We all know what they say about imitation and flattery, in art as in life. Things were no different in Florence during the early 16th century, when three artists who would become known as the brightest stars of the Italian Renaissance brought a brief flurry of activity — rivalry, camaraderie, innovation — to the city that was changing rapidly under new political leadership after six decades of Medici family rule.
In the exhibition “Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael” at the Royal Academy in London through Feb. 16, a subtle dance of influence between the three men is traced through three rooms of paintings and sculptures, but predominantly drawings — a medium of experimentation, study and process.
The story begins in 1504, a pivotal year when Florentine officials and the recently elected head of the city government, Piero Soderini, were deeply invested in representing the fresh and independent attitude of a new era through art.
On Jan. 25 of that year, 30 of Florence’s foremost artists met to discuss where to install a newly unveiled sculpture: “David,” by the 29-year-old Michelangelo. They decided to put the muscular biblical hero, with a slingshot in one hand and a stone in the other, at the doors of the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence’s town hall, as a symbol of plucky might. (It is now in the city’s Galleria dell’Accademia, and a copy stands in the original spot.)
One of the artists weighing in on Michelangelo’s giant was Leonardo da Vinci. He was 23 years Michelangelo’s senior, and, like the younger artist, had recently returned to Florence. At the time, Leonardo was working on his own masterpiece, the “Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, Wife of Francesco del Giocondo,” later called the Mona Lisa. The two would soon come into closer contact — and competition — when they undertook parallel commissions for the town hall’s lavish Great Council Hall, which was to be filled with art that promoted Florentine independence and military strength.
Later that year, a 21-year-old upstart named Raphael also arrived in Florence to study the work of the two vying men he saw as the greatest living artists, and it is from here that the exhibition’s compelling argument of rivalrous influence unfolds.
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