Da Vinci's Horse Rides Again
Nearly five centuries after the death of Leonardo da Vinci, a majestic bronze horse towers above this tiny town, a tribute to what some scholars say was one of the greatest heartaches of the famed artist's life.
As the story goes, da Vinci cried on his deathbed at the thought of never having completed the 24-foot bronze horse he was commissioned to sculpt for the Duke of Milan.
His work on "Il Cavallo" - Italian for "The Horse" - progressed as far as a massive clay model, which brought him widespread acclaim when it was placed in a palace courtyard in Milan in 1493.
But his dreams for the project were shattered when French troops invaded the city and used the horse for target practice. To make matters worse, the bronze intended for casting the horse was used to make cannons.
Da Vinci fled to France, the molds to the horse were lost, and the artist died in 1519, still wishing he had finished the massive monument.
Nearly 500 years later, the tale of da Vinci's lost horse caught the attention of Pennsylvania airline pilot and amateur artist Charles Dent, who read about the horse in a 1977 edition of National Geographic magazine.
Dent loved Italy and he loved art, so it came as no surprise to his friends when he decided to dedicate his life, as he said, to "give Leonardo back his horse."
Next month, Dent's dream becomes reality. The towering $6.5 million "Il Cavallo" statue that stands on display next to its foundry about 70 miles north of New York City will be dismantled and shipped to Milan in appreciation for da Vinci and the Renaissance legacy.
In 1978, Dent founded Leonardo da Vinci's Horse, Inc., a nonprofit organization to raise funds for the project. He recruited board members and commissioned the Tallix foundry to create the horse.
"Charlie was a great lover of the Renaissance, and he was a great student of art. These things came to him, and somehow, he'd make it happen," said Rod Skidmore, a member of the board.
Da Vinci left behind no complete drawings of the horse, so Dent worked with artists and sculptors to create an 8-foot clay model.
Then tragedy struck. With the project still in its infancy, Dent died on Christmas Day 1994 of Lou Gehrig's disease.
"It was a terribly sad time," Skidmore said. "Since then, we've tried to make decisions we think Charlie would have made."
Skidmore and the other board members pressed on, and in 1996 they shipped the model to Tallix to be turned into a full-scale rendering.
Several months later when they stepped back to look at the finished product, they weren't pleased. Some scholars commented that the horse's anatomy wasn't quite right.
They turned to sculptor Nina Akamu to create a completely new model. Having spent 12 years in Italy and having been a rider and trainer of horses, Akamu was judged to be the perfect savior for the project.
"She came in and I just knew she could do it," Skidmore said. "What we were asking her to do would have driven most people into a rubber room."
For two-and-a-half years, Akamu spent her days working with clay at the foundry and her nights poring over thousands of da Vinci drawings and scholarly writings to complete the details of the model.
But is it faithful to da Vinci's vision?
"This horse is not a recreation of Leonardo's Il Cavallo, and it never could be, nor is it a Renaissance piece of art," said Akamu. "It's a contemporary sculpture that is faithful to the character and spirit of Leonardo."
Last week, the 15-ton sculpture was pieced together on a huge lawn outside the foundry, drawing hundreds of people each day into what one passerby called an otherwise "one horse town."
This weekend, the town is celebrating the horse's sendoff with a "da Vinci Days" Renaissance festival before it's taken apart next week and shipped to Milan.
Italian officials plan to unveil it Sept. 10 at its new permanent home - a cultural center adjacent to a racetrack.
Workers at Tallix have started construction on a second, identical horse to be featured at the Frederik Meijer Gardens sculpture park in Grand Rapids, Mich.