New Book Claims Leonardo da Vinci Biography Needs Rewriting

A new book by economist Riccardo Magnani, "Milanese d'adozione. La vera storia di Leonardo da Vinci a Milano," argues that Leonardo da Vinci arrived in Milan earlier than the widely accepted date of 1482. Magnani claims to have discovered a document in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, written by Benedetto Dei, that lists a "Leonardo pittore" among Florentines in Milan as early as 1480. However, critics point out that the document was already known to scholars and that its interpretation does not support a revision of Leonardo's biography. The article, published on Artribune, questions the need to rewrite history based on this evidence, citing the principle of Occam's razor and noting that the letter Leonardo sent to Ludovico il Moro in 1482, offering his services as an engineer, musician, sculptor, and painter, would have been unnecessary if he were already in Milan.