Leonardo's Lost Princess (18 page)

I might have left it at that. But just when I thought no more manna would fall from heaven and no more revelations were left to be uncovered, a miracle occurred in the most unlikely of places, the land of my ancestors: Warsaw, Poland.

14

Miracle in Warsaw

Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness.

—Leonardo da Vinci

By the fall of 2010, the controversies had died down, and we were in something of a holding pattern. The Gothenburg showing had been a phenomenal success, and we were discussing future opportunities. One day in late September I received a call from Martin. He told me he had a hunch he wanted to discuss with me. It was a long shot, he warned, but it might be the final stamp of proof we needed.

I sat up a little straighter in my chair and urged him to go on. Martin and Pascal had always contended that
La Bella Principessa
had been cut out of a bound book—some kind of wedding commemorative or other memorial, which was common to the court. On the left edge of the portrait, where it was jagged, there were signs of three stitching holes and a double vertical incision within the lower margin that appeared to be the result of a knife’s slipping when the sheet was being cut. Martin thought that the portrait had been excised from the bound book at some point and laid down on a panel.

Now Martin told me he had recently learned through D. R. Edward Wright, emeritus professor of art history at the University of South Florida in Tampa, that the portrait might have come from one of the four surviving versions of the
Sforziada
, a eulogistic biography of Francesco Sforza, which were printed on vellum. Each contained a full-page illumination by the court artist Birago celebrating various glorious moments of the family’s history. One of these versions is now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Another is in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. A third—the only one to retain its original binding—is in the British Library in London.

Of particular interest to Wright was a fourth version that was housed in the archives of the National Library in Warsaw, Poland. The Warsaw copy had once belonged to Galeazzo Sanseverino, the duke’s trusted general and the husband of Bianca Sforza, the young woman we believe to be the subject of
La Bella Principessa
. The book was signed by the miniaturist Giovanni Pietro Birago, and the Birago miniature contained within it celebrates the wedding of Galeazzo and Bianca in allegorical form. The inscriptions refer to the divine sacrament of marriage and to the young bride’s fertility.

Now Martin told me—mentioning again that it was an extremely long shot—there was a chance that
La Bella Principessa
might have been cut out of the Warsaw book since it contained the full-page illuminated miniature with an apparent depiction of Bianca and the duke, among others at the court, in allegorical form. This highly prized and elaborate vellum page was commissioned specifically for Galeazzo and Bianca’s wedding in 1496 and had clearly been added to the book.

“So,” Martin asked teasingly, “might not a second page on vellum—the portrait of Bianca—also have been added to the manuscript at that date?” Martin suggested that it would be interesting to use the evidence of the nature and placement of these needle holes to look for other surviving quires (pages) from the same codex, which, with other physical clues, might shed further light on the provenance and original commission.

He had me hooked. This was exciting news, indeed. I knew that I must see the manuscript, although to set off for nearly arctic Warsaw, Poland, in mid-December was not exactly a thought I relished. On the other hand, how could I resist? Kathy agreed. So we decided to proceed as we always had: to combine the business aspect with a pleasurable trip.

Martin had put us in touch with Kasia Wozniak, a Polish researcher, who was just finishing her art history doctorate in Berlin. He spoke highly of her, and she was fully informed of our Leonardo saga. She was invited to join us and help arrange our appointments with the various library and museum directors. We allotted ourselves three days for Warsaw—plenty of time to explore the city and overcome any possible bureaucratic hurdles to viewing the
Sforziada
. The Poles were understandably very protective of their few treasures, which had miraculously survived Warsaw’s many calamities.

Before we had even packed for the trip, there was a potential setback. Kasia informed Martin that the National Library was strongly suggesting that a viewing of the microfilm of the book would be more than sufficient for our purposes. They were squeamish about bringing the heavily guarded original to the light of examination. That was understandable, since these old books are extremely fragile, but Martin was adamant. Our research was possible only if we could see the original and study the binding. He shot off a reply on December 4:

Dear Sirs and Madam,

I understand from my research assistant Kasia Wosniak that you have refused access to the
Sforziada
, suggesting that she and Peter Silverman look instead at a microfilm. This simply will not take forward the research at all, since it involves detailed codicological investigations that are simply not possible with any reproduction, even one of facsimile standard. The investigations involve: studying the physical composition of the MS, its binding, how its pages go in sequence, whether there are signs of removed pages; looking to see the means by which this copy has specifically been tailored for Galeazzo Sanseverino and any indications that it was created for his marriage to Bianca Sforza; and other observations of its composition that might be relevant to understanding its production in relation to the preceding versions of the
Sforziada
.

After 40 years research into historic manuscripts, including those by Leonardo, I of course am fully aware of the strains put on major historical holdings, but I am also aware of when consultation of the original is the only way to answer vital research questions. Thank you for your kind attention.

Martin Kemp

Martin’s letter seemed to have its desired effect. There were no guarantees, but it looked very likely that we would be allowed to view the original book if we made the trip to Warsaw. We had nothing to lose—and so very much to gain.

Christmas was approaching, and the lights and festivities in eastern Europe are particularly alluring. I had a bit of business to attend to in Vienna, so I booked us a Paris-Vienna-Prague-Warsaw-Paris ticket—a one-week trip to the heart of old Europe. We had our usual room at the Bristol in Vienna and attended the wonderful new opera
Il Postino
, which first premiered in Los Angeles with Placido Domingo. It was wonderful—a “triumph,” according to one Austrian paper. We also visited two spectacular expos going on concurrently at the Albertina museum. One was on Picasso and his political engagement during World War II, which was a revelation. The second was an extensive, once-in-a-lifetime show of Michelangelo’s drawings. The trip was already a success, in our eyes.

Two days later we were in Prague, halfway to Warsaw. We hadn’t been to Prague for five years, and we were captivated, as always. Prague, arguably the most beautiful city in old Europe, was resplendent with Christmas lights and spirit—a pure picture postcard of what the season should be—and under a lovely new dusting of snow. An old friend, Oliver von Dohnányi, an acclaimed conductor, had just been nominated director of the magnificent neo-rococo opera house, where we attended a fine production of Georges Bizet’s
Carmen
and dined with Oliver afterward. The following morning we set off for Warsaw.

We knew well the history of Warsaw: two hundred years of war, deprivation, communism, and nearly total destruction; the death of 800,000 of its inhabitants during World War II, including the total annihilation of its Jewish population of 350,000 by Hitler’s goons; the valiant fight the Jews waged from their ghetto exile, holding off their Nazi murderers for weeks before being mercilessly slaughtered. My former business partner, now an Israeli, was one of the handful to survive.

After the war, the people of Warsaw made a supreme effort to reconstruct their once splendid city, often using as their guide the views of paintings of the city by the eighteenth-century Italian court artist Bernardo Bellotto, which were in Poland’s state collections. A modern visitor would have no inkling of the horrors that transpired there just sixty to seventy years ago.

As a pleasant bonus, we were surprised to discover that Leonardo’s
Lady with an Ermine
was currently on exhibit at the Royal Castle Museum. We had last seen it in its permanent home in Kraków ten years earlier and were delighted with the opportunity to view it again. It was a good omen, and another reason to consider our trip a success.

On December 15, Kasia announced that she had arranged a viewing of the manuscript for the morning of December 17. That afternoon we received a phone call from Washington, D.C. It was David Murdock, producer of the forthcoming
National Geographic–Nova
documentary on the discovery. He told us that he would be willing to fly out that very evening if he was assured authorization to film at the moment we viewed the manuscript. By some brilliant tour de force, Kasia not only got approval from the National Library officials but also secured David’s entry to film the Leonardo exhibition in the museum as well. Within four hours of his call, David, dynamic, dedicated, and all of thirty-seven years old, was on a flight to Warsaw, where the temperature had dropped to -15 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit).

On December 16, we were all very kindly received at the Royal Castle Museum after closing hours. Armed guards stood by as David filmed
Lady with an Ermine
, the Leonardo on loan from Kraków. That evening Kathy and I attended a fine production of
The Marriage of
Figaro
(in Italian with Polish subtitles) in the magnificent reconstructed opera house.

The following day, with Mozart’s sublime music still ringing in our ears, we set off, accompanied by Kasia and David, for the big make-or-break moment. Would we find a vital clue about our treasure?

When we arrived at the National Library, we were cheerfully greeted by a lovely young woman whose appearance made us gape in disbelief. To our amazement, she had her hair braided in the same fashion as the woman in
La Bella Principessa
: a
coazzone
more than two feet long. It was very hard not to stare. Kathy and I shared a smile, both thinking this might be a lucky portent.

We were greeted next by Anna Zawisza, the head of manuscripts, who accompanied us into a room with an armed guard standing regally to one side. On a table at the center was a metal armored case in which the
Sforziada
was kept. Donning white gloves, Zawisza slowly and carefully removed the book and set it down. I showed her the life-size reproduction of
La Bella Principessa
I had brought with me and explained our reason for wanting to consult the manuscript. “We want to know if this Leonardo portrait was once bound into this book,” I said.

Zawisza’s eyes widened, and she became flustered. A Leonardo in her manuscript?

We began by measuring the page size to see if it corresponded to
La
Bella Principessa
and were gratified to see that it did, within a millimeter or two (a minute fraction of an inch). Zawisza pointed out that the slight variation might be explained by the fact that the manuscript had been rebound, probably two to three hundred years ago; its edges were cut slightly and trimmed with gold at that time.

Martin had surmised that the Leonardo portrait would have been placed either at the very beginning or the very end of the book, but after careful examination we could find no trace of a cut page in either place.

“May we turn each page?” I asked. It was not a simple request. The book was nearly two hundred pages, and it would be a bit laborious for her, since utmost care had to be used so as not to damage the precious work in any way. Arriving at page 7, we finally saw the resplendent full-page illumination painted by Birago, and we were thrilled by its quality. This was the stunning allegorical rendering. Looking at it, Martin’s comment made total sense: if such a piece were produced for the wedding, perhaps Leonardo would have been commissioned to do a page as well.

It was apparent that the three pinholes where the binding had been sewed, noted earlier by Martin, which we had hoped would be a key to matching, would not be relevant, since the book had been rebound using five sutures.

My mind was awhirl in flashbacks of the past five centuries, when this very book was lovingly composed for Bianca and Galeazzo Sanseverino’s marriage. How could I not have suspected sooner that there was a Polish connection to this conundrum—after all, Leonardo’s
Lady with an Ermine
had been in Polish hands for two hundred years! Historical records chronicle the connections between the Sforzas and the royal house of Poland. Bona Sforza, the daughter of Bianca’s cousin, married Sigismund I of Poland in 1518, taking her private possessions (and possibly this very manuscript) with her on her epic journey from Bari to Kraków.

We slowly continued to view each page, but there was no sign of a missing page. Had we come all this way for an opera and a tour of Warsaw? I had begun to abandon hope and to mentally prepare myself to return empty-handed. But then Zawisza turned page 161.