Description: Leonardo Da Vinci saw in painting a form of science, a way of researchig, a mental journey which is language. Contrary to the words, painting has the power of immediacy and universality of communication. But painting needs words and Leonardo knows it well. It happens when the discourse talks about painting. In this case the images are silent, the artist's work risks disappearing, the sense of research remains hidden, in this case words are the rescue. After all, Leonardo's training developed in Florentine workshops that handed down their culture orally and empirically. Later, in Milan, Leonardo became a writer and voracious reader. He became convinced that painting needed a 'book of painting' that would specify the principles of the science of painting and codify a didactic approach.
Brief description: Margherita Quaglino Professor of History of the Italian Language at the University of Turin. He studied the language of Ancient Optics and the autographs of Leonardo da Vinci.