There can rarely have been such a meeting of political jeopardy and artistic genius as in Florence in 1504. After the violent overthrow of the Medici family a decade earlier, and the execution of the zealot Savanorola in 1498, the new Florentine government, beset by ongoing wars with Pisa, was desperate for symbols to help stabilise the city’s fragile republic. To that end, Niccolò Machiavelli, the minister whose name has become synonymous with such political scheming, was among those instrumental in bringing the two towering artists of the age, Leonardo da Vinci, then 52, and Michelangelo, 23 years his junior, into direct competition to create those public statements, to help make Florence great again.
That ultimate artistic standoff is the subject of an exhibition entitled Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael now open at the Royal Academy in London. The context echoes down through the centuries. To begin with, Leonardo was invited to help decide the placing of Michelangelo’s statue David, which went on display that year; once together, however, the pair were seduced to produce for the walls of the council chamber rival frescoes of the two great military triumphs of Florentine history: the battles at Cascina and Anghiari. It was the first and last time they worked in the same room.
