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Arts & Communication Leonardo from Caffa in Crimea

be explained in other ways. It could be that the writer brother, Giuliano de’ Medici (Florence, 1453 – 1478).
was simply expressing that he got to two Hail Maries and Baroncelli escaped capture and somehow ended up taking
stopped, his soul already doomed by his inability to recite refuge in Istanbul. It is said that, through a network of spies,
a third, and failure to enact on his Catholic faith of love, Lorenzo de’ Medici discovered Baroncelli’s whereabouts
charity, goodwill and peace. The text more accurately and, with the assistance of Mehmed II, had the assassin
transcribed is “…bre 1478 \ J chomincia le • 2 • V gine mj? captured and returned to Florence in chains. He was hung
ari ? [the rest is splotched].” This brings to two the number from the windows of the Bargello, on December 28, 1479.
27
of documents in the group where the attribution to a Like an anachronistic photojournalist, the Tuscan painter
Tuscan painter, Leonardo da Vinci, is forced. I turn now to Leonardo da Vinci is said to have been there to record
the third document, which depicts the figure of a hanged the event. Nicholl 28,p.140 quotes the notes on the drawing,
man in Turkish dress. written in backward Italian, recording Baroncelli dressed
in a “[s]mall tan-colored beretta; doublet of black serge; a
3.3. A sketch of a hanged man dressed as a Turk,
1479 black jerkin lined; a blue coat lined with fox fur... and the
collar of the jerkin covered with snipped velvet, red and
The third document to be discussed depicts the figure of black; black hose”. The passage finishes with the comment:
a hanged man, Bernardo di Bandino Baroncelli, who was “Strange! Why, he is still dressed as a Turk”. 29,p.32 It would
one of the chief assassins in the so-called Pazzi Conspiracy not have been that unusual to see Turkish people in
(Figure 10). This was a conspiracy of local Florentine nobles Florence. However, there is no precedent in the biography
who, with the pope’s assistance, hoped to depose the De’ of the Tuscan painter Leonardo da Vinci that he would
Medici. Baroncelli was among those who, in April 1478, specifically take an interest in the way Turks dressed.
was responsible for the wounding of Lorenzo de’ Medici
(Florence, 1449 – 1492), and for the death of his younger The three documents discussed so far refer to dates in
the 1470s. Likewise, they all exhibit similar writing styles
(Figure 11). However, I point to how the handwriting in
8P and 446E is most similar. The next point of comparison,
the handwriting in 8P relates somewhat to the handwriting
in the drawing of the hanged man, dated to the end of 1479.
The handwriting had calmed down by this time. It became
less expressive and more functional. Frosinini claims that
the writing in 8P has a “redundant and decorative elegance
… [which] has an air of artifice about it, of a deliberately
strange calligraphy devised at the drawing board,” which
she claims was practiced for 5 years before it was replaced
by a plainer style. 9,p.255 However, her proposed time frame
has only the date August 5, 1473, as evidence. She then
contradicts the proposal, as the writing style of 8P is more

Figure 10. Attributed to Leonardo da Vinci: Sketch of the Hanging of
Bernardo Bandino Baroncelli, December 29, 1479. Ink on paper, no
dimensions. Bonnat Museum, Bayonne, France. Retrieved from https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardo_Bandini_Baroncelli, February15, 2024, Figure 11. Details from 446E (1478), recto, 8P (c.1478), verso and recto,
in the public domain, non-profit research, Italian Decree Law no. 83 of and the drawing of the hanged man (1479). Artwork compiled by the
31/05/2014 clause 12.3 turned into in Law no. 106 of 29/07/2014. author.

Volume 2 Issue 3 (2024) 9 doi: 10.36922/ac.2642