If William Shakespeare believed that eyes are the windows to the soul, then how did Leonardo da Vinci regard the nose? While the Italian polymath has historically been associated with artistic mastery and scientific ingenuity, lesser known is his deep fascination with fragrances.
The recently published exhibition catalog Leonardo da Vinci and the Perfumes of the Renaissance dives into this largely unexplored facet of the artist’s life by highlighting his personal engagements with perfume. From Leonardo’s upbringing in Tuscany, where aromatic plants like jasmine and orange blossom thrived in the region’s hilly landscape, to his working space, which was filled with botanical books and strong-smelling oils, resins, waxes, and fats that were incorporated into his art, Leonardo’s life was teeming with scents that stirred curiosity and influenced other aspects of his work. The book itself pulls from the multisensory exhibition of the same name curated by historians Carlo Vecce and Pascal Brioist, which ran this past summer at the Château du Clos Lucé in Amboise, France, and contextualized Leonardo’s artistry through the history of Renaissance perfumes, similar to that of the 2018 virtual show reexamining South Asian artistry through scent, Bagh-e-Hind.
Through a combination of artworks, fragrance recipes, and texts by historians and three-dimensional reconstruction experts, the catalog constructs a timeline that not only retraces the development of Renaissance scents but also their impact on Leonardo and his contemporaries. It begins with Vecce’s claim that the polymath’s mother, Caterina, was an enslaved woman who was trafficked from her home in the Caucasus region to Italy during the spice trade, introducing scents like cinnamon, myrrh, and musk.
The book continues to draw connections between Leonardo’s childhood and his work as an adult, when he diligently copied recipes for perfumes and drew up technological sketches for alembic distillation mechanisms. Quoting his notebook in the foreword, novelist François Saint-Bris points out how Leonardo’s experiments allowed him to develop a deep understanding of the relationship between color and smell. “Note how aqua vitae collects in itself all the colors and scents of the flowers,” the artist wrote. “If you want to make azure, put cornflowers in it; and wild poppies for red.”
Further teasing out the continuity between Leonardo’s perfume practice and artistic work, Brioist details how the artist’s preoccupation with odors helped influence his technical and architectural designs, from household latrines and horse stables to residential gardens for aristocratic patrons. When Leonardo designed plans for what he perceived as the model city in 1485, he specifically sought to eliminate putrid smells that resulted from overcrowding and poor ventilation.
Leonardo’s obsession with smell may seem a bit intense, but as the essays point out, perfume (and odors) played a significant role in Renaissance society, where hygienic practices were questionable and disease was rampant. One tactic to ward off sickness was the use of scented clothing and accessories like gloves and sachets, frequently donned by French and Milanese nobility. Accordingly, essayist Paula Venturelli sheds light on Leonardo’s “Lady with an Ermine” (c. 1489–1491), whose subject is shown wearing a black necklace exemplifying the period’s fashionable perfumed paternoster beads, for which the book even includes a recipe that consists of freshly ground bread crumbs, wine, and egg yolk. This recipe can also be used to make aromatic knife handles, and for those with a nose for fragrance, there are even directions on how to make “Chypre birdies,” or sculptures made of perfumed paste, and gloves scented with almond oil mixtures and musked rose water. Then again, considering these recipes came before the advent of routine bathing and expiration dates, it may be better to stick to the stuff from the store.
