A treasure from the Urbino Renaissance resurfaces after 5 centuries: the “Santini Code” goes up for auction

ROME – The “Santini Code” will be proposed auctioned by the Il Ponte Auction House in Milan on 27 February 2024, it is a very rare manuscript, privately kept for over five centuries and already officially recognized cultural heritage by the Italian State in 2012. Masterfully illustrated with 136 drawings on ancient parchment the “Santini code” was drawn up at the court of the Montefeltro and Della Rovere families with the aim of glorifying their hegemony in civil and military machinery, and its creation can be traced back to a small circle of intellectuals, among whom Leonardo da Vinci also stands out. To date There are only three manuscripts in the world closely related to this specimenrespectively preserved at the British Museum, the Vatican Apostolic Library and the Laurentian Library, to confirm the exceptional nature of its current circulation in Italy and of its estimated value (€380,000 – 450,000).

Attribution and dating

The attribution of the Santini Code still remains uncertain, although it certainly falls within the circle of personalities close to Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439-1501). The scholar Gustina Scaglia, considers it preparatory for the composition of the famous panels of the Frieze of the Art of War, created starting from around 1475. for Duke Federico da Montefeltro (1422-1482). In the opinion of other illustrious scholars, such as Marcella Peruzzi, would have been executed around 1525-30. by Giovanni Battista Comandino, who copied it from Francesco di Giorgio Martini’s Opusculum de Architectura. Even more recent is the analysis of Professor Pietro C. Marani, President of the Ente Raccolta Vinciana of Milan, which places him in the first decade of the sixteenth century.

Characteristics

Manuscript on parchment by excellent quality and thickness, well smoothed and with marked chromatic differences between the flesh side and the hair side (dimensions 211x151mm); contemporary leather binding on wooden boards with rich embossed decorations; composed of 68 cards numbered by ancient hand from 1 to 66 with 2 unnumbered cards following cards 5 and 66 respectively; the cards are framed, preceded by an initial flyleaf and followed by a final flyleaf, both blank; the drawings are up 136 pages and depict machines mostly for civilian use and some for war use.

Provenance

The entry of the Santini Code into the collection of the dukes of Urbino it dates back to 1498 as it is not recorded in the first inventory of the library, the so-called “Old Index” where two works by Francesco di Giorgio are instead recorded. The codex certainly belonged to the library of the Montefeltro and Della Rovere families, as it appears in the last inventory drawn up by Francesco Scudacchi in 1632. The Santini Codex is therefore the only one among the Urbino manuscripts not to have been transferred to the Vatican Apostolic Library in 1657therefore remaining in Urbino for the following centuries.

History

Preserved in exceptional conditions for over five centuries, this find has aroused the interest of numerous scholars, all of whom agree in counting it among the first testimonies of the rebirth of a scientific approach to the study of engineering and mechanics. Having proven its presence within the illustrious Library of the Montefeltro and Della Rovere dukes, the Santini Codex is immediately reflected in the work of Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439-1501), author of both the famous Opusculum de Architectura and probable creator of the preparatory drawings for the seventy-two panels composing the Frieze of the Art of War: both dedicated to the virtues of the prince-warrior, Duke Federico da Montefeltro. Master recognized for his marked ability in the representation of machines, Francesco di Giorgio was a pupil of Mariano di Jacopo known as Taccola (ca. 1381-1453), better known as the Archimede of Siena, from whom he learned the art of engineering, a field then reserved for a very narrow niche of intellectuals and which led him to establish a close relationship with Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), also testified by the latter’s annotations present in the Ashburnham Codex 361. The meeting between the two took place in 1490 approx. and was fundamental for the creation of the Vitruvian Man and for many of the works relating to civil and military machines that Leonardo will create in the years to come.

AUCTION 27 February 2024 Palazzo Crivelli, Via Pontaccio 12 Milan

ESTIMATE 380,000 – 450,000