Leonardo da
Vinci was the prototype of the Renaissance man - a scientist,
mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor,
architect, botanist and writer. He was the illegitimate son of a
notary, Piero da Vinci.and spent his life working in Milan, Rome,
Bologna, and Venice, and spent his final years in France at the home
given him by King Francis I in whose arms he allegedly died.
Leonardo kept
his private life secret.
When he was twenty-four
years old, Leonardo was arrested, on the charge of sodomy with Jacopo
Saltarelli, a notorious male prostitute.
No witnesses appeared
against them and the charges were dropped.
His sexuality has often been the subject of
study, analysis, and speculation,. most notably and unfortunately by
Sigmund Freud. Freud's
ill-conceived psychoanalytical treatise on the relationship of Leonardo
da Vinci's sexuality to his art and other expressions of his genius
postulated that Leonardo was impotent - which may be Freud's best
example of psychobabble.
We can gain same insight into Leonardo's
sexuality from both his art and his writing. Leonardo basically
considered all sex as an act of rape and not of mutual sexual
satisfaction. Leonardo further believed that it was man's essential
nature to rape and cause pain, while women were essentially forced to
suffer the rape with patience and resignation.
The model for most famous painting, the
Mona Lisa, has been the subject of speculations for hundreds of years.
Freud also speculated that the famous smile was a recollection of
Leonardo's mother's smile (Oedipuss réchauffé) .Some art
historians claim the the model was Lisa del Giocondo In
the April 1095 Scientific American.
Lillian Schwartz
demonstrated how Leonardo morphed his own image into the to the Mona
Lisa, possibly one of the earliest examples of artistic gender bending |
The
Italians and the French have both created many eponymous culinary
tributes to Leonardo although the majority of them are meat
dishes, which are an inappropriate choice since Leonardo was a
vegetarian in his later life, occasionally making an exception at court
banquets and eating a little fish. The most authentic of these tributes
is Tagliatelle alla Leonardo da Vinci, an historically appropriate choice considering that
tagliatelle was created for Lucrezia Borgia, the sister of Cesare Borgia, who offered Leonardo post
as his chief military engineer.
So what could be a more appropriate recipe
to celebrate Leonardo's birthday than this eponymous tagliatelle which
we suggest pairing with a viewing of
Ever After: A Cinderella Story
i (1998) with Patrick Godfrey portraying
Leonardo. The popular film is also being transformed into a
Broadway musical which is expected to premier in 2014
Tagliatelle alla Leonardo da
Vinci
|
|
|
|