Biography

Frank Fehrenbach is an art historian whose work focuses on the interrelations between art, natural philosophy, and science in early modern Europe. He was a senior professor at Harvard University until 2013, when he was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Professorship at Hamburg University. Since 2019, he is co-director of an interdisciplinary Center for Advanced Study on Imaginaria of Force. Fehrenbach published widely on Leonardo da Vinci, including the LVIII Lettura Vinciana (2020). More recently, he published an extensive monograph on the concept of “enlivenment” in Italian Renaissance art, Quasi vivo. Lebendigkeit in der italienischen Kunst der Frühen Neuzeit (2021), and a small monograph on Giotto und die Physiker (2023).

Project Summary

Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Urbinas (Libro di Pittura) was translated into German and annotated in a three-volume edition by the German painter Heinrich Ludwig in 1882. Almost a century and a half has passed since this monumental publication. In that time, modern Leonardo research has developed in breathtaking thematic diversity, philological accuracy and analytical rigor. This project will entail the editing of an annotated new translation of the codex, together with Fabio Frosini and to which seven further art historians are contributing. It will include a consideration of questions of translation and structure of the posthumous codex with a focus on Leonardo's semantics of force (forza, potenza, virtù; privazione, peso, eccellenza, violenza etc.) and his related concept of antagonism and its significance for the production of painting.