Warburg Director's Seminar - 'Leonardo da Vinci and Architecture'

Sabine Frommel, Université PSL (Paris Sciences & Lettres): 'Leonardo da Vinci and Architecture'

Found scattered among his numerous manuscripts, Leonardo's studies on architecture were conceived during an artistic journey of close to fifty years while their author was in the service of the most prestigious patrons. Dealing with churches, ephemeral monuments, urban reconstruction, fortifications, palaces and villas, and painted architecture—mostly ideal in nature—they are part of the architectural evolution of the late quattrocento and early cinquecento. Leonardo's drawings assimilate the ideas of the pioneers of Renaissance architecture, mainly Bramante, Francesco di Giorgio, Giuliano da Sangallo, and focus on particular aspects, such as interventions on existing structures, classical orders, staircases, and decoration. A study of this corpus sheds light also on dialogues with Michelangelo, Baldassare Peruzzi and Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and allows us to better understand whether Leonard’s contributions were innovative, or singular interpretations of the achievements of his time. The lecture will emphasize, based on chronological and typological topics, some of the main themes of Leonardo’s architectural production, identifying their sources, methods of assimilation, and questions concerning the enduring legacy of his contributions.

Sabine Frommel is director of studies at the Chair d’histoire de l’art de la Renaissance of the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Sorbonne, PSL), a position she has held since 2003. In 1995, she completed her doctoral thesis on the architectural oeuvre of Sebastiano Serlio at the University of Marburg (Germany), which was subsequently published in three languages. In 2001, she was awarded a habilitation at the University of Paris IV (Sorbonne) with a project on artistic exchanges between France and Italy in the modern era. From 2013 to 2015, she was visiting professor at the University of Bologna (Dipartimento di Filologia Classica e Italianistica). In 2020 she held the ‘Chaire du Louvre’ and presented five lectures on painted architecture in Italian Renaissance. She is a corresponding member of the Académie Royale de Belgique of the Académie des Beaux Arts (Institut de France), and recipient of the Sulmona Prize (Prize for Art Criticism, XXI edition). Her scientific interests cover a wide range of intersecting subjects: the great architects of the Italian Renaissance, European transfer, the representation of architecture in painting, the legacy of the Renaissance up to the nineteenth century, and the birth and development of the discipline of architectural history. She is leading an international project entitled Temple, synagogue, church, mosque: connections, interactions and the politic of conversions. Some of her most recent publications are Grotte artificiali di giardino, (with Lauro Magnani, Genoa (Genoa University Press), 2024; Leonardo and architecture (with Jean Guillaume), Leiden/Boston (Brill), 2025; A Challenge for painted architecture in Early modern Times (with Piet Lombaerde), Turnhout (Brepols), 2024; Peindre l’architecture pendant la Renaissance. Origines, évolution, transmission d’une pratique polyvalente (Chaire du Louvre), Paris, 2020; Giuliano da Sangallo. Architekt der Renaissance. Leben und Werk, Basilea (Birkhäuser), 2020. 

This event is part of the Warburg Director's Seminar series, which brings leading scholars and writers to the Institute to share new work and fresh perspectives on key issues in their fields. 

ATTENDANCE FREE WITH ADVANCE BOOKING

Image: Leonardo da Vinci, Projects of a villa, details of Palazzo Caprini in Rome, Turin, Biblioteca Reale. Codex on the flight of the birds, inside cover, facsimile.