‘Between Reality and Utopia: Leonardo da Vinci and the Ideal Renaissance City’ is the name of the lecture organised by the Italian Ambassador in Lisbon, Uberto Vanni d’Archirafi, in association with the prestigious Portuguese Foundation Calouste Gulbenkian to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci. The lecture will be delivered in Lisbon on 19 June by Claudio Giorgione, curator of the Leonardo, Art and Science Department of the Leonardo da Vinci National Science and Technology Museum of Milan.
The theme of the lecture is the debate that arose around the ideal city, which was widely dealt with in 15th century literature, from Filarete to Francesco di Giorgio Martini. Leonardo too was fascinated by the idea of planning a city like a formally accomplished organism, moulded not so much around celebratory, elegance or perfection criteria as much as on concrete functionality factors. His drawings dated between 1487 and 1490 for a new city planned for Ludovico il Moro, Duke of Milan, are contained in a packed pile of sheets of the Manuscript B of the Institut de France. In these, Leonardo studies the city’s best location, its road network, the shape of the buildings, the sewage system and many more details.
Claudio Giorgione has been working at the Leonardo da Vinci National Science and Technology Museum of Milan since 1997 and is currently Curator of the Leonardo, Art and Science Department. He is also the Museum’s Coordinator of conservation and restoration projects. He is the curator of the exhibition “Leonardo da Vinci. Science before Science” running at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale from 13 March to 30 June 2019.