Conference: Paragone. Leonardo in Context, International conference on Leonardo da Vinci. Leipzig, 18–21 July 2019
So many are the areas of interest and activity associated with Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) that it is difficult to obtain a clear view of them all from a single, unifying perspective. Leonardo differs in this respect from other seminal artists of the Italian Renaissance, such as Raphael, Michelangelo and Titian. Leonardo’s success, influence and fame are based not solely on his innovative artistic oeuvre, but also on an unusually wide-ranging and heterogeneous corpus of drawings, notes, reflections, treatises and studies pertaining to almost every discipline of the day. In conjunction with other contemporary documents, this very extensive artistic and written legacy allows a precise reconstruction of Leonardo’s thinking and work, as well as his intellectual development. The large number of possible areas of focus (proportion theory, anatomy, optics, hydrology, botany, architecture, engineering, mechanics, philosophy, etc.) leads, however, to a fragmentation of research. The aim of this conference is to bring together individual strands of Leonardo scholarship in terms of a contextualizing comparison, namely in the example of individual project areas – here in particular painting, architecture, engineering, military technology, hydrology and mechanics. In this spirit, the conference takes its title from “Paragone”, the term with which Leonardo’s exploration of neighbouring arts and sciences can be described.
The full programme of the conference is available here.
Venue: University of Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek Albertina, Beethovenstraße 6, 04107 Leipzig (Lecture Hall, Ground Floor, West Wing)