Some years ago there was a UK vehicle manufacturer that traded under the name of LDV (Leyland DAF Vans). The company was based in Birmingham and for a brief time sponsored Aston Villa, one of the local football clubs. The team’s shirts were emblazoned with the LDV logo and the sponsorship ran for a couple of seasons, from 1998 to 2000.

Last weekend I came across another logo made up from the letters L, D, and V. It has a strong and long connection with Birmingham, as far back as 1943, although the logo itself is considerably older and was designed over 600 years ago by the polymath Leonardo da Vinci.

A logo or signature represents a mark of identity or attribution. It is used to authenticate and to indicate ownership, a sign of endorsement or sealing, a symbol of recognition.

Leonardo da Vinci signed his name in various ways, sometimes abbreviating it to three intials and merging them to create monograms as shown below.

A variation of Leonardo’s monogram or logo appears in a painting housed in the Green Gallery of the Barber Institute of Fine Arts located on the campus of the University of Birmingham. The painting is by the Florentine artist Sandro Botticelli – a contemporary of Leonardo – and titled: The Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist. There is a copy or another version of this work housed at the Galleria Palatina in Florence with some variations, notably the mirrored figures.

The logo is not the only Leonardo reference in the painting. There are others. The child Baptist figure is a depiction of Leonardo. The Madonna references two of Leonardo’s works: The Adoration of the Magi and the painting titled Portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci – a misnomer as the woman is Fioretta Gorini, said to have been the mistress of Giuliano de’ Medici and mother of his son given the name Giulio. He later became Pope Clement Vll.

So what about the monogram or ‘logos’? It’s formed by the rather contrived scarf or symbolic knotwork of the Madonna’s headcover. In the Barber version it reads left to right. However, the Palatina version the letters are mirrored, acknowledging Leonardo’s tendency for mirror-writing predominant in his notebooks.

I mentioned earlier that a monogram or ‘logos’ as a type of seal or endorsement. Notice the Baptist’s right thumb playing or pressing on the Christ child’s earlobe – a play on the Greek words lobos (lobe) and logos (word, speech). Also, touching the ear in this way also forms part of the rite of Baptism and so points to another painting, The Baptism of Christ attributed to both Andrea del Verrochio and his pupil Leonardo. Botticelli and Leonardo are the two angels featured in the painting. So has Botticelli depicted himself as the Christ Child in his own painting, only to be rejected later by Leonardo in favour of Fioretta Gorina in the guise of the Madonna? Or could the abandoned baby Botticelli represent another child rejected by Leonardo? And who does the cross in the background belong to – Leonardo or Botticelli, or is it shared?

It is not unknown for Leonardo to have left a thumb or fingerprint (a unique identifier) when picking up his work, as shown in the drawing below. This is echoed by the Madonna’s left hand lifting her mantle.

Both hands of the Madonna also echo those of the same figure drawn by Leonardo for his painting of the Adoration of the Magi. The so-called ‘pointy toes’ that are a prominent feature of the Madonna in the Adoration painting are also replicated by Botticelli on his Madonna.

But why would Botticelli want to drape Leonardo’s monogram around the Madonna’s neck and shoulders. Was he implying that there was some kind of attachment by Leonardo to the Virgin – or even the model Fioretta Gorini? For sure there is the primary overlay of religious meaning to the painting but could there also be an underlyng and a more secular narrative that Botticelli has embedded in the work? It was not unknown for Botticelli, for whatever reason, to target and refer to Leonardo in many of his paintings.

• continued in next post: Leonardo, preacher and prophet