Farewell to Carlo Pedretti, great Leonardo da Vinci scholar

The distinguished art historian Carlo Pedretti, one of the world’s leading experts on Leonardo da Vinci, died this morning in Lamporecchio, near Pistoia. He was born in Casalecchio di Reno in 1928 and would have turned 90 just tomorrow. During his long career, he had taught at the University of California, Los Angeles, and had been director, at the same institution, of the Center for Leonardo da Vinci Studies. He published numerous books and essays on Leonardo, which earned him honorary citizenship of Vinci obtained in 2008, the Gold Medal for Culture awarded to him in 1972 by the Presidency of the Republic, and, also in the same year, the Congressional Citation from the government of the United States of America.

On more recent Leonardesque debates, Pedretti had shown caution about the Tavola Lucana and the so-called Bella principessa, and skepticism about the Salvator Mundi that went to auction at Christie’s last November (as the most expensive work in auction history), while he declared himself in favor of a Leonardo authorship (albeit with later interventions by other artists) of the portrait of Isabella d’Este found in a private collection.

His studies include the catalog of Leonardo’s drawings in the Windsor collections (1968-1969), the catalog of the Codex Atlanticus, published in 1980, and the edition of the Hammer Codex (of 1987) . Pedretti has also edited several monographs on Leonardo, mostly published by Giunti, some of them in the well-known Dossier d’Art series, of which works such as Leonardo. Painting, Leonardo. The Portrait, Leonardo. The Machines and Leonardo. The Codices (the latter written together with Marco Cianchi). The last monograph, edited together with Paolo Galluzzi and Domenico Laurenza, had come out, again for Giunti, last year.

Farewell to Carlo Pedretti, great Leonardo da Vinci scholar

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