Leonardo da Vinci in the library of Giovanni Piumati

Abstract

The article concerns Giovanni Piumati (1850-1915), an Italian from Turin, who from an early age decided to give himself over entirely to the study and collecting of all things related to Leonardo. After graduating with a Master’s degree in classics, he began to refine his approach as a collector. He catalogued and studied whatever he could find on the Vincian, and his purchases were made not as investments, but dedicated to the formation of an authentic collection of documents and writings, following a precise scheme. At its most complete, his collection included just under 3,000 items dating from the 15th to the 20th century, and occupied a large room in his home in Turin. The present study is entirely dedicated to the contents of Piumati's library of incunabula and rare books, scholarly journals, documents, letters and sketches, as well as objects, now part of a private collection. The Piumati library, whose greatest treasure is an extremely rare first edition of Luca Pacioli’s De Divina Proportione (1509), is a true intellectual 'laboratory' from which were generated the first critical editions on Leonardo, and its history is closely linked to foremost European intellectuals active between the last decades of the 19th century and the start of the First World War.