Sight unseen: vision and perception in Leonardo's Madonnas: in the first of two articles on Leonardo da Vinci, Larry J. Feinberg explains how the artist's interest in the way the eyes work influenced his realistic depictions of the Christ Child as a baby learning to see

Apollo, July, 2004 by Larry J. Feinberg

(26) The Nonesuch Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Poems, London and New York, 1953, lines 213-14, p. 212.

(27) Leonardo's brooches are modelled on those in the sculpture, paintings, and drawings of Verrocchio and his shop, such as the master's terracotta relief of the Madonna and Child (c. 1475) in the Bargello, the metalpoint Study of a Female Head (c. 1470-75); Musee du Louvre, Departement des Arts Graphiques), alternately attributed to Verrocchio or Perugino in his workshop, Lorenzo di Credi's Madonna di Piazza (c. 1478-85; Pistoia Cathedral), and his Madonna of the Pomegranite (c. 1475; National Gallery of Art, Washington) and the preparatory study for it (Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden). See Andrew Butterfield, The Sculptures of Andrea eel Verrocchio, New Haven and London, 1997, figs. 109, 111, and 248, and David Alan Brown, Leonardo da Vinci: Origins of a Genius, New Haven and London, 1998, figs. 144, 150, and 152. Leonardo substituted the green gemstone for the rubies depicted in the Verrocchio school works.

(28) The second part of the Latin name for the carnation--Dianthus ceryophyllus--derives from the Greek word for 'nail', which was employed as a botanical term by Pliny in the Nature/History (XII, 30), vol. IV, pp. 22-23; he and others made this appellation because the buds of carnations (end of flowers of related species) resemble nails. The French name 'giroflee', comes from carophyllum, and the German word for carnation, 'nelke', is a form of the term 'Negele (Nagel)', or nail For the medieval-renaissance association of carnations with the nails of Christ's cross, see Ingvar Bergstrom, Den symboliska nejlikan. I senmedeltidens och renassansens konst, Malmo, 1958, pp. 27 and 72-73; Robert A. Koch, 'Flower Symbolism in the Portirrari Altar', Art Bulletin, vol. LVI, March 1964, p. 73; and Margaret B. Freeman, The Unicom Tapestries, New York, 1976, p. 148, According to an obscure legend, carnations grew from the tears shed by the Virgin on the road to Calvary. See Diana Apostolos-Cappadona, Dictionary of Christian Art. New York. 1994. p. 72. In some renaissance depictions of the Virgin and Child, a red carnation, appropriately of Middle-Eastern origin, may have been substituted for the rose--the traditional symbol of Mary--because the latter flower increasingly had become associated with Venus and profane themes.

(29) Although the painted plant is usually identified as jasmine, it could actually represent a wallflower (to which the structure end pattern of the leaves are more similar) or some other species of the cruciferous family. See Everett Fahy, The Legacy of Leonardo: Italian Renaissance Paintings from Leningrad, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1979, p. 13; and William A. Emboden, Leonardo da Vinci on Plants and Gardens, Portland OR, 1987, pp. 120-21. In fact, wallflowers are perhaps more commonly depicted than the relatively exotic jasmine in late medieval and renaissance art, as the Unicorn Tapestries (c. 1500) In The Cloisters, New York. See Freeman, op. cit., p. 127. Whatever the species of flower in the Benois Madonna, Leonardo has the petals to make the blossoms more cross-like. Leonardo's followers seem to have been aware of the master's concern for the babies" eyesight in the Munich end St Petersburg works. Having already made a drawing (Uffizi, no, 1197E) after the child in Leonardo's Munich picture, Lorenzo di Credi painted a Virgin and Child (c. 1485: Galleria Sabauda. Turin) in emulation of the Benois Madonna and its visually-challenged. Francesco Napoletano also executed a Madonna (c. 1478-83; Brera, Milan) based on the Hermitage picture, in which the child is presented as having difficulties with hand-eye coordination. See Gigetti Dalli Regoli, Lorenzo di Credi Pisa, 1966, no. 5, fig. 6, and no. 36, fig. 24; and Giullo Bora et al., The Legacy of Leonardo: Painters in Lombardy 1490-1530, Milan, 1998. pp. 201 and 204, fig. 79.