uffizi room 15: leonardo da vinci room - description

Verrocchio Signorelli, Leonardo and others of their group. On the left, is the Annunciation by Lorenzo di Credi, sensitive to the influence of his fellow apprentice Leonardo. The painting of modest proportions, is the most valuable work of the artist, who in the school of Verrocchio, surpassed the pictorial quality of the master.

At the either side of the entrance, two monumental Altarpieces by Signorelli, an artist formed in the Umbrian figurative school but attentive to the teachings of the Florentines. Another Umbrian and very famous at the time, is Perugino (Pietro Vannucchi), whose melancholy temperament can be appreciated in his distressful Pietà. Next the famous painting of the Baptism of Christ, that Verrocchio, more well known as a sculptor than as a painter, began in 1470 with the help to the young Leonardo, whose hand is recognized in the angel to the left show in profile. A simple and luminous painting, with a suggestively beautiful landscape.

The central wall is dominated by the celebrated Adoratiion of the Magi by Leonardo da Vinci, painted for the brothers of the church of San Donato Scopeto, left incomplete by the great artist and scientist who was called to Milan by Ludovico il Moro. Despite the fact that the painting is left in its preparatory state, we can see the importance of Leonardo's invention of "sfumato" (shading), that was so widely diffused in the succesive Lombard and Tuscan schools of painting. Also notice the solemnity of the scene, shown in a pyramid composition, the majesty of the architectonic and landscape elements, and the extra-ordinary variety of human types and expressions. This work reveals Leonardo's personality in full, his continuous and tireless research and attention to nature and humanity in all its aspects. In addintion this room contains the famous and much discussed Annunciation, with the luminous and idealized Tuscan landscape, which Leonardo is belived to have painted in Verrocchio's workshop.