Talk:Francesco Melzi

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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): HillmanHan.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:26, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): CarolineFrankDuke. Peer reviewers: Aquinnah.fox.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:46, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

2017
Here I found a citation you can use for "Francesco's father, Gerolamo Melzi, was an engineer for Francesco II Sforza's military and a captain in the militia in Milan under Louis XII." And have added after the sentence. Bruno Nardini, ''Leonardo. Portrait of a master'',Giunti Editore 1999, pp.140HillmanHan (talk) 21:23, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

"One of his children, Orazio, would inherit Leonardo's manuscripts after Francesco's death in 1569/70." This Sentence does not have a solid prove. You should either cite it from a reliable source or delete it. If you are able to find a source for that, you also should move it to other categories like "Relationship with Leonardo Da Vinci" instead of putting it in "Early life and Training" "Francesco Melzi's career is inextricably linked to Leonardo da Vinci, and this could be a reason why he is not well-known—because his master overshadowed him. "This sentence is much of a personal opinion rather than solid fact that can be proven. I would suggest the author to delete it.HillmanHan (talk) 20:19, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

I do hope to see more on Francesco Melzi who is one of the most prominent pupil of Leonardo and known to treasure his master's work a lot. With such identity, more information about him should be provided, especially his missing portrait, the introduction( being an Italian painter is far more than enough), and more illustrations of his work. Also, some the language structure is too casual right now, for example: "He was reasonably talented in the arts", why "reasonably"? I will try to find more sources and revise this page as best as I can.HillmanHan (talk) 03:09, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

This article is very underdeveloped and needs some attention. Because Melzi was a relatively prominent pupil of Leonardo da Vinci's and an accomplished painter, more information on him should be readily accessible to the public. With the sources listed below, I will do my best to edit and add to this article to make it a substantial source of accurate information on Melzi. I will add information on his early and family life, for example, and also about his relationship, apprenticeship, and career with Leonardo da Vinci. I will also add information and media files of more of his works / paintings.

Works Cited

Bora, Giulio, and David Alan. Brown. The Legacy of Leonardo: Painters in Lombardy, 1490-1530. Milan: Skira, 1999. Print

Fiorani, Francesca. “The Colors of Leonardo’s Shadows.” Leonardo, vol. 41, no. 3, 2008, pp. 271-218.

Richardson, E.P. “An Ideal Portrait by Francesco Melzi.” Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts, vol. 29, no.4, 1949, pp. 80-81.

Woods, Kim W. Making Renaissance Art (Renaissance Art Reconsidered). Vol. 1. New	Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007. Print.

Wilcox, Marrion. “Francesco Melzi, Disciple of Leonardo.” Art & Life, vol. 11, no. 6, 1919, pp. 294–299

“MELZI, Francesco.” Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press, n.d. Web.

2007
I do not hope to get in to an argument about pederasty. In the wikipedia entry of Leonardo, I certainly find no evidence to substantiate the claim made in this article. While it is certainly possible, I would defer in this regard until there is evidence. If not this tagging has the appearance of suggesting that pederasty has an accepted lineage or legitimacy in the Western world.

Bottom line, if the editor in question can not have such incendiary points substantiated by anything other than rumor then I do not believe it meets the criteria for being included in this article. I would like to add a further criteria for its inclusion here: if the prior comments about pederasty were true, then have them pass the muster of acceptance in the Da Vinci entry, which is likely to have far more editors. If it does not meet criteria to be there, then I do not believe it should be quoted or alluded to here. CARAVAGGISTI 01:06, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Again, if you can make such a statement clear the criteria for inclusion in the Leonardo article, then I would concur. It is not a universally accepted fact. It is not mentioned in many biographies of Leonardo. Again, just because you want it to be true, does not make it true. CARAVAGGISTI 18:40, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Additionally, my recommendation is that you seek administrator competence in this regard. CARAVAGGISTI 18:40, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

2008
While it is clear that some have argued that Leonardo and Melzi had a homosexual relationship, the proof for this is lacking. I will make some points:

We know of Melzi from Vasari and from scanty documentation of the youngman. Vasari does state that Leonardo found the young man dashing. We have strong evidence that Leonardo had homosexual tendencies, if not the 15-16th century equivalent of a homosexual. We know that Melzi stated that Leonardo was very endeared of the young man. We know that Melzi inherited much from Leonardo. What we don't know is whether Melzi had a "love-relationship", in the ways we would understand today, or whether he was a dear valet to the elder Leonardo. It is possible, but based on the available evidence, it remains hypothetical. The term love in the 1500s was used to describe the close amity of two males, without always having a romantic or sexual nature.

I have strong dislike for the term "life-long relationship" when Leonardo met the young man for the first time when he was 54 yrs old, or for the last 13 years of his life. Since we cannot say with certainty it was "love" in the way we would evision today, we certainly can not say there was "love at first sight". Therefore, we cannot say it started when he was 15.

I know that Wikipedia frowns on editors casting personal assessments on contributors, but I have made this assessment before of Haiduc's many edits. One of the main focus of his contributions has been to underscore pederastic relationships between the mighty and the minor or vice versa. There is no doubt such encounters have occurred, but he finds them even when the data is minimal, and the source questionable as is true for the text of forbidden friendships and Louis Crompton's book. He will string statements like: "Florence during the Renaissance was a place and time of renewed interest in arts and sciences...Pederasty was very common in Renaissance Florence". The suggestion appears to be that pederasty is a fountain for a healthy renewed interest in arts and sciences. That is not a neutral point of view. In addition, promotion of pederasty, despite Haiduc's claims in the pederasty article that there is nothing sexual to it, is highly troublesome, given the illegal nature of such sexual relationships. In Haiduc's case, this is not an inadvertant comment, but a main focus of his contributions. As I stated before, if Haiduc had evidence of a "life-long love relationship" between Melzi and Leonardo, then by all means, insert it into the [Leonardo da Vinci] article. The fact that such claims can not be inserted with his language into that article, because they would be rejected by other authors, supports my point.

CARAVAGGISTI (talk) 00:22, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The recent edits do nothing to address the questions above. AnotherSolipsist, who reverted my edit, was blocked for unspecified pro-pederasty edits. The statement "life-long love relationship" is unsubstantiated; the source provided only hypothesizes this. I recommend you to read Vasari's few line entry on Melzi:


 * "who was a child of remarkable beauty, much beloved by him and is now a handsome and amiable old man, who sets great store by these drawings and treaures them as relics, together with a portrait of Leonardo of blessed memory."


 * Again, there is no need to read those 10-15 years Melzi spent with Leonardo as a life-long love relationship, since Vasari also claims that:


 * Fra Giovanni da Fiesole was so greatly "beloved" by Cosimo de' Medici (page 25)
 * Lorenzo de Credi was "beloved" by Andrea Verrochio.
 * or


 * "Luca Signorelli that he had a son killed in Cortona, a youth of singular beauty in face and person, whom he had tenderly loved." CARAVAGGISTI (talk) 20:02, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Countering the (many) above contentions
There are a number of problems to your approach, which I would like to address in the order you presented your argument.
 * 1) You open by claiming you will not be drawn into an "argument about pederasty" and them immediately launch into one. What is it to us here whether or not pederasty has "an accepted lineage or legitimacy in the Western world?" We are writing an article about an individual known for his association with Da Vinci. Discussions of the validity of various categories should be relegated to those talk pages, where they can best be addressed.
 * 2) In posts from both 2007 and 2008 you take issue with the numerous academic and literary sources that have discussed Da Vinci's homosexuality and his relations with his companions. We are not here to "disprove" published sources. At the same time I cannot resist the urge to ask you whether you really believe that men's relations with their "dear valets" were commonly described as "ardentissime" or "sviscerate?" That aside, the presentation of their relationship should be in keeping with the tone taken by those sources which are recent enough to have integrated the methods and ethics of queer studies, not the older ones from more censorious times.
 * 3) I have no objection to removing the term "life-long relationship." In retrospect I can see that it is misleading.
 * 4) I would be grateful if you could refrain from misrepresenting my work here. I do not "promote" pederasty, I document it. I do not claim that "there is nothing sexual" to pederasty, though I have documented the fact that it is not necessarily sexual -- a very different matter. Furthermore, there is nothing intrinsically illegal (any more) about such relationships. If Da Vinci and Melzi at fifteen were again a couple today in Italy, they could be lovers freely and openly under Italian law.
 * 5) Finally, in one last tilt at the windmills of published scholarship, you set out your proofs of the many uses of "beloved" in Renaissance Italy, implying that one cannot draw conclusions of erotic love from the mere use of the word. Granted, the word then, as today in modern English, had more than one use, the erotic being merely one of them. Are you claiming, however, that the historians who have concluded that Da Vinci was essentially homosexual were too stupid and ignorant to be aware of that simple fact? Let me list here a few of the authors you presume to disagree with: Queers in History by Keith Stern, p.228 (who asserts that "it is well established that [Leonardo] was gay;" Leonardo Da Vinci, Selected Scholarship by Claire Farago, p.215; A history of celibacy: Experiments Through the Ages by Elizabeth Abbott, p.341 (who mentions Giulio Mancini's aside about Da Vinci who "made such carefully observed anatomical studies of the handsome young Signor Francesco Melzi;" Haiduc (talk) 14:28, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Melzi, "very talented artist"?
Says who?

His greatest achievement wasn't his art - he's totally unknown for painting - but his guardianship of Leonardo's notebooks, which he seems to have been preparing for publication according to Leonardo's wishes. PiCo (talk) 10:02, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

The nature of the relationship
When Melzi's father placed him in Leonardo's care, Leonardo already had one boy, Salai. If Melzi's father had suspected that Leonardo was "interferring" with this other kid, he would have thought twice. Or wouldn't he?

Secondly, I'm sick of that quotation about Leonardo's love for his puplis being lifted out of context. Was Count Melzi really informing Leonardo's brothers (upon the death of their older sibling) that Leonardo had the hots for the kids in his care? Or are Melzi's expressions intended to convey the fact that Leonardo's pupils were loved, encouraged and cared for?

The interpretations "gut-wrenching" and "incandescent" sound mighty powerful in English. We needs to keep in mind that in every language expressions such as these are used figuratively. If an English boy has "guts" (as in bravery, rather than love) then it might mean a great deal, or it might simply mean that he "owned up" to the cricket ball through the window. In this case, Leonardo's love might best be described as "deep-seated" rather than as in the English expression "gut-wrenching" which applies to a painful emotion such as overwhelming grief.

Amandajm (talk) 04:10, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

To whom...
..were those paintings sold? Wikipedia really can't find the provenance? Someone must know.LéVeillé 03:24, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

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Infamous
"the infamous red chalk portrait"

Why is it infamous?94.191.133.160 (talk) 23:23, 28 November 2018 (UTC)


 * @94.191.133.160 Agreed, why is it infamous? 2001:8003:952D:4600:DC5C:E017:6C90:98CB (talk) 17:55, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

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 * La belle ferronnière,Leonardo da Vinci - Louvre.jpg