Everyone in the world knows Leonardo’s genius as an artist and scientist. But few people know that Leonardo was also a “vocabulist” — a collector of words. Read more

Sabrina D’Alessandro, “Vanagroria o purità”, 2022-2025
Parola-scultura in mostra al Castello Sforzesco
(30 ottobre 2025 - 30 gennaio 2026)

Vanagroria o Purità (Vainglory or Purity) are two word-sculptures placed opposite each other in the Corte Ducale basin of the Castello Sforzesco. The first one, made of mirror stainless steel, slender and vain, appears as a play of reflections and references, embodying an illusion destined to dissolve. The term, taken from the Trivulzianus Codex, recalls Leonardo’s words: «The mirror strongly vaunts itself by holding the reflected queen within it, and once she departs, the mirror remains vile» (Forster Code III). Purity, in terracotta, solid and sober, on the opposite side of the basin, refers to a passage by Leonardo describing elephants, noble animals which «when the moon is renewed go to the rivers, and there solemnly cleansing themselves they wash, and thus having saluted the planet they return to the woods» (Manuscript H of the Institut de France). The artwork thus becomes a metaphor for regeneration and integrity, contrasted with the ephemeral lightness of Vainglory.