Leonardo in France

AMBOISE, France —Soon we will be in a Leonardo mode as Dan Brown’s best-seller, “The Da Vinci Code,” brings its tale of conspiracy, art history and clandestine societies to movie theaters around the world.

The book is based on a 1975 find in Paris in France’s Bibliotheque Nationale that Leonardo da Vinci was a member of a European secret society called the Priory of Sion.

Fellow members included Sir Isaac Newton, Sandro Botticelli, Victor Hugo and other notables. A trail of murder clues are found in Leonardo’s paintings.

In Amboise, we join the millions who have viewed a real-life Leonardo mystery: Where is the Renaissance genius buried? Our guide at the chateau of Amboise is unsure.

“He’s either buried over there under the statue,” he says, pointing to a white marble bust of Leonardo, “or over there in the Chapelle St. Hubert. However, we are sure of two things.

“He is not buried in Florence. Italy asked for his bones in 1874, but we would not give them up. Initially, Leonardo was buried in the cloisters of St. Florentin collegiate church here in the heart of the castle.

“His remains were to be moved to the Chapelle St. Hubert after the destruction of the collegiate church and parts of the castle during the Napoleonic period. A 19th-century document hints his bones were moved to the chapel, but we’re unsure. But, yes, Leonardo’s bones are here at Amboise.”

The white marble statue of Leonardo glistens in the bright sun, serene amid the expanse of castle lawn. The chateau dominates the awakening town and the swiftly flowing Loire River below.

We enter the nearby white-marble Chapelle St. Hubert, a jewel of flamboyant Gothic architecture, and pay our respects at a transept that may, or may not, hold Leonardo’s bones. The name of the Italian painter, sculptor, musician, poet, architect, engineer and inventor is carved here in the marble. He died at Amboise on May 19, 1519 at age 67.

We push on to the castle’s eclectic rooms and descend on a winding cobblestone street to Le Clos-Luce, a red-brick manor house where Leonardo spent his last three years. A private foundation has restored the manor to its Renaissance appearance. In so doing, they rediscovered walls, beams, fireplaces and frescoes from Leonardo’s time.

In 1516, France’s great Renaissance king, Francis I, offered Leonardo the chateau as a gift if he would settle in France. Accompanied by his pupil, Francesco Melzi, and his servant, Battista de Villanis, Leonardo journeyed to Amboise. In his mule’s leather saddlebags, he carried his three favorite canvases, the real-life portrait of a Florentine woman we know as the Mona Lisa — La Giaconda in Italian, and portraits of St. Anne and John the Baptist, which he finished painting at Le Clos-Luce.

The king, who granted Leonardo a yearly pension of 700 golden crowns and papers of naturalization, requested only that the genius converse daily with him, whether it concern planning royal spectacles or building new castles.

“I do not believe that any other man has as much knowledge about sculpture, painting and architecture,” Francis said.

Here, Leonardo worked as an engineer, architect and organizer of court festivities, but in his last years he seems to have been frustrated. He stopped painting and wrote, “Tell me if anything was ever done.”

We climb the watchtower and cross the loggia where the court once sat to watch Leonardo’s spectacles and admire his figure of a lion that, when struck in the chest, released lilies or fleurs-de-lis.

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