VMs: Gallows and vinci... (take two, sorry)

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

For the last month or so, I've been exploring the possibility that the 
gallows characters were created by Leonardo da Vinci.

A recurrent theme amongst courtly works of 1495-1505 is that of "vinci" - 
osiers, used for basket-weaving. Leonardo used this in a number of his 
works, most notably the extraordinary single looped golden thread weaving 
through the Sala delle Asse in Milan - the same vinci recur in a number of 
other works of his from this time (Mona Lisa, etc) and in a number of 
places in his Codex Atlanticus.

However, according to art historians, the idea of "vinci" came from The 
Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri's Paradiso: Canto XIV

	http://italian.about.com/library/anthology/dante/blparadiso014.htm

	Ïo m?innamorava tanto quinci,
	che ?nfino a lì non fu alcuna cosa
	che mi legasse con sì dolci vinci.

	So much enamoured I became therewith,
	That until then there was not anything
	That e'er had fettered me with such sweet bonds.

Dante composed this around 1315 or so, but it wasn't until 1490 or so that 
his metaphor (of love as a kind of osier-like binding) fully made the 
transition across to other media.

Patrizia Costa (who is writing a thesis on Sala Delle Asse) points to vinci 
being used in this period as decoration on musical instruments (in the 
Castello Sforza), and on costume, and repeatedly on jewellery (specifically 
as noted by Paola Venturelli). However, she specifically points out that, 
tempting as it is, none of these have been conclusively linked with 
Leonardo da Vinci at all.

My opinion? I look back at da Vinci's "Lady with an Ermine" (1483-1485) - a 
portrait of Ludovico Sforza's young mistress Cecilia Gallerani - and am 
immediately struck not just by the strength of the portraiture, but also by 
the gold filigree work and numerous black vinci on her clothes (not all 
fully visible on the following scan):-

	http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/vinci/ermine.jpg

To me, this represents not only a self-pun by Leonardo, but also Dante's 
metaphor for love as a kind of binding. The shoulder facing the light has 
no vinci, they're all in the darker part of the picture - to me, this is 
clearly an iconic representation of a mistress, a "love in the shadows".

This amazing portrait influenced many other artists and patrons - Isabelle 
d'Este in particular asked to borrow it - and my opinion is that this is 
probably the point where vinci came to enter the courtly lexicon.

It is said that the playwright Niccolo da Correggio designed the "fantasia 
dei vinci", a wonderful filigree gold-threaded looped design in silk for 
Isabelle d'Este - Alison Cole also points to the similarity between the 
threads extruded by silkworms (Italian-grown silk was newly in vogue, and 
Ludovico Sforza had a grove of mulberry trees at Vigevano) and the gold 
thread used there. But to me, these may well have all had their roots in 
Leonardo's "Lady with an Ermine".

Now when I look at the VMS' gallows characters, I see the folding of 
osiers, the thread of silkworms, the filigree of Leonardo... but only as an 
echo of the man, not as evidence of his involvement. Looking through his 
many notebooks, I really don't see any evidence that he would have had 
anything to do with the VMS (though I haven't yet seen all of them).

However, the idea of vinci as a symbol of courtly patronage at a particular 
time and place does strongly resonate with me - after 1505, they don't 
appear so much. (Note that they do appear very subtly in the Mona Lisa, 
1503-1506, but that's about it).

Therefore, my argument is that the design of the gallows characters points 
to the VMS' arising from a particular time (1485-1505, though 1490-1500 may 
well be closer) and place (Romagna), as well as to its having been 
commissioned by someone at court from someone very much in tune with the 
iconographic fashions of the day.

The inclusion of such vinci in the alphabet would have signified not only 
high-status patronage, but social inclusion within a court by the person 
commissioned, and would have been used as a mark of respect and love.

Cheers, ....Nick Pelling....