Vinci: kingdom of the Genius
by Giacomo Bezzi - Translated by Susan Glasspool

by Florence Concierge

Do you want to find a real genius? Why not take a trip to Vinci from Florence. First of all you need to reach Empoli, a frenetic town thanks to its flourishing industrial and craft activities; you can get there very easily by train, as the direct Florence-Pisa line (with connections to and from Siena) passes through the town and the trains run every hour or so. From Empoli you then need to catch a bus which are fairly frequent, especially on weekdays. Alternatively, if you want to go by car, you can take the FI-PI-LI motorway as far as Empoli and then simply follow the signposts. Vinci lies at the foot of Montalbano, a small hill covered partly in woods and partly cultivated with vineyards and olive groves, which are planted in such perfect geometric lines that the countryside seems to have been designed by the brush of Piet Mondrian. Montalbano is one of the finest areas of farmland between the Provinces of Pistoia and Florence, and has become famous in recent years since its fine D.o.c. wines and extra-virgin olive oils have been rediscovered; the oil in particular has frequently won important awards, like, for instance, the yearly "Olio d'Oro" contest, organised by the Pistoia Chamber of Commerce, whose main stages have always been transmitted live by the enthusiastic television channel TVL. Vinci has been an independent borough since 1954. Its historic centre is laid out on an almond shaped design instead of the usual spiral plan that is so typical of many of the towns and villages nearby, like Santa Maria a Monte, for example. ItÃs shape therefore somewhat resembles a two masted ship and also explains its nickname - certainly with a large dose of imagination - the Castle della Nave (of the Ship), with the Tower of the Rocca and the belltower of the Parish Church being the two masts with their sails. The Rocca - or Castle Guidi - is without doubt the most famous monument, but inside the Parish Church we can still find the lovingly preserved baptismal font where Leonardo da Vinci was baptised as a babe. The Genius was born in Vinci on April 15th 1452, the illegitimate son of twenty-five year-old Ser Piero, son of Ser Antonio of Ser Piero of Ser Guido da Vinci. Ser Antonio, the grandfather, owned several farms in the area but lived "in a house with a garden in the village of Vinci" and here Leonardo spent his childhood. His mother was a certain Caterina "daughter of the Woodcutter", who apparently came from what is today Cerreto Guidi. The year after Leonardo was born, she married a potter called Attaccabriga and moved with him to the tiny village of San Pantaleone, where she presented Leonardo with three sisters and a brother, who later died "from a mortar shot at Pisa". This is all Leonardo tells us about his family on his motherÃs side. On the paternal side, Ser Piero soon provided him with many brothers, all of whom were illegitimate. When his father died, Leonardo, by then a grown man, but already rich and famous - devised an infinite series of quarrels and law suits against them which were often extremely bitter and full of rancour. At the age of seventeen, LeonardoÃs natural father sent him to Florence to learn a trade and there he frequented the workshop of Verrocchio, studying alongside Sandro Botticelli, Perugino and other artists who later became protagonists of the Renaissance. So we could say that he really started out on his career as a universal genius from Florence and this was eventually to take him to Milan and Venice and, later still, to die, not at a great age, but covered in glory, at Amboise, in the region of the Loire, where he had been called in to work at the court of Francis I of France. His tomb no longer exists for it was profaned and destroyed by sansculottes during the years of the Terror. If you go to France, perhaps on one of the usual coach tours to Paris-Eurodisneyland-Castles of the Loire, stop off at Amboise and leave a flower in his memory. The Leonardo Museum instead can be found inside the Castle Guidi, while the square in front of it boasts a sculpture in wood by Mario Croli dedicated to the "Man from Vinci", reproducing the man from Vitruvius that we can now also find on the Italian one euro coins. Created originally as a display of models inspired by the drawings of Leonardo, the Museum houses one of the most important collections in the world of reconstructed models conceived by Leonardo, inventor and engineer. The museum occupies three floors. Visitors are welcomed on the ground floor by LeonardoÃs model for a parachute then the displays continue along a very logical route through rooms crowded out with machines that not only leave us amazed but also somewhat perplexed. This is because these are not just simple little models, but real working machines, carried out in natural size and in various materials:
* flapping wings, a car-cart, a paddle-boat, a bicycle, water skis, breathing apparatus for working underwater, webbed gloves, a life saving ring and a ventilator;
* many other machines for industrial farming: a twisting frame, an oil press, a millstone with a sifter to separate flour from bran, and then
* a loom, a machine for preparing mirrors, another for raising aerials, a roller and a large range of winches and windlasses.
These are all machines for what, in those days, were the rare periods of peace, in other words, the short intervals between endless and ferocious wars. Leonardo therefore invented a steam cannon, a fan machine gun, a mortar-piece mounted on a tripod and a tank or armoured cart. Leonardo, in fact, was always inventing something and was drawing and making experiments all the time: he tested human flight from Fiesole, using the wings we mentioned above and this event is remembered at Vinci with a colourful festivity known as the Flight of Cecco Santi. He was extremely lucky not to be accused of being a magician: it would have been fatal for him in those years of the late Middle Ages when he could easily have ended up on the stake. The Ideal Museum of Leonardo was opened only a few years ago in the gallery and in the vaults beneath the wine cellars: Utopia and Culture of the Earth, which hosts 400 art works arranged on three great themes: Leonardo and the territory His relationship with Art and the artists, The presence of protagonists of contemporary art in Vinci . The first room also contains an unusual collection of farming tools in order to show LeonardoÃs farming background, as well as many models of the machines he designed as a scientist, including his turbine for watermills. The second room instead boasts a collection of works intended to recall local artists and contemporaries of Leonardo like Pontormo and his nephew Pierino da Vinci, as well as original editions of his caricatures and his treatise on painting. The third and last room hosts works by contemporary artists like Matta, La Rocca, Berti, Nativi, Man Ray, Cox, and others. LeonardoÃs nephew, Pierfrancesco, known as Pierino da Vinci, was also born and bred at Vinci: he was a child prodigy and talented sculptor and left an enormous amount of work scattered in various parts of the country. He was not a genius like his uncle, but good enough for Vasari to dedicate one of his biographies to him. This minor Mozart of sculpture, who was very academic because he had not absorbed the lessons of Michelangelo, died in Pisa when he was only 23. In fact we can still find a sculpture by Pierino precisely in Pisa, in Piazza Cairoli which overlooks the Arno and is better known as Piazza della Berlina. The statue represents Abundance and looks melancholically down on the banks of the Arno from the top of a column. A little way outside Vinci - three or four kilometres through the olive trees of Montalbano - we can find the small village of Anchiano where we can visit the house where Leonardo was supposedly born. It could be classified as a restructured farm building which still retains the simple lines of a typical Tuscan farmhouse. It contains a small collection of Leonardian relics together with a sundial in local grey stone on the paving stones of the forecourt, donated by IBM, which sponsored the restoration of this ancient ruin along with the more important Museum of Vinci. Vinci forms part of the Terre del Rinascimento (Lands of the Renaissance) tourist organisation: the all-inclusive ticket not only includes admittance to the Leonardo Museums, but also the Collegiate Museums at Empoli and the History of Ceramics Museum at Montelupo Fiorentino.