Decoding Da Vinci's Impresa: Leonardo's Gift to Cardinal Ippolito d'Este and Mario Equicola's De opportunitate (1507)

Abstract

In the course of the fifteenth century, the pictorial devices now known as imprese developed into a significant means of self-representation and self-definition within the social networks of the Italian Renaissance.1 The intricate text-image relationships of imprese made them an important subject for contemporary artists and letterati, while a growing fascination for the genre as a condensed means of self-representation made their invention and interpretation a common sport at the Italian courts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.2 Translating constituent facets of a personality into the symbolical language of imprese, as well as decoding such allusive devices, depended on considerable knowledge of an imprescCs bearer. These techniques opened up ways for courtiers to exhibit their intellectual abilities and establish recognition for themselves in the inner circles of a future patron.3 The present article examines the role the interpretation and invention of imprese could play as a means of cultivating social relationships, through reference to a text which has received only passing attention from researchers hitherto: Mario Equicola's De opportunitate (1507).4This Latin dialogue is dedicated to an impresa