The oldest anatomical handmade skull of the world c. 1508: ‘The ugliness of growing old’ attributed to Leonardo da Vinci

Abstract

The author discusses a previously unknown early sixteenth-century renaissance handmade anatomical miniature skull. The small, naturalistic skull made from an agate (calcedonia) stone mixture (mistioni) shows remarkable osteologic details. Dr. Saban was the first to link the skull to Leonardo. The three-dimensional perspective of and the search for the senso comune are discussed. Anatomical errors both in the drawings of Leonardo and this skull are presented. The article ends with the issue of physiognomy, his grotesque faces, the Perspective Communis and his experimenting c. 1508 with the stone mixture and the human skull. Evidence, including the Italian scale based on Crazie and Braccia, chemical analysis leading to a mine in Volterra and Leonardo's search for the soul in the skull are presented. Written references in the inventory of Salai (1524), the inventory of the Villa Riposo (Raffaello Borghini 1584) and Don Ambrogio Mazenta (1635) are reviewed. The author attributes the skull c. 1508 to Leonardo da Vinci.

The Mona Lisa Portrait: Leonardo’s Personal and Political Tribute to Isabella Aragon Sforza, the Duchess of Milan

“…Instead, they provided a photograph of Isabella Aragon Sforza's metallic green skull (Fig. 11 & D'Errico et al 1988, Lanzirotti et al 2014, a vital clue and an anatomical body part that Leonardo did not neglect as seen in his beautiful drawings and sculptures of skulls (Missinne 2014). And so, if Leonardo da Vinci's portrait of Mona Lisa is in fact Isabella Aragon Sforza, the Duchess of Milan, and not the Florentine, Lisa Gherardini, then we conclude our argument here by reflecting on her enigmatic and metallic green skull (Fig.…”