Decoding The Mystery of Da Vinci Portraits I SLICE HISTORY | FULL DOCUMENTARY

foreign telli an art history Professor discovered an old painting that raised questions in the art world [Music] the first thing I noticed as soon as I saw it is that it had a saw [Music] Matic the beard the look in his eyes he's very special very unique this was the start of a widespread investigation throughout Europe this portrait of a strangely familiar looking man aroused the expert's Curiosity immediately thought that it was a portrait of Leonardo [Music] through this investigation we travel into the past back to Renaissance Italy [Music] could this painting have been made by Leonardo da Vinci have we finally discovered the painter's true face [Music] one morning in 2008 an art collector contacted me to examine his collection of paintings as an art historian specializing in historic paintings I immediately decided to go to his home in Salerno to look closely at his collection [Music] Nicola barbatelli [Music] there were about a hundred paintings in the collection some works for mediocre I mean others quite interesting at the end of my visit one particular painting it should be a portrait wrapped in a fleece blanket I'll never forget that moment he said look at this little painting it's a painting I want to auction off meat Galileo what do you mean Galileo I said it's Leonardo [Music] I immediately thought it was a portrait by Leonardo because the iconography was found in a similar painting in the uffizi gallery this painting is Lawrence's biggest was considered for many years to be a self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci but in 1938 an expertise proved that it had been painted in the 17th century 100 years after the artist's death therefore it was a fake [Music] how could the Striking resemblance between the two paintings be explained could this portrait be the original one copied in the uffizi could it be the authentic self-portrait by Leonardo da Vinci believed to have disappeared forever a great deal was at stake here there are only a mere 15 paintings by the Tuscan master and nobody knows exactly what the artist looked like the potential discovery of a self-portrait by Leonardo da Vinci immediately raised the issue of dating Nicola barbatelli goes to see Giancarlo Napoli a restorer specialized in expertising works of art [Music] in my life I have been fortunate to have seen a large number of paintings because I have always worked for major museums and collections my instinct in my eye have never let me down however in the case of this painting when I saw it since it was in such good condition I thought it could have been one of those copies made in the 19th century so my immediate impression when I saw it was that it was too beautiful to be from the 16th century [Music] foreign [Music] Ardo Da Vinci was born in 1452 and died in 1519. the Lucan portrait depicts a man of approximately 50 years old if it represents the artist it would have to have been painted in the early 16th century in the city where Leonardo lived Florence [Music] foreign in the 15th century Florence was the city where an art Revolution was brewing in painting sculpture and architecture it would later become known as the Renaissance for the 15th century Florence had an extremely high literacy rate and I should also say a very high rate of numeracy because of the fact that the florentines were the Great merchants of the Middle Ages who had these great first of all war merchants and then secondly the bankers and so that then really becomes the economic precondition for the cultural efflorescence of the 15th century in Florence foreign dynasty was at the head of the Florentine Republic they were bankers and art lovers first Cosimo then the man nicknamed by his contemporaries Lorenzo the Magnificent Lorenzo was passionate about architecture and poetry he contributed to the protection and promotion of many artists including Botticelli Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci [Music] one of the most important workshops in Florence was that of the sculptor and painter Andrea verochio a protege of the medicis if you wanted to be an Artist as a Young Man say when you were 12 13 14 you didn't go to Art School what you did is went into a bodega a workshop and you became an apprentice there was an apprenticeship system and you went into the workshop of an established painter Goldsmith sculptor and in that Workshop you would learn all of the secrets of the trade you would learn how to grind pigment you would learn how to apply paint you would learn Silver Point you would learn draftsmanship you would learn ultimately things like painting with tempera and then finally by the end of the uh the 1400s at least how to paint in oil foreign Ardo Da Vinci began his apprenticeship at the verochio botica in 1467 at the age of 15. he started off drawing and painting but also learned sculpture architecture and mechanical Arts [Music] he remained with verocio well into his 20s and Rocio I think spotted Leonardo very early recognized his talents nurtured them and so we see the two of them in the 1470s working in tandem working in Partnership together [Music] of Christ is a testament to this collaboration started by verrocchio this work was finished by Leonardo da Vinci to whom the angel in the extreme left of the painting has been directly attributed [Music] 15 days after his initial visit Nicola barbatelli is contacted by Giancarlo Napoli foreign ER has finished cleaning the painting [Music] the painting looked very different it had snags dents cuts [Music] we wondered where all this damage came from the restorer told me that they had been covered by previous Restorations but she removed during his cleaning process these marks are only the tip of the iceberg when I started cleaning the painting I noticed micro cracks which were actually caused by the wood moving over the course of centuries this is typical of Renaissance paintings [Music] the restorator's conclusions are encouraging but to confirm that the painting is definitely from the 16th century it needs to undergo further investigation this is the beginning of a major investigation which will take the Lucan portrait across Europe [Music] the first stop is the Innova Center in Naples specialized in the scientific study of historical monuments and works of art thank you the Lucan portrait was given to Giovanni paternosta an expert in x-ray analysis this technique makes it possible to determine the precise age of the pigments that were used [Music] foreign [Music] you must bear in mind that from Antiquity through the end of the 18th or 19th century pigments basically didn't change they were mineral pigments or sometimes vegetable or animal-based it was only from the 18th or 19th century onwards that synthetic or organic pigments were developed right off the bat one element of the portrait the white feather decorating the Hat intrigues the researchers its extreme whiteness seems to indicate that it was painted with a synthetic pigment it could prove that the painting doesn't date from the Renaissance to be sure the experts x-ray the entire painting let's look at the graph of the cheek there you have it you can clearly see the presence of antimony there's no pewter and Lead is very present so it must be lead antimony which could be a Naples yellow the first traces of its use date back to the beginning of the 16th century [Music] Naples yellow Vermilion red indigo blue or Azure green these sometimes toxic substances were prepared by the apprentices they were mixed with egg to obtain paint referred to as tempura grassa which will progressively be replaced by oil painting at the end of the 15th century oh this pigment was common during the Renaissance but what about the feather [Music] pigmented its pigment is made of titanium dioxide which wasn't introduced until the beginning of the 20th century this means that the feather was painted at a later date probably during a restoration aside from the titanium dioxide used for the feather all the pigments in the Lucan portrait are compatible with Leonardo da Vinci's era for Nicola barbatelli this is a very promising result [Music] he decides to pursue his analysis with Filippo tarasi a physics professor it is time to examine the painting's base the wooden panel is x-rayed Three Wooden fragments have several milligrams are lifted from the back of the painting the wood of the painting like any vegetable or animal organism contains carbon 14. when the organism dies the amount of carbon 14 decreases over time by measuring the amount remaining today we can deduce the age of the wood it is important to note that Carbon 14 dating does not establish when the panel was used as a base for a painting The information collected pertains to the growth period of the tree that the wood comes from and the period that we identified is somewhere between 1474 and 1517. the scientific analysis of the Lucan portrait through X-rays and Carbon 14 dating confirms that the painting dates from the Renaissance at the end of the 15th century or very beginning of the 16th century this means it was painted during Leonardo's lifetime [Music] in 1481 Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned by the augustinian convent at sandinato in scopito to paint an Adoration of the Magi it was his first big Commission he had 30 months to complete the work what you were given was a set of rules things that you were going to do and of course usually the hard and fast rules the three things that were were absolutely key were the subject matter virgin and child crucifixion whatever it was going to be the amount you were paid and that payment would include what you had to spend on materials and then thirdly and this was a crucial one the deadline [Music] thank you Leonardo da Vinci never finished the Adoration of the Magi the recently restored painting has now been returned to its original state For the First Time The Wealth of detail and the virtuosity of its composition are visible the artist might give each character the appearance of movement while drawing the viewer's attention to the Virgin and child at the center of the painting [Music] thank you foreign [Music] o Nicola barbatelli goes to see the restorer who has made an incredible discovery on the back of the painting [Music] during the cleaning process the words pinksid Maya appeared written backwards it was strange the text was written from right to left with a graphic inversion of the letters this mirror writing is characteristic of left-handed people it was used by Leonardo da Vinci who wrote and painted with his left hand his notebooks called codexes in which he recorded throughout his life his thoughts and experiences in such diverse areas as Anatomy Hydraulics architecture and botany confirm this thousands of handwritten pages are systematically written backwards [Music] pinksit mayor two Latin words what could they mean in Vinci the artist's native Village Peter hoenstadt an expert on Leonardo goes to the library which holds exact reproductions of the Tuscan Masters codexes it's a text which the Latin is not 100 correct it could be very easily read Maya means probably myself yeah could be yeah and pinksid he has painted a mice myself could be a play yeah to saying that I is the one who's talking about is also the one who is on the painting but the Latin translation doesn't really support it perfectly we know that the artist wrote most of the time in Tuscan dialect the illegitimate son of a Florentine notary he couldn't attend the University his Latin was self-taught could his limited knowledge of Latin explain the strange grammatical form of pinksit Mayor in monteforte iopino a meeting is scheduled with Silvana yuliano a criminal handwriting expert handwriting analysis is based upon a comparison of various writing samples Silvana uliano works from reproductions of the atlanticus codex which contains over one thousand pages of Leonardo da Vinci's notes foreign details that we come across in certain letters were evaluated and compared with the pinksit mail letters which reproduce the same specificities let's say that the codex has reinforced our conviction that pinksit Maya was very likely written by Leonardo himself if Leonardo da Vinci was the author of the pinksit mayor inscription the Lucan portrait could indeed be his self-portrait it portrays a man in his early 50s the painter was born in 1452 and the Lucan portrait could have been painted around 1500. that year Leonardo da Vinci was forced to leave Milan War had started up again in Italy King Louis xii's French army had invaded the Lombard City causing the fall of his protector ludovicoat's Forza [Music] Leonardo chose to return to Florence the city where he'd spent his first years of apprenticeship he arrived in the spring of 1500. [Music] 20 years had gone by the Tuscan city had changed a great deal the medicis were no longer in power at 50 the artist had to start all over again he hoped he would still find some support in Florence [Music] very kindly one of his friends summoned that he knew when he lived in Florence previously Filipino Lippy handed him a commission that he was given the Virgin and child with Saint Anne really helping him out financially helping him find his feet in Florence and begin to remake his reputation in some ways it what what this little Parable tells us is that the patrons were less concerned about who did it than they were about what was going to be in the painting Leonardo da Vinci never completed his Altarpiece he only did a preliminary sketch which has unfortunately disappeared but the artist worked his whole life on the theme of sentan The Virgin and the child two ink drawings a painting at the Louvre Museum and lastly a charcoal sketched enhanced with white allow us to imagine what the first drawing must have looked like [Music] the monks awed by Leonardo da Vinci's preliminary drawing decided to exhibit it publicly all of Florence rushed to the Servite Monastery during these troubled times with Wars starting up again people came to pray to sentan the patron saint of Florence but they also came to admire the Tuscan painter's Style painting is an intellectual process first and foremost one which feeds off all Sciences it is a cosamentale a mental activity as Leonardo da Vinci would say behind the softness and finesse of the characters and the enigmatic Landscapes lies a body of knowledge and intellectual processes compiled before starting to paint he was interested in representation of reality how I can make it that this painting looks as close at when I look in the world this was his challenge the attention paid to the painting of faces and bodies combined with the artist's anatomical research makes them look hugely realistic the characters look like they're captured in a natural moment through a look that lights up or a faint smile Leonardo da Vinci makes them seem incredibly alive [Music] can we find in the Lucan portrait these qualities associated with Leonardo da Vinci's painting [Music] is it possible that the man who painted the Mona Lisa also painted this portrait [Music] the acute attention to detail that the artist glorifies in this painting the jaw muscles including the slight indent and the cheek the curls of the beard frantically drawn Hair by hair with extraordinary care especially the way the hair is is painted this is typically his quality but what most captures our attention in this portrait are the eyes one is seized by this look that seems to follow the viewer wherever he may be standing a gaze in motion reminiscent of the Mona Lisa [Music] analysis of the Lucan portrait reveals similarities with Leonardo's painting style if this painting were done by the Tuscan Master could it be a self-portrait [Music] for five centuries Leonardo da Vinci's appearance has been a never-ending subject of controversy we know that the artist was born in Vinci the Tuscan Village that gave him his name but his contemporaries left very few descriptions the first biographies written by Paolo giovio the anonymous Malia becciano or Giorgio vasari are from the 16th century the only written descriptions we have of Leonardo da Vinci sadly come from people who had never met him and in fact come from decades after his death they're unanimous about how handsome he is how he had long hair how he had a beautiful curled beard how he dressed incredibly well [Music] the portrait in red chalk represents the artist with the features of an impenetrable old man until recently it was considered to be the artist's only true self-portrait this was the official representation of Leonardo's face but a few years ago it was discovered that this sketch was from around the 1490s when Leonardo was only 30 years old this cast doubt on the identity of the sitter [Music] there Remains The Windsor drawing this profile portrait from around 1515 by Giovanni Francesco melzi is the only pictorial evidence of Leonardo's appearance that hasn't been challenged Leonardo da Vinci met melzi in 1508. the young Aristocrat from Milan wanted to learn to paint the artist welcomed him as an apprentice in his Workshop melty stayed by his side for life [Music] the question of Leonardo's face has always fascinated the art world some historians have ventured to say that the face of the Vitruvian man or that of the young man in the Adoration of the Magi belongs to the artist [Music] recently a drawing which might be a self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci was found in the Codex on the flights of birds however this is all pure speculation [Music] this is an enigma in which portrait and self-portrait real and fake face each other off in an endless game of mirrors [Music] to solve this mystery Nikola barbatelli decides to call on experts in facial recognition analysis several studies are launched one takes place in Spain in association with Christian Galvez this Spanish researcher is the author of a study on the evolution of picture representations of Leonardo's face psychology of the Civil guard the UCO they are facial recognition experts they decided to apply the morphology ability towards art and in this precise case to the Tabla lukana to meltz's Portrait and the alleged self-portrait from Torino the faces are analyzed and compared to determine if there's morphological compatibility between the different portraits the man in the Windsor profile portrait and the one in the Lucan portrait are the same person the only one that does not coincide with these images is the alleged self-portrait from Torino [Music] the face is represented on both the Lucan painting and melzy's sketch looks strangely similar but how can one be sure that it is one in the same face at Thailand University a 3D reconstruction experiment could provide proof [Music] Orest komashov director of the art history Department Helen a 3D designer [Music] anjiani Glenny consultant for the Lucan Museum partner for this unprecedented research [Music] the comparison of melzy's profile and the three-quarter Lucan portrait enabled us to identify the specific points between the two Works which perfectly coincide and to create a 3D reconstruction of Leonardo's face foreign [Music] addition to the 3D reconstruction on the computer a rest komashov tackled the modeling of Leonardo's face it was the idea to use different approaches first the classical one that was in the form of sculpture and the other was using the latest digital possibilities both absolutely different ways and we were very curious if we come to the similar result foreign [Music] a few days later Gianni Glenny came back to the university to discover the sculpture in 3D reconstruction [Music] [Music] for the first time Leonardo da Vinci's face appears in three dimensions giving it an uncanny realistic feel [Music] ings this is the first reconstruction of this kind On Da Vinci's face you could say we were able to see what Leonardo looked like as though we recognized him if we ran into him in the street [Music] 3D reconstruction to the Lucan portrait [Music] of course the first thing we did was superimpose Leonardo da Vinci's reconstructed face onto the painting we got chills at that very moment because the images did not correspond perfectly perfect when we look to match the face at the level of the nose and mouth we realize that the eyes did not fit so we thought we had made a mistake a reconstruction mistake we had missed something but what we find the three-quarter pose in the Lucan portrait but if we look carefully we can see that the pupils diverge the right eye looks straight ahead but the left seems to be glancing slightly to the side [Music] the position of the pupils seems strangely disconnected as if the pupil from one eye was looking in a different direction than the other this particularity is flagrant in Saint John the Baptist it is slightly less obvious but nonetheless present in the Mona Lisa it can also be seen in the Lucan portrait is this same asymmetrical gaze proof that the Lucan portrait was painted by Leonardo da Vinci how can the Divergence of the eyes be explained [Music] he understood in the 19s that humans are looking with two eyes on things and this created an issue and it created for him a really enormous issue because he wanted to represent in a painting reality like we are looking at things and how to represent something where we are looking normally with two eyes artist because binocular vision enables us to perceive reality in three dimensions it is the merging of two images in our brain one from the right eye and the other from the left which creates depth perception as always it was through experimentation that Leonardo da Vinci found a way to represent binocular vision in a painting he took a sphere and Drew the half scene by one eye and did the same on the other half with the second eye and he realized that this produced a spatial perception of the object each half seems to stand out more isn't it possible that in the Lucan painting the two images one from each eye are superimposed I would explain why our computer image can never match the painting the Lucan portrait could therefore be a combination of two points of view the nose and mouth oriented on a 40 degree axis would have been painted with the right eye and the eyes and the rest of the face oriented on a 22.5 degree axis with the left this explains the different axes observed between the eyes nose and mouth what he did with the corner and what he did with this portray is he turned slightly around the head so did the line of the nose is hiding one of the most critical Parts where you have to blur and there he had a technique which we call normally as fumato he was the first one who did this fumato based on the binocular vision Art and Science this is what hides behind the Lucan portrait the painting's complexity sheds light on the Florentine Master's vision he considered painting to be an art that serves to better understand the world in southern Italy a final experiment is carried out research on digital fingerprints is entrusted to Professor Luigi capasso who collaborated with the police and scientific Brigade thank you Leonardo da Vinci as a person as a man Leonardo da Vinci did not leave any traces of himself what possibilities are available to us scientists in terms of paleobiological information on this very important Italian personality the only option is to look for any biological traces on the materials he touched in this context the idea of searching for fingerprints is an obvious choice automatica 100 pages Leonardo da Vinci's Bottega over 200 fragments of fingerprints have been identified a fingerprint was also found on the lady with an ermine this is how we produced Leonardo da Vinci's left thumbprint this was the first item of biological information that we've ever had on this great master the police decided to do research on the prince on the Lucan portrait macro shots are taken across the surface of the painting [Music] foreign [Music] portrait our colleagues from the police found three fragments of fingerprints two on the surface of the painting and one on the wooden base [Music] we concentrated on the fingerprint fragment near the feather on the Hat [Music] we compared this fingerprint fragment with the reconstructed one and this comparison highlighted three concording details the prints are partially compatible in technical terms foreign this print fragment was certainly made at the same time the paint was being applied because it is embedded it was left there printed on the painting before it dried the paint was still wet a print left on wet paint this gesture takes us back to Leonardo da Vinci's technique creating Shadows with his fingers artists could have put his thumb on a painting that was being worked on after traveling across Europe for the needs of the investigation painting was returned to Nicola barbatelli and his Lucan Museum the possible attribution of the portrait was an event in the art world [Music] 2009 Nicola barbatelli welcomed Professor Carlo pedretti one of the most eminent Specialists on Leonardo da Vinci's work I am always very circumspected and very careful but also very optimistic I have great trust in the ability of works of art to tell their story and this painting is telling its story I feel there is something here and we must keep studying it thank you after this last stage of restoration the Lucan portrait finally appeared in its original state without varnish or the white feather [Music] foreign [Music] the restored painting was an extraordinary moment the most interesting part was the discovery of the skin tones and the astounding light effects [Music] for the last 15 years of his life Leonardo da Vinci traveled continuously searching for a patron in 1516 the artist set off on what would be his last journey at 64 he crossed the Alps on the back of a mule carrying his most precious possessions his notebooks and three of his paintings the Mona Lisa the suntan and the Saint John the Baptist the young king of France France is the first invited him to live in on boys it was here in the Khloe say Chateau not far from France as the first Chateau that Leonardo da Vinci spent the last three years of his life in the company of his faithful companion Giovanni Francesco meltzi it was a golden exile for Leonardo as a show of affection Francis the first gave him a chateau just 500 meters from the Royal Palace as he called it the palazzio Del clue a surprising relationship developed between this young 22 year old King and this great artist Francis the first considered Leonardo to be an important scholar a great scientist and a magnificent artist but also as a mentor contrary to what one might think Leonardo remained extremely active he worked on his projects and Royal commissions and crucially he also has a number of his paintings uh the most famous of which not famous then famous now but maybe his most beloved painting of course the Mona Lisa the Mona Lisa the Saint John the Baptist and the sentan but no sign of a self-portrait during the last three years of his life in the Khloe say Leonardo da Vinci asked Giovanni Francesco meltzi to help organize his notebooks he intended to write several treaties on the various subjects he had studied throughout his life but the task was immense and the artist didn't get a chance to see it through it's very sad to contemplate line order Da Vinci in the spring of 1519 as he laid dying on his bed because of the fact that he I think believed that everything he had done was either going to be lost or was going to be unnoticed and one of the last things that he writes in his notebooks is tell me if I ever did a thing and it's very sad to contemplate that he felt he had not done everything that he could have done and then as he Lay Dying and as he died his work was going to be forgotten and he the waters Waters of History were going to close over his head foreign [Music] Ardo died on May the 2nd 1519 in clue he wanted his remains carried by 30 Beggars carrying torches to the Saint Florentine Church in the Royal Chapel of ombwas where he was buried [Music] thank you [Music] the story is fascinating because five centuries later Leonardo has allowed himself to be discovered it isn't us who quote unquote recovered a painting potentially done by Leonardo no it's Leonardo who after five centuries decided to come out of the Shadows it's not a fingerprint it's not a signage it's not but it's uh what is represented what is the technique of representation and there we have one painter who did something strange like this this is Leonardo this for me personally makes it convince him Leonardo da Vinci's physical appearance has remained an enigma for centuries the investigation into the Lucan portrait suggests that it might be an authentic self-portrait of the artist 500 years after Leonardo's death this incredible Discovery offers us a glimpse of his face lifting the veil on one of art History's Greatest Mysteries [Music]

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Length: 51min 28sec (3088 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 06 2023