Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Manca, Joseph

Titel

Wordplay, gesture and meaning in Leonardo da Vinci's Cecilia Gallerani

Ist Teil von

• Word & image (London. 1985), 2008-04, Vol.24 (2), p.127-138

Erscheinungsjahr

2008

Quelle

Taylor & Francis

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Leonardo da Vinci's portrait of Cecilia Gallerani captures the beauty and youth of the mistress of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. While the attribution, identity of the sitter and approximate date are now established, some aspects of the meaning of the work are in dispute, and nearly all of the trouble is caused by the lively animal that the young lady holds in her hand: an ermine. Leonardo's painting was made at most within a few years of Ludovico's acceptance into the Order of the Ermine, which linked him to a world of male virtue and noble purity at the highest level in Italian society. It is certainly cogent for us to imagine that the ermine in a painting that he commissioned represented a substitute for himself, shown in loving union with the mistress who would soon no longer be his.