Lecture Series - Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael: Florence, c.1504

You will not need to download any software and the lecture will work in any browser. For the best experience use a desktop or laptop - but it will also work on an iPad or similar tablet. You will be also able to re-watch. After the lecture, all those who register will automatically be sent copies of the lectures to view in your own time.

The Royal Academy’s winter exhibition programme is dominated by an overview of what must have been a remarkable series of encounters: Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael: Florence, c.1504 (closes 16 February) when these three dominant figures of High Renaissance art crossed paths in Florence for a brief period that year. The display brings together three masterpieces – Michelangelo’s early sculpture, The Taddei Tondo which belongs to the RA; Raphael’s ‘Bridgewater’ Madonna, lent by the Duke of Sutherland and the National Gallery of Scotland; and Leonardo’s famous ‘Burlington House Cartoon’ of The Virgin, Child and St Anne with the Infant St John the Baptist, which the National Gallery purchased from the RA in 1962. The rivalry between Leonardo and Michelangelo is also explored when both were commissioned to paint monumental ‘Battle’ frescoes for Florence’s town hall, the Palazzo della Signoria (now known as the Palazzo Vecchio). Neither fresco was ever completed, but they are recorded in two remarkable surviving copies in miniature, both of which the Academy have managed to borrow, together with the most astounding collection of autograph preparatory drawings. This is an exhibition not to be missed as one can literally see both men ‘at work’.

Lecture 1 – Wednesday, 29 January, 11am

Florence at Century’s Turn

Part 1 will look at the milieu within which Leonardo and Michelangelo received their training and created some of their early masterpieces: Leonardo within the workshop run by Verrocchio, Michelangelo working under Ghirlandaio. Florence at that time was dominated politically by the Medici family whose patronage was all important. It was a dominance ended when after the death of Lorenzo ‘the Magnificent’ in 1492, the family were shortly thereafter expelled and the city returned to the previous form of communal government by a council of citizens. Initially dominated by the doleful influence of Savonarola, once he was executed in 1498 the ‘commune’ began to commission works which celebrated the regained civic independence of the city. Private patrons also stepped into the shoes of the recently departed Medici and this first webinar will look at their role, such as the Doni and Taddei families. It was about this time that the young Raphael arrived in Florence, and we shall see how Michelangelo’s early sculptural masterpiece, The Taddei Tondo, helped shape the new arrival’s work, not least in his early masterpiece, known as The ‘Bridgewater’ Madonna of 1507 – 08.

Lecture 2 – Wednesday, 5 February, 11am

The Birth of the High Renaissance

Part 2 of the series will continue with an exploration of the often-tense relationship between Leonardo and Michelangelo as both men worked on a series of remarkable projects. First, there was Michelangelo’s innovative sculpture of David which became the symbol of a resurgent city, one which had cast off the power of the Medici. About the time Michelangelo first started work on this masterpiece c.1501 - 02, Leonardo may have either just completed or was in course of creating a large ‘cartoon’ of a Holy Family, which may or may be the now famous depiction in this exhibition, the ‘Burlington House Cartoon’. He was recorded still at work on such an image just as Michelangelo finished his David in 1503 - 04 - though recent opinion suggests that Leonardo’s masterpiece may date from even later that decade. In any case, by 1503 Leonardo had been commissioned by the commune to begin work on a fresco in the just built, new and very large Sala del Gran Consiglio in the city’s town hall (now known as the Palazzo Vecchio), the theme to be The Battle of Anghiari, a Florentine victory over Milan fought in 1440. Fresh from the installation of David outside the town hall, Michelangelo was also commissioned to paint a Battle scene for the same great chamber as Leonardo’s work, this time The Battle of Cascina, fought against Pisa in 1364. Leonardo at least began to paint his fresco, but he abandoned the work and left the city, his work later obscured by frescoes installed by Vasari, while Michelangelo never began to paint his fresco. What we do have are two records of the intended frescoes which give us a sense of their overall design, but more importantly we have large numbers of drawings produced by both artists which allows us to see them literally ‘at work’ as the imaginative mind’s eye translates via the hand the genius of both men.

Lecture Series - Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael: Florence, c.1504

January 06, 2025

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