Is the story of a “golden boy” and the fault of Leonardo da Vinci in his death?

According to a common opinion, the artist and inventor allegedly arranged a holiday in which a boy took part, completely covered with gold paint. Because of this, he had violated thermoregulation and the child died. We checked the reliability of this story.

In the domestic tradition, there are two main versions of this story in which the place and time of action, the main participants and other details are distinguished. The first is represented in the multi-volume "Children's Encyclopedia", which at the turn of the 1950-1960s was released edited in Dmitry of the good and Vera Barsonofieva. In volume "Man" (1960) It is said: “In the last days of 1496, in the luxurious castle of the Milan Duke of Moro, they were preparing for the New Year holiday. <...> The device was led by a great artist and an unexplored mechanic Leonardo da Vinci. He conceived to glorify the golden age of the world, which came after many years of the Iron Age of devastating wars. For the image of the Iron Age, the blacksmiths under the supervision of Leonardo da Vinci made a huge figure of a lying knight, chained in armor. And the golden age was supposed to portray a naked boy, covered with gold paint from head to toe. It was the son of a poor baker. Father for money provided him for the amusement of the Duke. In the midst of festive fun, a defeated knight was brought into the hall. The "golden boy" with wings and a laurel branch in his hand came out of his womb. He looked in fright at others, pronouncing a greeting greeting to the duke. ” Subsequently, the boy died. In the version set forth at the same time by Alexei Dorokhov in the edifying book “It is worth remembering: a book on how to behave, so that you and others are better and more pleasant to live” Events Transferred From Milan of 1496 to Florence of the 1515th, the customer of the holiday instead of the Duke of Moro (aka Lodovico Sforza) was Lorenzo Medici, the reason-the glorification of the pope of the Roman lion X instead of the New Year, and Rafael instead of Leonardo. Moreover, Dorokhov calls the name of the boy - Paolo, his father from the baker turns into a stalemate, a boy’s sister named Annunzit is added to the actors, and the narrative abounds with fiction. The story of the Golden Boy is still quite actively reprinted on social networks, for example Facebook, "Classmates" And "Yandex.Zen".

Even a cursory comparison of the two Soviet sources is enough for doubts about the veracity of history. The number of differences in the texts that appeared in the same country and approximately at the same time, it seems unrealistic large. More questions arise after studying the biography of the authors of these presentations. So, the article “Children's Encyclopedia” is placed in the “Man” volume, which in general Dedicated anatomy and psychology, and the story about the "Golden Boy" serves A peculiar eyeliner to the story of thermoregulation. The author of the article of interest to us was Alexander Kabanov - physiologist And the author of the popular textbook on anatomy, but not an art critic and not a historian. It was not possible to find confirmation of what education was also with Alexei Dorokhov, the author of the second version of the story about the Golden Boy.

At the same time, earlier texts with a similar plot are also known. So, in 1900, Dmitry Merezhkovsky published the historical novel “The Risen Gods, or Leonardo da Vinci”. The version presented by the writer in many ways coincides With the presentation in the "Children's Encyclopedia": the action takes place at the festival of the Milan Duke, and Leonardo is the initiator. At the same time, Merezhkovsky clarifies the name of the boy - Lippi, but does not specify that what was happening was part of the New Year's holiday (which in Italy of that time in general Not noted). Although the writer, graduated The historical and philological faculty of St. Petersburg University probably possessed a much greater examination in this topic than the physiologist Kabanov, do not forget that his text is still a work of art.

However, the version of Dorokhov finds an earlier “confirmation”. In 1924 there was published The story “Golden Boy”, which is already about the beginning of the 16th century, Raphael, Medici and Florence. The author of the text is Margarita Yamshchikova, who wrote under the pseudonym Al. Altaev. In this “story from the history of Italy” the boy is also called Paolo, and the narrative is artistic, not an academic character. Yamshchikova does not give any references to sources, but to find confirmation that the writer had historical or art history, as well as experience with historical documents.

In English sources, the story of Leonardo and the “Golden Boy” is also found in texts that cannot be considered historical or art history. For example, the American poet George Sylvester Virek has written in 1912 poem “Ballad of the Golden Boy”, based on this plot. In the note is the poet calls He found this story about Leonardo, which, by his own admission, he discovered in an unnamed “Book on Hygiene”. In 1935, the author of the note in the New York newspaper The Brooklyn Daily Eagle Used A more categorical characteristic of the “myth” (by the way, the boy survived in his presentation thanks to the help of Leonardo). Similar text at the same time I went out In several other regional American newspapers.

If we turn to authoritative historical and art history texts, we can find that a similar episode really took place in Italy of the time of the Renaissance, but its descriptions are seriously different from the books presented in Soviet books. Georgio Vazari, who was the first to make the biographies of artists of that era, reportsthat in 1513, before the great post in Florence, a triumph was arranged like the ancient Roman in honor of the election of the Roman Leo X. The one who saw the celebration of Lorenzo Medici decided to organize an even more magnificent triumph, for the design of which he invited, in particular, the painter of the Jacobo pontammo. The celebration also participated in the celebration, or rather, the triumph of the Golden Age, furnished with the magnificent and richest ingenuity, an abundance of embossed figures made by Baccio Bandinelli, and the most beautiful paintings painted by Ponto's hand. Among the embossed figures of special praise deserved the figures of four main virtues. In the middle of the chariot, a huge sphere towered, which had the appearance of the globe, on which a man in completely rusty armor lay facelessly, as if frozen. His back was open and dissected, and a completely naked and gilded boy crawled out of the wound, depicting a resurrecting golden age and the end of the Iron Age, from which he arose and was revived thanks to the election of a new high priest. <...> I won’t keep silent that the gilded lad who served as an apprentice at the bakery and underwent this flour to earn ten pantry, very soon after that he died. ”

As can be seen from this passage, Vasari does not mention in connection with the story of the “golden boy” neither Rafael nor Leonardo. Perhaps the latter became the acting person in some presentations of this story due to the fact that the founder of contemporary art history Notes: Pierro da Vinci worked on the first of the triumph described by him. Art critic calls him the father of Leonardo, although this denies The author of comments on the original text. There are quite few about the da Vinci family, but the artist himself in 1513 was already over 60, so his father’s active participation in the festival is extremely unlikely. Moreover, according to some sources, da Vinci-senior died back in 1504.

Considering that Vasari was a pioneer of art history, inaccuracies in his work for obvious reasons were found by colleagues who worked later. At the same time, the episode with the Golden Boy avoided such criticism, and more modern researchers also do not mention neither Leonardo nor Raphael in connection with this story. For example, the Swiss historian Jacob Burkhardt in his work about Italy in the Renaissance, albeit Curses The story of Vasari, reports about another "Golden Boy". 40 years before the events in Florence, a relative of Pope Sikst IV and the future cardinal Rafael Riario made a magnificent reception in Rome. In one of the halls, according to Burkhardt, “a living child, gilded from head to toe,” played the role of a kind of fountain - he gained water in his mouth and, circling, released it with stream. The story of a Swiss historian Confirm and archival letters studied in 1996 by American Meg Licht. Neither these historians and art historians, nor in other authoritative sources, we could find the references to Leonardo or Raphael in connection with this plot (the latter was not yet born then).

Thus, two episodes with the participation of “golden boys” in different celebrations in Italy in the Renaissance are known. The first of them, confirmed by the memoirs of contemporaries, occurred in 1473 in Rome, the child of the premises depicted a statue-Fonet, and as well as participation in the organization of Leonardo's reception) was not reported. The second took place in 1513 in Florence - during the solemn procession in the city of the Golden Boy, symbolizing the Golden Age, climbed out of the statue of the knight in armor, and later died. In the presentation of Vasari, the author of this idea was not Leonardo or Rafael, but Jacobo Pantormo. We were not able to find a refutation of this attribution in more modern research.

For clarity, you can summarize the versions described above in the table:

As can be seen from this table, presented in Soviet children's literature (and before that, in some artistic texts like the Merezhkovsky novel), the version is seriously different from the above Vasari and Burkhardt and are not confirmed by modern specialists. Although in the West, already in the first half of the 20th century, the story of Leonardo and the “Golden Boy” was characterized at best as a “joke”, and in the worst as “myth”, Soviet authors wrote popular texts on its basis, not being professional historians or art historians. And if in the presentation of Altaev and Dorokhov the plot was blurdrined relatively harmless (attributed the idea of ​​Raphael, slightly changed dating, invented the names for the boy and his relatives, etc.), then the writer Merezhkovsky, and later the physiologist of the wild boars changed history almost until recognition.

Most of the untruth

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Is it true that if you completely cover the skin of a person with paint, then it will die?
2. J. Vasari. Biographies of famous painters, sculptors and architects
3. J. BURCKHARDT. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
4. M. Licht. Elysium: A Prelude to Renaissance Theater