Leonardo da Vinci: The Last Mystery?
Tomb of Leonardo. St Hubert’s Chapelle
After more than five hundred years, thousands of books and millions of words written about Leonardo da Vinci, there are not many mysteries left surrounding him.
Except one.
Although he died 2 May 1519, he was not buried until 12 August.
Where was he for those three months during high summer?
He must have been embalmed.
In France, only Kings and Queens were embalmed. It distinguished royals from commoners but Francis I must have accorded Leonardo this uniquely royal honour.
We know a lot about royal embalming from records of the death of Queen Charlotte of Savoy who died in the Royal Chateau of Amboise in 1483 a mere thirty-six years previously.
Two barber surgeons from Amboise removed her heart which was buried in the private, royal, chapel of Saint Florent in the Château grounds.
After the removal of her organs, the cavity was filled with taffeta to give volume.
Charlotte’s personal apothecary supplied all the necessary ‘drugs and good smells’.
She was embalmed with myrrh, frankincense, lavender, laurel, aloe, camphor, salt, quicksilver, rose water and vinegar.
A local tradesman provided oiled cloth, which a tailor made into a narrow dress and trousers prohibiting moisture and air to delay the decomposition of the corpse. She was then sewn up.
Charlotte was taken to the chapel of The Holy Sepulchre, ‘the little chapel dungeon’ reserved for the royal family (below present day St. Hubert’s Chapel) where she was placed in a wooden coffin encased in lead welded with tin inside a sealed chest.
Following a private service attended by her immediate family, she was taken to Saint Florent where the public was allowed to pay their respects.
Leonardo died in his bed at home in Château Clos Lucé. The myth that he died in the King’s arms is just that, a myth but as Francis I hero worshipped Leonardo, it is inconceivable that he did not go there to pay his respects.
Was he reluctant to say goodbye? Reluctant to bury his idol?
Where was Leonardo for those three months? Did Francis observe the period of mourning reserved for members of the royal family? Did Leonardo lie in state so that people could pay their respects?
Leonardo’s coffin was carried from Château Clos Lucé by priests from Saint Florent to the church where the clergy of the four parishes had already assembled along with sixty paupers each carrying a large funerary candle.
Francis I idolised Leonardo. He treated him as one of his own. Better than one of his own. Much better. The King of France looked upon him as his equal. More than his equal. How could he not.
Leonardo realised before anyone else; what fossils are; long before Galileo he knew that the earth is not the centre of the universe, it’s a planet which moves around the sun in an elliptical orbit; that human muscles are levers; the eye is a lens; the heart is a pump.
He invented; the propeller; prefabricated buildings; rolling mills; a screw cutting machine; the bulldozer; spinning machine; the differential gear system; the anemometer to measure the velocity of wind; the diving bell, the canal lock and life preserver.
He developed tools for measurements such as an odometer and a magnetic compass for sensing directions. The list goes on.
As I write this, a film about Robert J. Oppenheimer is doing the rounds. He is known as the ‘father of the atomic bomb’ but Leonardo knew all about atoms. You could say he foresaw Hiroshima.
‘There shall come forth from beneath the ground that which by its terrific report shall stun all who are near it and cause men to drop dead at its breath’.
Post by Pamela (BA History of Art). Photography by Mark.
