Historical story

Bernardo Bandini Baroncelli:Leonardo “Photographs” a Death Sentence

Bernardo Bandini Baroncelli hanged. Drawing by Leonardo da Vinci

The dangling body seen in the drawing is that Bernardo Bandini Baroncelli, while the author of the work is Leonardo da Vinci.

As you can see, it is a tragic moment fixed forever on paper, that of the hanging of a man.

But who was Bernardo Bandini Baroncelli and when and why he was sentenced to death?

Baroncelli belonged to that group of people who, in April 1478, attempted the life of the Medici by staging that sad page of Florentine and Italian history known as the conspiracy of the Pazzi .

As we know, the action ended in failure and the revenge was merciless.

Unlike his companions, already executed for some time, Bernardo Bandini Baroncelli managed to escape to Constantinople where, at the end of 1479, he was captured, imprisoned and finally handed over to the authorities of Florence.

At this point his fate was sealed.

On 29 December 1479 Leonardo da Vinci witnessed the execution of the sentence, fixing that moment forever with a few strokes of pencil.

The drawing, known as The Hanged Man, it is located at the Bonnat Museum by Bayonne.

Baroncelli died in the same oriental clothes he wore during his capture, which Leonardo describes perfectly in these few lines: "berettino di tané, black satin doublet, lined black lock, tuchina jacket lined with fox throat, and 'the collar of the jacket lined with velvet, streaked in black and red, Bernardo di Bandino Baroncigli; black stockings ”.

The testimony, as realistic as it is dramatic, is the terrifying snapshot of one of the darkest events of the Renaissance.