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Arts & Communication Leonardo from Caffa in Crimea

The Tuscan painter Leonardo da Vinci typically did not date The Ottoman commander, Gedik Ahmet Pasha, anchored
his work. In addition, this is the only complete landscape near Caffa on June 1, 1475, and started to bombard the
attributed to him, and it is significant for its use of red port. Within a month, inhabitants of the area of Italian
chalk, which was not commonly used in Italian art until descent were stripped of their wealth and taken forcibly
a decade after the drawing was supposedly created. The to Istanbul. Caffan Italian males, those young enough,
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document features writing that is both backward, as found were conscripted into Turkish forces, where they joined
in the Notebooks, and forwards, left-to-right (normal). Mehmed’s unique and elite Janissary. These Genoese
The phrase written left-to-right, found on the verso, is conscripts were forced to convert to Islam. This is the
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so obscure that it cannot be interpreted. Recent scientific only significant world event recorded on or around August
analysis suggests that the writing front and back was done 5, 1473. A connection between the writer of 8P to the
by two different people. However, some experts suggest Ottoman Empire, particularly in Caffa around 1475, is
that the creator may have been ambidextrous. Finally, further reinforced by the discovery of the location of this
scientific diagnostics have shown that this landscape drawing, which I will now discuss.
was not created in one sitting but rather over time using
various pre-existing drawings and sources. Given these 3.1.2. The Place
considerations, it is best to approach the problem from Nicholl 10,p.49 proposes that landscape 8P depicts Tuscan
a different perspective. Art historians who insist that a scenery with “a panoramic view of a precipitous craggy
Tuscan drew this landscape, and therefore, it must be hill and wide waterlogged flatlands stretching away to the
Tuscany or Italy, may be missing important clues. Here, I further hills on the horizon.… punctuated with arresting
look beyond the traditional Western narrative. details: a castle bristling on a promontory, tiny boats in
the wetlands, a waterfall …” Except he was unable to find
3.1.1. The day of Madonna of the Snow, August 5, 1473
a “bristling” castle, or tiny boats, or “wetlands,” and indeed
Using a horizontal approach, moving from the center not even a waterfall, that is, in his searches of Tuscany.
(Europe) to the independent periphery (not Europe), Frosinini 9,p.246 contradicts the idea that this drawing is
significantly given that this random Thursday was an even a landscape, claiming that it was not drawn in situ.
unremarkable day in Italy, I draw attention to elsewhere She claims that it can be “recognized, in a modern spirit,
in the world where something did happen on August 5, that only some parts of the landscape are real, while others
1473. In the region of the Black Sea, on this very day, Uzun suggest a transfigured reconstruction or, as Pedretti stated,
Hasan (Diyarbakir, Turkey, 1423 – Tabriz, Iran, 1478) was as early as 1992, a ‘scenic relationship.’” 9,p.246 She claims that
facing off the beginning of an Ottoman Empire campaign it is not a view from Valdinievole of the Fucecchio Marshes,
against his Aq Qoyunlu Confederacy, where he controlled and it is not Montalbano, as others suggest. Scholars admit
areas of what is now northeastern Turkey, Armenia, that the scenery is not identifiable around Tuscan painter
Azerbaijan, parts of Iraq, and Iran. Positioned south of Leonardo da Vinci’s birthplace. In short, it is definitely
the Black Sea, he watched as the Ottomans tried to forge not a Tuscan landscape, even though we will find 8P very
the Euphrates River, with the number of troops so vast it assuredly titled Arno Valley Landscape. Frosinini avoids the
seemed like an ocean. Then, finally, on August 11, 1473, tricky point of the waterfall, depicted emerging from inside
meeting Hasan’s forces at the Battle of Otlukbeli, which a rocky cliff to the right of the draughtsman’s viewpoint.
took place in Erzincan, the Turks defeated the Aq Qoyunlu Indeed, Kemp 15,p.5 asks: “Would a waterfall really emerge
Confederacy. It is said that Italians would have been like that from so close to the top of a mighty hill?” In
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nervously watching the Battle of Otlukbeli from vantage 2018, an art historian in Umbria claimed to locate the
points on both sides. This reality was due to both Venetian waterfall, about 250 km from Vinci. Mainstream Leonardo
and Genoese interests in the region. researchers have been studying this drawing for decades

After the defeat of the Aq Qoyunlu Confederacy, the and are no closer to a resolution.
Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Mehmed II the Conquerer Taking the evidence that the date August 5, 1473, had
(Erdine, Turkey, 1432 – Hünkar, Çayiri, Turkey, 1481), meaning in the arena of the Ottoman Empire, East of the
took advantage of the moment to seize Sebinkarahisar, Italian peninsula, the very spot where the artist sat might
the Black Sea region of what is now northeastern Turkey, be located in Crimea as it is possible to show that the
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seeing this as a way to consolidate his power. He further topography correlates with the events extrapolated from
took advantage of the weakened nations that bordered the date on the drawing. Although Italian scholars have
the Black Sea, in other words, where the Italians held a called the fortress “idealized,” the depiction resembles the
certain amount of power. He sent troops to end nearly style of fortresses in Crimea. Indeed, the fortress shown
200 years of Genoese control of Caffa in Crimea in 1475. wobbling precipitously at the very edge of a long elevated

Volume 2 Issue 3 (2024) 4 doi: 10.36922/ac.2642