On the occasion of the conclusions of the 600th anniversary of the birth of Federico da Montefeltro, the revelation of a great discovery arrives with great surprise, bringing the brilliant world of Leonardo da Vinci closer to that of the great leader, lord and patron of great artists, the Duke Federico da Montefeltro Captain General Gonfaloniere of the Holy Roman Church. The research was presented in Italy in an international conference in collaboration and with the patronage of the International Committee Leonardo da Vinci, the Regional Council of the Marches and the Italian Representation of the European Commission, the research was conducted on a red blood drawing by Leonardo da Vinci kept at the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan. Today among the great feats of the lord of Montefeltro are imprinted in the symbol of his dukedom, the majestic Palazzo di Urbino which Giorgio Vasari himself judged “so beautiful and well done all that building, as much as anything else that has ever been done up to now”. A great gentleman who made the symbol and his effigy a communicative and grandiose power strategy. Many representations of him are known in coins, sculptures, paintings, but in each of these only his left side emerges. This desire to be represented only from that side was well known, the artists always had to represent it from that side. The explanation is that Federico could not be portrayed either from the front or from the right: in an accident during a tournament, a spear had penetrated his helmet and pierced his eye. Representing at the time a lord of his greatness, known for his cunning and foresight without one eye was not an image that could be tolerated by the great Duke, because it would not have reflected his strength and power, on the contrary it would have passed off as incompetent to the government, because the vision was the most important symbol of wisdom.And this is where Leonardo da Vinci arrives, who in his personal notebook, in which he wrote down the elements that most stimulated his genius and immoderate curiosity, reports the face of Federico da Montefeltro from the hidden side on a sheet drawn in red chalk, where no one up to then he had dared to represent, in which the lack of the right eye is evident.
The refinement of this research was conducted by a multidisciplinary team of experts who, making use of science, brought their skills in order to be able to tackle such a complex study. The writer and international art scholar Annalisa Di Maria intervened in the study, considered one of the leading experts on Leonardo da Vinci who claims “In truth, the occasions in which Leonardo may have drawn the Duke are various, the profile is executed in red pencil with a not very thin tip. In the sheet Leonardo shades the hat, the cheeks, the chin and the eye socket. The direction and pressure of the hatching changes within the sketch, according to the type of Leonardo’s hatching, which has been demonstrated by recent studies, how much Leonardo used both hands to paint and draw according to the movement that the latter wanted to give to the his figures”. The international researcher and sculptor Andrea da Montefeltro, signatory of the find, intervened in the presentation, highlighting the indispensable role of the symbol at the basis of even the most hidden contents in Federico’s court. “The investigation carried out not only revealed that the drawing represents a subject with a missing right eye, but also the fact that the left one was healthy. Therefore Leonardo’s will to have represented Duke Federico from the right side, the side from which the Duke did not want to be represented, this is proof of Leonardo’s character and will to always follow his inspiration and to distinguish himself from all the others artists”. The Forensic Calligraph Expert Dr. Stefano Fortunati intervened in the calligraphic study of Leonardo’s handwriting and of the artefact, determining his intervention for the study of the Tuscan genius’s calligraphy. Who states “The drawing is certainly disconnected from all the elements written on the other side of the sheet and above all prior as a historical period”. Dr. Fabio Di Censo, ophthalmologist and director of the ophthalmology operating unit in Sulmona, intervened for the anatomical study, who confirmed in his report that the subject represented in the drawing under study had a missing right eye, as Federico da Montefeltro and therefore it was not a matter of a sleeping subject or a representation of a funerary mask as hypothesized up to now.
