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PROTAGONIST / CELEBRATIONS

by the master craftspeople of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, a
world-renowned centre of excellence based in Florence. Four and
a half years of work, concluding in 2017, which as Schmidt says,
“made it possible to save a masterpiece at risk - and more besides.”

orking on this marvellous and in many ways still-mys-
terious masterpiece by Leonardo, we have brought to
Wthe surface a very rich world that was living in the work,
which had been hidden for all these centuries, and we have final-
ly managed to peek inside Leonardo’s mind.” Then, the second
step, a radical rethinking of the exhibition, with the allocation of
a hall in the Uffizi to the three great masterpieces of Leonardo
that are kept in the museum; but - who knows why - were stored
in different places until last July. Now the Adoration, the Annun-

ciation and the Baptism of Christ dialogue in a single space: a
hall in soft tones designed especially “to exalt the fullness of the
shapes, so typical of Leonardo’s style,” explains Schmidt. “Finally
the visitor has an opportunity to follow a chronological path, dis-
tributed over two halls, which connects the three absolute geni-
uses: Leonardo, Rafael and Michelangelo, who were all in Flor-
ence at the start of the sixteenth century in competition with
each other. The atmosphere we have recreated is very intense,
it is as though the three great maestros had spoken to each oth-
er, without closing their eyes.” The third step, which brings us to
today, is the exhibition that opens the celebrations of Leonardo
and exalts the scholar’s acuteness by bringing together some of
his most famous ‘fogli’ or sheets. The title of the exhibition, cu-
rated by Paolo Galluzzi, is the Microscopic Water of Nature, The
Leicester Codex of Leonardo da Vinci, and it places the empha-
sis on the exceptional nature of hosting the Leicester Codex, to-

Above, Eike Schmidt, director of the Gallerie degli Uffizi since 2015.
Right, ‘The Adoration of the Magi’ after restoration:
Leonardo worked on it around 1481; the work remained unfinished.

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