Leonardo da Vinci Studied the Science of Smell

Leonardo da Vinci was a true Renaissance man: artist, scientist, inventor—and fragrance connoisseur. Though his olfactory fascinations aren’t as well-known as his other works, scent was one of Leonardo’s many inspirations.

“Leonardo da Vinci and the Perfumes of the Renaissance,” an exhibition at the Château du Clos Lucé in Amboise, France, takes visitors on a scented journey through the famed Mona Lisa painter’s life, focusing on the smells of Europe and beyond.

The show begins in Constantinople, where Leonardo’s young mother, Caterina, may have been enslaved in the 15th century, according to a statement from the Château du Clos Lucé. Caterina’s story has been a divisive subject among scholars, and one of the exhibition’s curators, Carlo Vecce, made headlines last year for his research connected to this theory.

As such, the first room explores perfume’s many uses in the Byzantine capital, where markets would have smelled strongly of spices like myrrh, cinnamon, pepper and musk. Based on Vecce’s research, the show follows Caterina’s travels from Constantinople to Venice; original Venetian perfume recipe books are on display in the second room. The third room focuses on the scents of Leonardo’s birthplace: Tuscany.

“The sensory world of Leonardo’s childhood is evoked here by plants and trees typical of Tuscany and of Florentine gardens: lemon trees, orange trees, olive trees,” per the statement. “His relatively free-spirited upbringing in the heart of the Tuscan countryside undoubtedly gave rise to Leonardo’s interest in nature and in the study of flowers and plants, which inspired his research into ways of extracting their scents.”

As a scientist, Leonardo was intrigued by perfumes, “comparing the machinations of smell to those of sight and hearing,” as Artnet’s Tim Brinkhof writes. He bought perfumes that were common in 15th-century Italy—many made from oil, fats and flowers—and recorded their components. His fascination with smell can be seen in the vast volumes of his writings and drawings, in which he documented methods of scent extraction and distillation.

‘‘Add the flowers of sweet orange, jasmine, privet or other fragrant flowers and change the water each time you have to change the flowers, so that the almonds do not take on the musty smell,” Leonardo noted in Codex Atlanticus. He wrote in Codex Forster, ‘‘Remove that yellow surface which covers oranges and distill them in an alembic, until the distillation may be said to be perfect.”

In the 15th century, fragrances were commonly spread using perfume burners, and the scents “doubled as air fresheners that masked the omnipresent odor of unpleasant smells,” per Artnet.

Fragrances were also believed to ward off disease. Around this time, medical professionals “saw the human body as porous and hence liable to be permeated by air corrupted by the plague,” as French historian Robert Muchembled wrote in his 2020 book Smells: A Cultural History of Odors in Early Modern Times. Containing unpleasant smells was thought to be an effective preventative measure.

Fragrances were also applied to skin or clothes. Sometimes, they were distributed through tools like the pomander, a decorative metal ball that opened to reveal perfumed objects. Visitors to the exhibition will be able to see examples of these items, which are on loan from the National Museum of the Renaissance in Écouen, France.

They’ll also be able to “smell” the subject of one of Leonardo’s most famous portraits, Lady With an Ermine (1489). Experts have created a replica of the woman’s scented black amber necklace for the exhibition.

The Château du Clos Lucé is a fitting home for the show, as it was also Leonardo’s final residence. He was invited to Amboise in 1516 by French king Francis I, who’d heard tales of the multi-talented Italian. About three years later, Leonardo willed his notebooks and sketches to his student, Francesco Melzi, and died in his room at the mansion on May 2, 1519.

“Leonardo da Vinci and the Perfumes of the Renaissance” is on view at the Château du Clos Lucé in Amboise, France, through September 15.

Sonja Anderson | READ MORE

Sonja Anderson is a writer and reporter based in New York City.