Leonardo da Vinci has attracted more than his fair share of speculative nonsense in the modern day. Not least several unlikely theories that have taken inspiration from his interest in music. According to one idea, the hands of Jesus and his disciples in Leonardo’s famous “Last Supper” should be seen as the noteheads of music notation, producing a hidden melody, although there’s no evidence that this is what Leonardo intended.
More musical “compositions” supposedly by Leonardo circulate on YouTube, a situation fueled by the existence of a much later Baroque composer who happens to be called Leonardo Vinci. In 2015, a “portrait” of Leonardo making music was identified, on what I consider to be insufficient evidence, in an engraving at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
