• continued from previous post: In the beginning was the Word

In my previous post I mentioned that the Infant Baptist figure in the Botticelli painting displayed in the Barber Institute is also a representation of Leonardo da Vinci. Botticelli refers to Leonardo in this guise in several of his paintings. He was not the first to do so. The connection stems from the Baptism of Christ painting attributed to Andrea Verocchio in which Leonardo is said to have had a hand in as well, painting one on the angels (himself). The other angel gazing in admiration is Sandro Botticelli. The Christ figure is Verocchio who has portrayed Leonardo as John the Baptist.

Notice the the similarity in the Baptist’s stance, the placement of feet and the raised right arm above the head of Christ, compared with the infant Baptist in the Botticelli painting. It’s tempting to say that the Christ child could even be Botticelli – but it’s not. Compare also the similar placing of the Madonna’s feet with those of the baptised Christ, and with Leonardo’s under-drawing of the Virgin’s ‘pointy’ toes in his abandoned painting of the Adoration of the Magi.

Another pointer to Leonardo is the shape of the red cloak draped over the Baptist’s clothes made of camel hair. This relates to Leonardo’s first memory as a child in his cradle. In later years, while making notes about the flight pattern of birds and the fork-tailed red kite (milvus vulgaris), he wrote: “Writing like this so particularly about the kite seems to be my destiny, since the first memory of my childhood is that it seemed to me, when I was in my cradle, that a kite came to me, and opened my mouth with its tail, and struck me several times with its tail inside my lips.” Although the notebook entry is thought to be have been made around 1505, it is possible that the incident was related orally to others at earlier stages in Leonardo’s life.

The fork-tailed red cape also relates to another type of kite – one that Leonardo constructed in his quest to fly. Although there is no written evidence that Leonardo ever did get off the ground in this way, Botticelli included a similar reference in the Uffizi version of the Adoration of the Magi. In making the attempt Leonardo may have possibly sustained a permanent injury to his right shoulder. This could explain his preference for writing and painting with his left hand, despite recent claims by researchers that he was ambidextrous.

• My next post will deal with some of the features from Leonardo’s Portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci which Botticelli has cleverly adapted to conceptualise his painting of The Madonna and Child with the Infant John the Baptist.