Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael: Florence, c.1504

The Royal Academy’s winter exhibition programme is dominated by an overview of what must have been a remarkable series of encounters: Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael: Florence, c.1504 (closes 16 February) when these three dominant figures of High Renaissance art crossed paths in Florence for a brief period that year. The display brings together three masterpieces – Michelangelo’s early sculpture, The Taddei Tondo which belongs to the RA; Raphael’s ‘Bridgewater’ Madonna, lent by the Duke of Sutherland and the National Gallery of Scotland; and Leonardo’s famous ‘Burlington House Cartoon’ of The Virgin, Child and St Anne with the Infant St John the Baptist, which the National Gallery purchased from the RA in 1962. The rivalry between Leonardo and Michelangelo is also explored when both were commissioned to paint monumental ‘Battle’ frescoes for Florence’s town hall, the Palazzo della Signoria (now known as the Palazzo Vecchio). Neither fresco was ever completed, but they are recorded in two remarkable surviving copies in miniature, both of which the Academy have managed to borrow, together with the most astounding collection of autograph preparatory drawings. This is an exhibition not to be missed as one can literally see both men ‘at work’. Originally my plan was to devote one webinar to the exhibition but having spent time exploring it over a series of visits, I have decided that it needs two webinars.