London,
On January 25, 1504, soon 521 years ago, some of the most prominent artists then working in Florence met to debate what would be the most appropriate location for the David by Michelangelo, which was almost finished. Among them was Leonardo, who, like Buonarrotti himself, had not long returned to the city; Both would exert a decisive influence on another genius who stood out in this same environment and in the same period, although his life was a nomadic one: Rafael Sanzio.
Until next February 16, we can visit at the Royal Academy of Arts in London “Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael: Florence, c. 1504”, an exhibition curated by Professor Scott Nethersole and curators Per Rumberg and Julien Domercq, in whose organization the Royal Collection Trust and the National Gallery have collaborated. From forty works he realizes the rivalry between the first two masters and their influence on the one from Urbino, still his admirer; among the assembled pieces there is no lack of Tondo Taddei of Michelangelo, the famous Burlington House Cardboard of Da Vinci and the Bridgewater Madonna by Raphael, as well as a compilation of drawings that we can place among the finest of the Italian Renaissance.
That Tondo Taddeiwhich dates precisely to 1504-1505 and is the only marble sculpture by Buonarrotti in the United Kingdom (it is part of the Royal Academy’s own collections), opens the route, being exhibited together with his preparatory drawings. It dates from that moment that we can consider feverish in the vibrant culture of the Florentine Republic, when this magnificent trio crossed paths seeking the favor of the most influential patrons. This relief would leave a fundamental mark on Raphael, as can be easily seen in the aforementioned Bridgewater Madonna (1507-1508), only slightly later and now in the National Galleries of Scotland, and in the equally contemporary Madonna of Esterházy (around 1508), which has arrived in the British capital from the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest.
The trace of Michelangelo and Leonardo in them is easy to follow in the use of chiaroscuro and in the spirit given to the relationship between the Virgin and the Child, who intertwine their bodies and, in the first case, also their gazes. These compositions are determined by harmony and balance, the intense and vivid colors that provide substance to the figures. He inherited the treatment of the subject in the same way: in the Tondo Taddeithe Virgin is portrayed with the Child Jesus extended on her knees, accompanied by the infant Saint John clutching a fluttering bird; and the motif of a serenely smiling Virgin and Child, represented in contraposto on a dark background, also derived from Da Vinci.

To the Burlington House Cardboard of the latter, which houses the National Gallery and whose date has been pushed back to 1506-1508, the central area of the exhibition is dedicated: it returns to the Royal Academy for the first time in more than sixty years. Recent investigations have been made about this piece: the Virgin Mary is sitting on her mother’s lap, with her attention focused on the writhing Child Jesus. Saint Anne stares at her with sunken eyes and points towards the sky, indicating the divinity of the Child. Saint John the Baptist, meanwhile, leans on Anna’s lap while Jesus tickles her chin.
This large drawing was made in preparation for a painting, probably as a presentation work: a life-size study of what the painting conceived for a patron or a group of patrons might look like. In a certain sense, however, we can think of it as a work of art in its own right, unlike other drawings that were normally used for such purposes. Often known as “the Burlington House cartoon,” it is the only large-scale drawing by Leonardo that survives.
Some parts of the composition are densely shaded and contrasted with lighter areas, to give a three-dimensional effect, for example the faces of the figures and elements of the drapery, such as various sections of the Virgin’s sleeve and the folds of fabric covering the knees of Saint Anne. Other areas, such as the headdresses and feet of the women and the pointing hand of Saint Anne, are simply marked with outlines.

The exhibition culminates by showing us a set of drawings related to that effectively mythical meeting between Leonardo and Michelangelo: in 1503, the government of Florence commissioned the former to create a monumental mural, the Battle of Anghiari, in its newly built council room; in late August or early September 1504, around the time the David by Michelangelo in the ringhiera fIn front of the Palazzo Vecchio, he was asked, on the other hand, to paint the battle of Cascina. Neither project was ever completed, but the Royal Academy has assembled its preparatory sketches from various collections across Europe, including a significant group on loan from Charles III of England. Both can offer us very interesting visions of the interests and approaches of both artists as they developed their compositions. The tour closes with a drawing by Raphael, dated 1505-1506 and coming from the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, in which he meticulously replicated the central scene of the Leonardesque battle of Anghiari.


“Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael. Florence, c. 1504”
ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS
Burlington House
Piccadilly, London
From November 9, 2024 to February 16, 2025