Visioni di Leonardo nel Novecento, tra Belle époque e Ventennio, fino all’«abominevole» Mostra del 1939

Abstract

The article proposes a reasoned choice of the major interpretative lines for the complex historical and artistic figure of Leonardo that developed in Italy between the late 19th century and 1939, when fascist Milan hosted, from May to October, the exhibition “Mostra di Leonardo da Vinci e delle Invenzioni italiane”. The author’s selection focuses – while taking into account the overall framework of the most relevant publications on Leonardo – on the examination of several personalities belonging to a cultural group composed of art historians, philosophers, scientists and writers (both fascists and anti-fascists), and of some divulgative texts that appeared until the 1930s, taking into consideration their impact on the genesis of the Milanese show and the profile of the Florentine artist proposed on that occasion, in attempting to reconcile what remained of 19th-century Positivism with the new currents of Italian Idealism: ‘genius’ of an alleged Italian race, scientist and inventor, forerunner of the times, precursor of the fascist man.