The Symmachi Panel, ivory, Roman Empire (Rome), about 400, V&A: 212-1865. © V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY.- The Speed Art Museum is honored to present Louisville with an exhibition of treasures from one of the greatest collections of Medieval and Renaissance works of art in existence. Medieval and Renaissance Treasures from the Victoria and Albert Museum will be on view at the Speed through April 20, 2008. The Speed is thrilled to be one of only four museums in the United States to house this amazing exhibition, along with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida.

This once-in-a-lifetime exhibition will present 35 masterpieces selected from London’s Victoria and Albert Museum including a hand written notebook of the most famous Renaissance artist and inventor, Leonardo da Vinci. Other works in the exhibition include rare, small-scale religious and secular artifacts including medieval ivories, precious jeweled goldsmith’s works, stained glass, and Renaissance bronzes highly prized for their beauty, the value of their materials and for the exquisite workmanship that went into their creation. Referred to as ‘Treasury Arts,’ these pieces were created principally for the embellishment of the church and chapel in the Middle Ages and for the cabinet and table of the wealthy collector in the Renaissance.

A highlight of the exhibition is a fascinating notebook by Leonardo da Vinci known as Forster Codex 1. The text is written in mirror-image cursive, a form commonly used by Leonardo as a practical solution to writing left-handed and working with slow drying materials that could easily smudge. The notebook pages on view are an example of Leonardo da Vinci’s fascination with geometry and mathematics.

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Codex Forster 1¹, 6v-7r, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), pen and ink, Italy (Florence), about 1505, V&A: Forster MS.141/1, Forster Bequest. © V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum