International Congress | April 3-5, 2025
RI-costruire Leonardo
RE-Build Leonardo
organized by
Alfredo Buccaro, Margherita Melani, Carlo Vecce
University of Naples Federico II
CIRICE Interdepartmental Research Center on the Iconography of the European City
DiARC Department of Architecture
University of Naples L’Orientale
Department of Literary, Linguistic, and Comparative Studies
The fragmentary nature of Leonardo da Vinci’s pages requires a direct confrontation with the gaps and, consequently, the problem of reconstructing the missing elements in every research and study project focused on the Vinci artist. The Conference aims to focus on a working method that has proven fundamental for completing important volumes and/or research projects that are now considered milestones for studying Leonardo.
Studies, whether direct or indirect, of Leonardo’s sources, from originals to copies, have produced landmark examples, starting from Carlo Pedretti – author of the fundamental publication on the origins of the Windsor fragments related to the pages of the Codex Atlanticus (1957), the reconstruction of Leonardo’s Lost Book A (1964), or, with Carlo Vecce, the unsurpassed study on the Libro di Pittura (1995) – or from the analysis by Alfredo Buccaro of the lost texts recoverable in the copy Codex Corazza (2011), to Leonardo’s library (2021) and his life (2024) recently reconstructed by Vecce himself.
The variety of themes Leonardo addresses, corresponding to as many modern disciplinary sectors as possible, allow the proposed topic to be approached from numerous perspectives.
The outlined focuses also include the broader issue of the reception of Leonardo’s knowledge up to the contemporary age and in various geographical and historiographical contexts, which has led to the drafting and publication of thematic textual summaries – as in the case of the Treatise on Painting or Del moto e misura dell’acqua – entirely conceived as reconstructions of lost Vinci texts, and on the other hand to the deepening and dissemination of Leonardo’s teachings through the study of the artistic, scientific, and technical thought of his successors over the centuries.
Now more than ever, these broad research perspectives, thanks to the digital publication of Leonardo’s codes and drawings, but also of the works of professionals and theorists of art, architecture, sciences, and engineering from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth centuries, can be addressed in a transdisciplinary manner.
The conference will be structured into several sections, each presided over by a renowned scholar who will inaugurate the thematic sessions with a proper lectio magistralis. For each session, contributions are also expected on invitation and/or through a call for papers related to themes and temporal areas.
Contributions will be published in the journal “Academia Leonardi Vinci” planned for 2025.
Topics
Analysis of autographs and apographs
The Language and Writing of Leonardo
Intrinsic Relationships between Autograph Codes and Sheets
From Libro di pittura to the Trattato della pittura
Artistic, Scientific and Technical Copies
Reconstruction, interpretation and diffusion between art, architecture and engineering
The Vision of the City and Landscape
The Artistic fortune
The Idea of Architecture and its Representation
The “Artist-Scientists” and New Engineering in the Leonardo Tradition
The Iconographic Fortune
Critical and Editorial Fortune
The Vincian method between reason and “sperienza”: towards the new experimental science
Experience as a Method
From Hellenistic Sources to Arabic and Persian Transcriptions
Leonardo’s Mechanical and Hydraulic Inventions
Leonardo as a Source of the New Experimental Science
Leonardo in contemporary imagination
A life to Rebuild
Contemporary Leonardo, between Literature and Cinema
Deadlines
CALL FOR PAPERS: April 10, 2024
ABSTRACT SUBMISSION: June 30, 2024
ACCEPTANCE: July 31, 2024
FULL PAPER SUBMISSION: December 31, 2024
Organization: Riccardo Maria Polidoro
Registration fee: EUR 200 structured; EUR 130 unstructured
The fee includes lunches and coffee breaks