Grotta di Laorca
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The Grotta di Laorca or Grotta di San Giovanni is a cave located in Laorca in the municipality of Lecco on Lake Como.
Studies[edit]
The cave is the most famous one in Grigna studied for a long time by Leonardo da Vinci and mentioned in his Codex Atlanticus.
In this cave Leonardo da Vinci during his stays in Lierna created his two painting Virgin of the Rocks datable to 1483-1486 and kept in the Musée du Louvre in Paris, while the second version is kept in the National Gallery in London. The cave depicted in the "Virgin of the rocks" strongly recalls the karst complex of this cave in Lecco, located at the entrance to Valsassina.
In 1483 Leonardo together with two colleagues, Ambrogio and Evangelista de Predis, began the painting for the Franciscan brotherhood of the Immaculate Conception in Milan, now known as the "Virgin of the Rocks". The famous masterpiece of the Renaissance genius was set in the cavity above Lecco.
The profile of the entrance is the same and the spiers of Val Calolden and southern Grigna can be recognized, then again the Sasso Cavallo and the Sasso Carbonari in place of the lake which in reality should be seen, but which was deliberately replaced by the surrounding landscape.
Leonardo da Vinci left many traces of his passage through the territory between Lecco, Lierna and Fiumelatte in his creations. The Gioconda is an example of this: note the view of the Adda from Calco to Brivio, the San Martino, the Rocca di Airuno, the Azzone Visconti bridge, the Barro, Mandello, the peaks of Olgiasca, Dervio and Bellano, even the Sperada of decorated pins also worn by Lucia Mondella of the Promessi Sposi. The Last Supper inside the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie is perfectly aligned with the Resegone. «It is not a question of random elements, but of sought-after references, to trace in his paintings a sort of historical and cultural map of the Sforzas of Milan and to pass on the philosophical, scientific, astronomical, geographical knowledge hitherto forgotten».
In the Mona Lisa there are settings from the Lecco area, including the fourteenth-century Azzone Visconti bridge, with its unmistakable arches. Mount Barro and the course of the Adda which becomes Lake Garlate, while San Martino stands out on the left. In the foreground, the most famous and enigmatic smile in the history of art, that of the Mona Lisa. Not the Val d'Arno or the profile of the Montefeltro hills as a backdrop. But Lombardy, the mountains of Lecco and the ancient bridge at the entrance to the capital as the backdrop for Leonardo's Mona Lisa.
Leonardo da Vinci was in Milan in 1483 and remained at the Sforza court until 1499, but he often traveled from Milan to Lake Como, staying in Lierna to visit Fiumelatte, he was fascinated by the mountains of Lecco and the motions of the waters. He mentions them in the Codex Atlanticus: «I maggior sassi schoperti chessi truovano in questi paesi sono le montagnie di Mandello, visine alle montagnie di leche e di gravidona». Leonardo is interested in the karst phenomenon of the Grigna, where she assured that she saw "fantastic things".
Behind the Gioconda is the Azzone Visconti bridge, while on its left stands the San Martino in the profile that can be seen from Calco, an important town from a symbolic point of view because it was there that the Sforzas defeated the Venetians in 1449, giving life to the Duchy of Milan. But the Mona Lisa is not the only painting that reproduces the landscape of Lecco. The Virgin of the Rocks, a canvas preserved in the Louvre, where the Madonna is represented with the Child and San Giovaninno, is set in a cave in Laorca. You can see the spikes of the Calolden valley, the Sasso Cavallo and the Sasso Carbonari. The botanical species present in the work, endemic to the area where the cave of San Giovanni Battista is located, the Aquilegia, dear to Leonardo and the Mapello, both present in the immediate vicinity of the cave, also confirm the goodness of this interpretation.
Even the background of Leonardo da Vinci's Annunciation, created in 1472, would immortalize San Martino, the peak overlooking Lecco. The painted cliffs are unmistakable. The two goatees, the clean cut in the mountain, he maintains. Finally, the trump card: «The Mona Lisa's hairstyle was a "sperada", with 12 pins, the typical sunburst linked to the iconography of Lucia Mondella, typical of the province of Lecco.
These are not random elements, but references sought by Leonardo da Vinci to trace in his paintings a sort of historical and cultural map of the Sforza of Milan.
Even the profile of the apostles in the Last Supper inside the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie is perfectly aligned with the Resegone, while in the Virgin of the rocks the archangel points to the hand of the Virgin, which is nothing but a clear reproduction of the Lake Como.
The statues of Leonardo da Vinci from the cave of Laorca[edit]
Inside the cave there are two silhouettes attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, clearly visible in the dark.
The body of the sculpture would be that of a Venus holding a child in her arms, whose original shape, however, has been erased by the weather.
Links[edit]
This article "Grotta di Laorca" is from Simple English Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Grotta di Laorca.
