Leonardo da Vinci and the Perfumes of the Renaissance

Pascal Brioist, Professor of Modern History at the University of Tours. Carlo Vecce, Professor of Italian Literature at the University of Naples l'Orientale. Carmen Bambach, Chief Curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York).

A fascinating journey into Leonardo da Vinci's works, the Renaissance and its perfumesThis exhibition catalogue is a journey into the perfumes of the Renaissance, through the daily life of Leonardo da Vinci and the legacy of his mother Caterina, who came from the shores of the Black Sea where she was sold as a slave. The book delves, among other things, into the scents of this region, and of this brilliant era: the spices, incense and musks of Constantinople, the perfumed costumes of Venice and Milan, and the treatises of Francis I's apothecaries. The book highlights the plants of the Tuscan master's childhood, such as olive, jasmine, juniper, lemon and orange tree, as well as the smells of the workshop, walnut and linseed oils, rabbit-skin glue, resins, waxes and fats. Leonardo himself concocted fragrant recipes, from the most delicate to the most nauseating, using enfleurage and distillation techniques.