Is this terracotta sculpture by Leonardo? Pedretti thought so. The work on display in Vinci

From Oct. 5, 2019 to Feb. 2, 2020, the new Leo Lev Exhibition Center, a complex opened earlier this month in Piazza Pedretti in Vinci, Florence, is hosting the exhibition If It Were an Angel by Leonardo ... , which presents to the public theAnnouncing Angel in painted terracotta, kept in the parish church of San Gennaro in Capannori, Lucca, Italy. The sculpture was recently restored by theOpificio delle Pietre Dure and was attributed by Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti (in 1958) to Verrocchio’s workshop, while for Pedretti, who formulated his hypothesis in 1999, it was a sculpture by Leonardo da Vinci. According to the curators of the exhibition (Ilaria Boncompagni, Oreste Ruggiero and Laura Speranza), the angel is one of the works around which it is possible to reconstruct Leonardo’s sculptural activity, whether one wants to attribute it to him or consider it the work of an artist close to him.

The angel, whose restoration was financed with funds from the Leo Lev Center, at 131 cm in height is the largest of the sculptures variously assigned to Leonardo da Vinci. To acquaint visitors with the original colors, the exhibition will also display a life-size copy of the angel, made by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure using materials and techniques of the time. There will also be multimedia contributions dedicated to the sculpture and its recovery.

The exhibition also marks the inauguration of the Leo Lev Center, an exhibition space that opened in the former Bellio-Baronti-Pezzatini villa in the historic center of Vinci (in fact, a section of the exhibition is dedicated to the same venue). The building has recently been restored and the square has undergone a new rearrangement: the decorative flooring, moreover, is inspired by the Sala delle Asse in the Castello Sforzesco, and the scenic fountain was conceived together with Carlo Pedretti from a design by Leonardo. Accompanying the exhibition is a catalog published by Polistampa (152 pages, 28 euros), which not only analyzes the work from a historical and iconographic point of view, but also documents the careful restoration work that was accompanied by diagnostic investigations and the study of the execution technique. The exhibition opens daily: Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tickets: full 8 euros, reduced 6 euros.

The work before restoration

The work after restoration

The replica created by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure

Is this terracotta sculpture by Leonardo? Pedretti thought so. The work on display in Vinci

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