Distribution / Foreign series / "Leonardo"

LEONARDO

The film is a careful study of the life of Leonardo, based on eyewitness accounts and documentary evidence about him, and on what we know of the period in which he lived. This is not therefore a romanticized version of his life, but a serious study of the man and his work as an artist. In order to highlight the latter aspect, we have introduced a character to serve us as a 'guide', who enters and exists in modern dress as the film progresses, moving among the Renaissance characters and sets, and thereby brings out the more deeply concealed aspects of the artist's personality, rather like a documentary investigation.
Leonardo was the illegitimate son of a peasant woman from Vinci, fathered by a notary, Ser Piero da Vinci, and his early childhood was deprived of love and family affection, which possibly explains his closed, introverted temperament. After beginning his artistic experience as a painter in Verrocchio's study, in Lorenzo il Magnifico's Florence, main cultural and artistic center of Europe, Leonardo began to move in the court circles all over Italy like every other sage and artist of his time. He thereby came to know the leading figures of his age, Ludovico il Moro, Isabella d'Este, Niccolo Machiavelli, Pier Soderini, Leo X, Raphael, Perugino, Michelangelo, and was received everywhere with deference and awe. Yet, despite such great fame and the fact that everyone thought so highly of his much sought-afterwork and presence, he spiritually isolated himself from the others, becoming inward-looking and virtually a prisoner of his own genius. There is no evidence at all to suggest that he ever had any friends or love affairs.
Very little remains today of his wide-ranging interests and works. A few codices remain as our prime source of knowledge about him, some drawings, very few paintings and no scuplture or machine, and the eye-witness accounts of his contemporaries are very few in number, and largely unreliable.
The series ends with the artist's death in France, while staying with Francis II who, probably more than anyone else, appreciated his genius.

Directed by: Renato Castellani
Cast: Philippe Leroy, Giulio Bosetti, Carlo Simoni, Glauco Onorato, Anna Odessa

Italy
5 x 1 TV hour