Nothing is known about the circumstances surrounding the creation of Leonardo’s celebrated Saint John the Baptist, held in the Louvre. What has been estrablished is that, on 10 October 1517, it was presented to Cardinal Louis of Aragon, together with Saint Anne and the Mona Lisa, at the artist’s last home, the castle of Clos Lucé. But no document has yet been found which indicates a commission or the precise period in which it was produced. Some of his drawings do however enable us to date its conception to around the years 1504–1508, a phase of lively pictorial imagination during which various compositions saw the light of day.
Following a complete diagnostic investigation of the work by the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France, the Louvre recently conducted a restoration of the panel, which was finished in October 2016. The lecture will present the results of this delicate operation, focussing in particular on the findings that emerged in the course of it. Numerous “pentimenti” reveal Leonardo’s search for perfection in rendering the appearance of the saint in a glow of divine light, to the point of leaving some parts incomplete, as in the Mona Lisa and Saint Anne, the artist’s other two late masterpieces.

(The lecture will be given in Italian)