Summary
In 1476, just as Leonardo was becoming a master in his
own right, probably functioning as a partner to Verrocchio, he
was suddenly plagued by scandal. Along with three other young
men, he was anonymously accused of sodomy, which in Florence was
a criminal offense, even though in most cases the authorities looked
the other way and the general culture attached little social stigma
to homosexuality.
Leonardo was 24 years old at the time. The accusation
specifically charged him with a homosexual interaction with one
Jacopo Saltarelli, a notorious prostitute. The charges were brought
in April, and for a time Leonardo and the other defendants were
under the watchful eye of Florence's "Officers of the Night"–a
kind of renaissance vice squad.
However, the charges were dismissed in June, due to a
lack of witnesses and evidence. It is probable that the Medici
family brought had something to do with this outcome, as another
of the defendants was Lionardo de Tornabuoni, and Lorenzo de Medici's mother
had been a Tornabuoni.
The period immediately following the case was a productive
one for Leonardo. Sometime in the mid-1470s, he worked on the Portrait
of Ginevra de Benci. In 1478, he received what was probably his
first commission: a religious group wanted him to paint an Adoration
of the Shepherds. He did a few preliminary sketches but
then abandoned the project.
That same year, Leonardo wrote in his journals, "I have
begun the two Virgin Marys." Critics agree that the Benois Madonna
is one of them. Originally believed lost, it appeared out of the
blue in the nineteenth century when a traveling musician sold it
to a Russian in southern Italy, and was confirmed as a work of
Leonardo in 1909. On Mary's lap the Christ Child plays with two
small flowers; yet his aspect is serious. The shadows are such
that it appears that the painting's light source shines from above
the viewer's shoulder, as if from heaven. Both have halos; as
his career progressed, however, Leonardo was less likely to endow
his religious subjects with such ornamentation. The Virgin has
a rounded, glowing face–this, too, is typical of Leonardo's earlier
work. Her expression exemplifies part of what set Leonardo's work
apart from that of his contemporaries: she looks winsome and fresh,
and has none of the stodginess of other artists' madonnas from
the time.
When he was about 30 years old and probably working quite independently
from Verrocchio, Leonardo received a commission for The
Adoration of the Magi. He soon left Florence for Milan, and
thus it stands unfinished. Nonetheless, critics consider it a
masterpiece. It shows Leonardo's ability to endow a familiar scene–here,
the three wise men's adoration of Christ–with a fresh and lively
spirit. The traditional manger has been removed to the rear side,
to make room for a crowd of people reacting with emotion to the
Child's Epiphany. Leonardo famously noted, "A good painter has
two subjects of primary importance: man and the state of man's mind.
The first is easy, the second difficult, since it must be conveyed
by means of the gestures and movements of the various parts of
the body." Here we see these "gestures and movements" in brilliant
vibrancy. It was common for religious paintings to feature figures
who stood placidly by, as if they, too, were separated from the scene's
focal point by a gap of centuries. But Leonardo insists on realism,
and the result is eminently more entertaining. His composition
constitutes a pyramid with Mary at the apex; around it the crowd
stands in a semi-circle. Anchoring the crowd stand two figures
whose peculiar calmness at this miraculous sight may betray some
lack of religious fire on Leonardo's part. The dueling men in the
background could symbolize myriad things; most likely they are intended
to contrast the calm of the coming Christian order with the vice
and waste of the past.
