New Insights on the Methods, Materials and Ethics of Technical Art History: the case of Leonardo da Vinci

A colloquy dedicated to the interaction between diagnostic investigations, their art historical contextualization and the ethics of the profession. It is particularly important to devote a specific discussion to the ethical problems that attend the management of the results of restoration treatments and, preliminary to that, the scientific investigations in the field of art. In the utilization of so-called "objective" data, one can have essentially two attitudes, of opposite aims, yet equally dangerous: that such data is to be regarded uncritically (science is objective and always right) or that it is something to be manipulated (I alone am familiar with the scientific evidence and I know how to interpret it; it is up to you to follow my interpretation). The hazards of these attitudes were demonstrated by two examples: the exams preliminary to the treatment of the Adoration of the Magi by Leonardo da Vinci (Uffizi Gallery) and the research for the possible remains of the Battle of Anghiari, in Palazzo Vecchio (the City Hall of Firenze).