Leonardo’s Humanism and the Genius of Modern Industry
Leonardo, son of Piero da Vinci, was born on 15 April 1452. Everything has been said and written about the Tuscan genius, every last detail of every work of his has been minutely studied. Nevertheless, to celebrate such an important anniversary, we would like to offer our own contribution to Leonardo’s story – one with unexpected links to the history of Pirelli. The fifteenth-century Bicocca degli Arcimboldi villa on the Viale Sarca in Milan, now the Pirelli Group’s official reception venue, has preserved traces – albeit indirect – of Leonardo’s passage. In 1917-18, as part of the Group’s industrial expansion in the north-eastern area of the city, the company purchased the Bicocca degli Arcimboldi, on which construction work was started in the second half of the fifteenth century by the aristocratic Milanese family of the same name. The expansion of the Pirelli area had been going since 1906 and was destined to end in the mid-twentieth century when the total area reached almost a million square metres.
The plot of land purchased from the estate of Count Sormani in the immediate post-war period also included the “country villa”, which had been built in the late medieval style of Lombardy. The interior is a succession of frescoed rooms, each with its own theme: the atrium decorated with the sun of fifteenth-century Po Valley art, the clasped hands and the motto “Always in God” in the central vestibule, the Hall of Duty reserved for important personalities, and the enchanting Bramantesque Ladies’ Hall. And then, in the northwest corner, the Hall of Knots, the personal chamber of the judge-archbishop Guidantonio Arcimboldi, frescoed with a recurring motif: a red cord that runs low down on the white wall, and then turns into twelve small knots that, in turn, create another twenty-four larger ones. And it does so three times, in an asymmetrical position on each door, all the way up to the ceiling, creating a geometric arabesque motif with perfect clarity of line. The knot, the number twelve, the Mudéjar arabesque, and the geometric composition: everything points to Leonardo da Vinci and his “code”. We cannot by any means say that those red lines were drawn by the master himself, but the anonymous decorator of the Bicocca, who presumably worked in the last decade of the fifteenth century, undoubtedly drew on the world of symbols of Leonardo, who was already well established in Milan at the time.
Preserving and promoting this wonderful artistic heritage also means preserving Leonardo’s lessons in today’s world, handing on his humanistic lesson to the future, with all his genius and enterprise.
Leonardo, son of Piero da Vinci, was born on 15 April 1452. Everything has been said and written about the Tuscan genius, every last detail of every work of his has been minutely studied. Nevertheless, to celebrate such an important anniversary, we would like to offer our own contribution to Leonardo’s story – one with unexpected links to the history of Pirelli. The fifteenth-century Bicocca degli Arcimboldi villa on the Viale Sarca in Milan, now the Pirelli Group’s official reception venue, has preserved traces – albeit indirect – of Leonardo’s passage. In 1917-18, as part of the Group’s industrial expansion in the north-eastern area of the city, the company purchased the Bicocca degli Arcimboldi, on which construction work was started in the second half of the fifteenth century by the aristocratic Milanese family of the same name. The expansion of the Pirelli area had been going since 1906 and was destined to end in the mid-twentieth century when the total area reached almost a million square metres.
The plot of land purchased from the estate of Count Sormani in the immediate post-war period also included the “country villa”, which had been built in the late medieval style of Lombardy. The interior is a succession of frescoed rooms, each with its own theme: the atrium decorated with the sun of fifteenth-century Po Valley art, the clasped hands and the motto “Always in God” in the central vestibule, the Hall of Duty reserved for important personalities, and the enchanting Bramantesque Ladies’ Hall. And then, in the northwest corner, the Hall of Knots, the personal chamber of the judge-archbishop Guidantonio Arcimboldi, frescoed with a recurring motif: a red cord that runs low down on the white wall, and then turns into twelve small knots that, in turn, create another twenty-four larger ones. And it does so three times, in an asymmetrical position on each door, all the way up to the ceiling, creating a geometric arabesque motif with perfect clarity of line. The knot, the number twelve, the Mudéjar arabesque, and the geometric composition: everything points to Leonardo da Vinci and his “code”. We cannot by any means say that those red lines were drawn by the master himself, but the anonymous decorator of the Bicocca, who presumably worked in the last decade of the fifteenth century, undoubtedly drew on the world of symbols of Leonardo, who was already well established in Milan at the time.
Preserving and promoting this wonderful artistic heritage also means preserving Leonardo’s lessons in today’s world, handing on his humanistic lesson to the future, with all his genius and enterprise.
