to the exhibition in the Villa which was conceived by its builder, the great papal banker Agostino Chigi, as a treasure chest open to all contemporary artists and intellectuals: a detail which underlines the symbolic sense totality of the Triptych and the aims of the project proposed by the Accademia dei Lincei.

Villa Farnesina is in fact the place where Classicism and the classical tradition experienced one of the highest celebrations: Florentine humanism and the Renaissance, through the mediation of the Chigis, Roman humanism and the Renaissance, in the early sixteenth century, through the papal court and the presence of the greatest Italian artists, from Leonardo to Raphael, to Baldassarre Peruzzi, to the pupils of Raphael and Leonardo, from Giovanni da Udine to Sodoma. The exhibition should have preceded Dante’s one, but its placement in the final position seems to close the circle of a journey that began in 2019 with Leonardo.

His anatomical and physiological discoveries have been explored; his books, both in literature and science, then from the Leonardo exhibition in Rome, one of the least studied periods, resulted in the restoration and rediscovery of the Gioconda of the National Galleries of Ancient Art, in storage at Montecitorio, the Salvator mundi of S. Domenico Maggiore, which proved to be far superior to the infamous example sold in the Middle East, the Gioconda Nuda of the Primoli Foundation. Then again the relationship between these two works with Raphael’s Fornarina and the underlining of the workshop activity in Leonardo and Raphael were also investigated again. Even the exhibitions on Dante have allowed new scientific acquisitions and restorations, with the definition of Dante’s Library through his own statements and the display of 76 manuscripts very close to those read by Alighieri in his wanderings: it was the first attempt of the genre in Italian criticism, as well as the even more audacious one which also concerned what could be defined as Dante’s artistic library, with the exhibition “With Dante’s eyes, artistic Italy in the age of Comedy”.