Happy New Year with Leonardo da Vinci

The winter solstice is traditionally associated with rebirth, and that’s why we say that the year that comes is “new.” Rebirth means hope and the birth of a new era was announced long ago to a young woman in the land we call Palestine. Leonardo da Vinci celebrated that announcement with one of his first paintings around 1472-1476, now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

The incredible thing is that the place that Leonardo used as a background for his painting is still there, in the church of San Bartolomeo a Monte Oliveto in Florence, where the young Leonardo was working in the studio of his master, Andrea del Verrocchio. And here it is, in a picture I took a few weeks ago: it is a little more than 1 km from my home, in Florence. I had never been there before! (here is a link to the place on Google Maps)

Some things have changed, and some clearly were something that Leonardo added out of his personal fantasy. But the place is still the same. You can still find there some of the cypress trees that Leonardo painted more than half a millennium ago. Walking there, you get the tremendous impression that Leonardo had been there not long before and that if you had arrived just a little earlier, you could have met him!

During this half-millennium, there were bad moments and good moments, but hope never left us completely. So, we can still hope for a better time for humankind.

Happy new year, everyone!