The Leonardo Da Vinci Horse & The Pilot: Another beginning, a romantic story,about an published book

By Nancy L Mohr and Anja Reichelt

Thereby hangs a tale. The modern-day horse was launched by a small sidebar in a larger article about Leonardo da Vinci in the September 1977 issue of National Geographic - titled The Horse That Never Was. Leonardo dreamed of a monumental bronze horse that would glow in the Milanese sunlight, guaranteeing his place in history as

• Language: English
• Publisher: sevynmor
• Release date: Feb 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9781087877464

Nancy L Mohr

Nancy L. Mohr's newest book is The Leonardo Da Vinci Horse & The Pilot (2020). Thereby hangs a tale. The modern-day horse was launched by a small sidebar in a larger article about Leonardo da Vinci in the September 1977 issue of National Geographic - titled The Horse That Never Was. Leonardo dreamed of a monumental bronze horse that would glow in the Milanese sunlight, guaranteeing his place in history as a sculptor, for none larger had ever been conceived... and then lost. The romantic legend, interwoven with creative genius and human frailty cast its spell over Charles Dent, a retired United Airlines pilot, artist and art collector who was already a Leonardo admirer and a Renaissance in his own right. He decided then and there that Leonardo and Italy should have a horse - as a gesture of appreciation from the American people for the legacy of the Italian Renaissance that has enriched our own culture. Charlie Dent took up the Horse's reins and remained at full gallop for the rest of his life. The book shares the adventures of the modern Horse and through the 1999 unveiling in Milan.

Book preview

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Anatomy of a Bronze Horse

MILAN IS AN OLD CITY. A VERY OLD CITY. Early in the morning when the light was hazy and pigeons coo quietly in the cathedral square, muffled hoof beats of battle horses and the chink-chink of riders’ armor linger in the air. The ghosts of Milan possess the dawn hours, claiming the wide boulevards, no part of the elegant shops and handsome sports cars parked on a tilt over the edge of the heavy stone curbs. The city’s inhabitants live comfortably with their phantoms, wrapped gently in a time frame of beautiful art, battles over castles ruled by dukes and duchesses, vineyards tended by peasant serfs, and families whose names reach back uncountable centuries.

One night not long ago, the time had come for all the planets that shine in Earth’s night sky to fall into place in a ruler-straight line. The brightest of them looked like jewels in a heavenly princess’s necklace. Never again in the lifetime of the people alive that day would the necklace appear. And perhaps the events of that night would not bear repetition, for all the ancient objects of Milan – the sculptures large and small that decorate the cathedral towers, the statues of famous men and women, marble lions guarding palace gates – were given this one precious night to revel in their memories. And because the mistress of time has trouble sifting out the beautiful from the merely practical, almost any object might move about and even dance through the streets. As a spell fell over the city, and all the inhabitants slept especially soundly for this single night, everyone from the tall Leonardo da Vinci figure in the Piazza de La Scala to the puppets in the toy stores joined in the celebration.

On the cathedral clock’s final stroke of midnight, whispers flowed through the streets and up into the highest reaches of the Duomo, like a gentle wind on the calmest night of all.

Leonardo stretched on his pedestal and stepped down to the boulevard. The figures of the monks and saints and animals on the spires scampered around the rooftops and slid merrily down the banisters to the piazza below. Even the manikins in the shop windows discovered they could move, prancing down the boulevard in their designer finery.

At the Castello Sforza, shadow soldiers marched along the top of the wall, playing a reprise of the day in 1499 when the French army caught them by surprise, capturing the Duke and his court in a single day. Beyond the walls, sleeping archers camped where a vineyard once stood, in the shadow of a huge clay horse – Leonardo’s horse, ready to cast and doomed to destruction by massed crossbows at sunrise. But now there was the sound of hoofs on the boulevard, picking their way carefully along the cobblestones. A mirage, a present day wonder – a bronze horse eight meters tall, moving its ghostly presence through the trees, passing through overhead wires as if they weren’t there. And on its back, a man whose dream of giving Leonardo the Horse he lost brought this night into a century five hundred years removed from the archers and their destruction of Leonardo’s dream.

How can it be that the rider was so small, the Horse so large? The man was smiling, in tune with the idea that dreams are for realizing, that anything was worth imagining, that curiosity and creativity are currencies that transcend centuries. This was the Horse that only weeks before took its place on a pedestal a few miles from the castle, in a cultural park created in Leonardo’s memory, dedicated with brass bands and flags flying – imbued from the start with the mystery that lends Leonardo’s story its modern day fascination.

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Leonardo’s Lost Horse - A Prologue

LEONARDO LOST A HORSE, AND THEREBY HANGS A TALE.

Leonardo da Vinci dreamed of creating a monumental bronze horse that would glow in the Milanese sunlight, guaranteeing his place in history as a sculptor, for none larger had ever been conceived. Since Ludovico, the then Duke of Sforza, possessed a somewhat tarnished image, the idea of honoring his much respected father, Francesco, with a dramatic memorial had a strong appeal. Public relations, fifteenth century style. Leonardo submitted a proposal for the Horse, and Ludovico accepted it. With the duke’s patronage assured, Leonardo went to work.

His style was to labor on several projects at once. During the same time frame his accomplishments included The Last Supper, portraits of Italian nobles, a city plan for Milan, new weapons designs and a defense system for the castle.

The duke’s sponsorship wasn’t as straightforward as it might sound. Leonardo had to adapt to the varied whims of his patron including the production of entertainment and gala parties for the court, and new designs for the castle defenses. The duke was hardly a popular figure among the city states of northern Italy, and there certainly was no love lost between him and the French. Fearing an attack, he dismayed Leonardo by reclaiming the 80 tons of bronze reserved for casting the Horse – intending to make new cannons. He probably would have been better served by installing his sculptor’s defense system. When the French decided they’d had enough of Ludovico Sforza, they came, and they conquered – quickly. At the end of the day, victorious French archers camped in the vineyard near the castle and, as it proved, much too close to the awesome 24-foot clay model of the Horse, ready for casting.

Leonardo scholar Dr. Carlo Pedretti describes that day: That site, which was today a dense and noisy urban district, was then a pleasant expanse of open fields, dotted with trees and shrubs, or neatly kept orchards, vineyards or citrus groves … One can well imagine the skyline of such a peaceful landscape, bathed in the mellow light of a misty morning of a September day in the Lombard plain … and see that skyline suddenly interrupted by the imposing silhouette of Leonardo’s colossal clay model, standing there with the foreboding of a Trojan horse. That must have been the way the Gascon bowmen of the French troops saw it when they entered Milan … on 10 September, 1499.

The temptation to let fly with an arrow or two must have been irresistible. One arrow followed another. Riddled with holes, the Horse’s destruction was completed by the winter cycles of rain, freeze and thaw. By spring 1500, only a sodden heap of clay testified to the once magnificent horse. The archers erased nearly seventeen years of effort by a man famous even in his own lifetime for solutions to an infinite variety of scientific and artistic challenges.

Although Leonardo consistently maintained meticulous records of his thoughts and observations, a set of notebooks containing sketches of the Horse was lost. Rediscovered in Madrid’s Biblioteca Nacional in the 1960s, these drawings were destined to inspire a rebirth of Leonardo’s dream.

The modern-day horse was launched by a small sidebar in a larger article about Leonardo da Vinci in the September, 1977 issue of National Geographic – titled The Horse That Never Was. The romantic legend, interwoven with creative genius and human frailty, cast its spell over Charles Dent, a retired United Airlines pilot, artist and art collector who was already a Leonardo admirer and a Renaissance man in his own right. He decided then and there that Leonardo and Italy should have a horse – as a gesture of appreciation from the American people for the legacy of the Italian Renaissance that has enriched our own culture. Charlie Dent took up the Horse’s reins and remained at full gallop for the rest of his life.

Dent studied Leonardo’s drawings and traveled widely, visiting scholars here and abroad. A meeting with the mayor of Milan resulted in a medal for the American; the mayor thought he should be rewarded for simply having thought of the idea! Charlie himself certainly believed in the adage, where there’s a will, there’s a way. Time after time, seemingly unattainable goals proved within his reach, and his infectious enthusiasm carried others along on paths they might not have followed on their own. To the day of his untimely death from ALS or Lou Gehrig’s Disease in 1994, he felt that life was worth living because of its extraordinary opportunities – and Charlie Dent rarely let one slip by unnoticed.

His personal dream was to give Leonardo a horse. It couldn’t truly be Leonardo’s horse for no one but the master himself was capable of expressing the original vision. It was to be a horse in honor of Leonardo, an interpretation of the incomplete drawings from the notebooks. Sculpting small maquettes or sketches helped Charlie develop a feel for the Horse and the challenges of the anticipated transition from ten inches to twenty-four feet. He recruited other sculptors, and they worked as a highly interactive, innovative team. For instance, when Charlie needed a very large drawing of the Horse (the capital H referring to the new horse, not Leonardo’s own horse), he decided that the broad side of his barn would make an excellent sketch pad.

Concurrently with the Leonardo research, he built a studio on his Fogelsville, Pennsylvania farm. Dubbed The Dome, it was a circular building, fifty feet in both diameter and height, intended to house the Horse throughout its evolution. However, once the first eight foot clay model was completed and the molds pulled, it was clear that a major foundry was a more appropriate site for enlargement and casting. After extensive research, the choice was the well-respected Tallix Art Foundry on the Hudson River in Beacon, New York.

The twentieth century Horse’s progress was marked by concern for interpreting the master’s concept as accurately as possible, and also for responding to the possibilities of a view from a new angle, a shift in light or change in position. Thoughtful changes reflected basic elements of Leonardo’s other works and also the classical images of his time. Dr. Carlo Pedretti, a member of the Council of Scholars, was ultimately responsible for the position of the Horse’s head.

There was irony in the fact that Charlie’s death released a substantial financial contribution, his principle heir being, not surprisingly, Leonardo da Vinci’s Horse. As his strength faded in December 1994, the Board members promised that the Horse would reach Milan in time for Charlie’s self-imposed deadline – September 10,1999, five hundred years from the day that Leonardo’s horse was destroyed. The Horse that never was, would be.

The Leonardo Horse project was stabled at Tallix as a growing collection of maquettes, an 8-foot clay model, and plaster casts. Each section of the 24-foot Horse took its turn in the enlarging room. The lives of many people were and continue to be woven into the Charlie Dent- initiated modern history of the Horse – sculptors, writers, business people, teachers and horse lovers who have contributed time, effort and funds. Self-interest vanished in pursuit of a shared goal, and Charlie’s highly contagious enthusiasm lingered in the air. Lead sculptor Nina Akamu was hired in 1996 and became the most crucial member of the team. She captured Charlie’s influence at the special presentation of the final 8-foot model, I have felt the spirit of Charlie with us through the entire year and a half that I have worked on the Horse. As I move the clay around, my hands seem to develop a will and direction of their own. I feel as if I am the carrier of the Horse’s spirit – expressing the dream of all who have been involved.

The half dozen young sculptors who formed Nina’s support team were influenced by her energy as they worked on the final enlargement. They developed an efficient communications system to stay in touch with one another as they moved around the huge body on scaffolds high above the foundry floor. Leonardo would most likely have applauded their headphones and laser pointers as being quite within his scientific spirit.

World-class Horses do not come cheaply. The entire project cost $6 million, with approximately $2 million of that going to completion of the casting process, the design and construction of the pedestal, reassembling the Horse in Milan (an estimated 15 tons in seven crates), establishing provisions for maintenance and cooperating with the Italians in planning the installation festivities. Board President Roger Enloe, and co-founder with his brother-in-law Charles Dent of the Business Council for the United Nations, became a virtual Milan commuter, returning to Italy often to wrap up negotiations and help plan for the September, 1999 celebration. He enjoyed taking along a 10" gilded resin model of the Horse which captured the attention and admiration of everyone who saw it.

Contributions ranged from an elementary class’s collection of $6.75 to an anonymous foundation gift of $675,000. The fact that an article in the New York Times inspired spontaneous gifts as large as $1,000 impressed Business Manager Barbara Strohl: "So did the wonderful comments that accompany the gifts. The letters were not all from Americans, either. One of my favorites came from a young Italian woman: … it was even more surprising for me to witness the overall feeling of curiosity and consequent warmth that the whole story evokes. I was touched at the thought of how the labours and unfolded dreams of such a genius such as Leonardo could eventually materialize 500 years later by dreamers of another country and continent. In a world filled with so much practical sense reality, it was heartwarming to see that the spirit of idealism still thrives. I fully approve of this project!

Barbara feels that, There was a romantic quality to the story that nurtures a sense of involvement with an ideal, with a gesture that will endure long after we are gone. That seems to have a very special appeal in a society where so much is a transitory, throw-away kind of experience.

Once captivated, people remained involved.

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November 1996: Another Beginning

IT WAS AN OUT OF NOWHERE PHONE CALL. The voice on the other end introduced himself as Roger Enloe, chairman of Leonardo da Vinci’s Horse. The name Leonardo I recognized – but the context? We live in an intensely horse-oriented community so I suppose my initial reaction was another equine event looking for advice. A not unusual request; I have learned to lend my ear, but not necessarily my entire brain. We spoke pleasantly for a few minutes, Roger offered to mail some information – and we agreed to meet a few days later.

Little did I know where that call would lead – literally and figuratively. I must add an important disclaimer here for this is the story of my involvement with Leonardo da Vinci’s Horse, but far from the definitive story. There are many other people for whom the realization of Charlie Dent’s dream became a life rather than a project. My three years of complete immersion are merely a chapter, hardly the book. One day, perhaps with the distance and objectivity of time, those more closely allied with the beginning and middle will produce The Book from the wealth of files, photographs and videotapes in the archives at the Dome.

At dinner that first evening, my husband John and I puzzled over a project that sounded quixotic and even overwhelming for a small non-profit organization. The clippings arrived the next morning, a New York Times front page and more. A rather awkward looking horse but certainly impressive in size – and not everyone can gaze across a pasture at a neighbor’s well- bred thoroughbreds for comparison. Roger and I held our meeting in the cozy study of the Enloes’ apartment at Kendal at Longwood, a Quaker retirement community only fifteen minutes from our home in Unionville. His opening gambit – which I was to hear applied in other situations over the next three years – Tell me about yourself and your family. Not a predictable beginning for a job interview. The description of responsibilities was open-ended, beginning with fund-raising and heading in the direction of whatever was needed. I left that first day with more information to peruse, while Roger pursued my references. I later learned that I had received an extremely intense vetting. Roger probably knew more about me than John did when he proposed marriage.

Weeks passed while Roger and the board members debated my fate. Meanwhile, our neighbor and sculptor-friend Clayton Bright invited me on a pre-dawn foray north to the Tallix Art Foundry where a piece of his work was waiting for pick up. For Clayton, pre-dawn was no later than four-thirty. At least we didn’t have to be concerned about commuter traffic. At Tallix, I was introduced as a friend but with no comment about a possible connection to the Horse.

Clayton gave me a tour of the entire foundry. At the bottom of the stairs from the offices to the foundry itself, I stopped to admire a sculpture of fighting lions, two powerful animals wound into a tight ball, all energy and grace. Around the corner, we found the huge Horse – looming far above us.

Most horse-familiar people would have recognized anatomical weaknesses, and before the day was out we learned that the board members were reluctantly struggling with an obvious conclusion. Charles Dent had died far too soon. His eight foot model had imperfections which, if he had lived, Charlie most likely would have dealt with. However, out of respect and affection, the board members had gone ahead with the enlargement that inevitably magnified the imperfections. The solution emerged in the searching out and hiring of Nina Akamu, a highly talented sculptor whose touch with animals was close to magical. The lions I had admired were hers. Nina’s initial assignment was to address modifications of the eight foot model for transfer to the 24-foot enlargement. When we discussed the Horse with Nina that day, she had no anticipation that she was embarking upon a highly challenging, multi-year effort. Far removed from the normal foundry activity, she was cutting sections from a plastolite eight-foot Dent horse, applying clay, trying to develop options for change that made sense and exhibited artistic integrity. Major concern centered on the Horse’s head which was raised, in contrast to the more classical position with chin tucked down. We departed quite awed with the magnitude of the task Charlie’s board – and Nina – had assumed.

By late January, the details of a contract as a consultant to the non-profit LdVHI (Leonardo da Vinci’s Horse, Inc.) were resolved. From the beginning, Roger and I found our working relationship an easy one. Not that we approached tasks in the same way, but there was a balance that grew to be remarkably productive. Roger was more deliberate, liked to maintain control of meetings and planning. He also was persistent in pushing toward a desired result. I liked to do things yesterday, make the most of opportunities and search out connections and networking potential. In working with Roger, I learned to hold back a little, not jump in too quickly, and he in turn became open to my suggestions and more often than not, accepted them. We developed into an effective team and also good friends. The short distance between our homes helped. I finally met his wife Jane, a remarkable woman in her own right and Charlie Dent’s sister. As the weeks passed, the Horse-oriented days grew longer and longer… and longer.

Early on, I learned that the glue that really held the Horse together was Barbara Strohl, the business manager. Headquartered at the Dome, Barbara was an intelligent, perceptive woman who prefers operating in the background. Spotlights are not her style. The combination of skills she brought to the Horse were remarkably suitable – experience with the Allentown Art Museum combined with the ability to deal with numbers, cost projections, business plans – and people.

Barbara became my touchstone and sanity insurance as the pace intensified on the way to Milan. Our work styles meshed smoothly. Even we were amazed at the synergy that evolved.

Roger virtually buried me under mountains of paper – research and solicitation letters that represented years of requesting contributions for the Horse. I carried a canvas tote bag with me to each meeting and filled it with large loose-leaf notebooks of letters and lists. My first month was consumed with paper, regular meetings with both Roger and Barbara, and then additional sessions with Roger each week – not to mention early morning phone conferences, faxes and late night e-mails to Barbara. It didn’t take long to appreciate the effort that had gone into bringing the project to this point. Nevertheless, an astounding number of tasks remained to be completed. By mid-summer ‘99, Barbara and I were ready to write a testimonial to the usefulness of e-mail; the Horse might never have arrived in Italy without it. My files are jammed with hundreds of messages and attached files sent and received.

I couldn’t have anticipated how far afield the Horse would take me, how many planes my patient husband would watch depart and arrive. My passport pages became pleasantly cluttered, my knowledge of airports expanded – Milan’s Malpensa and Linate, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, Rome – each one a different route to Milan. I gained that wonderful and rare experience of spending sufficient time in a foreign country to feel quite at home and comfortable, totally unselfconscious about stumbling over the language. As long as I attempted to communicate in Italian, everyone was impressively helpful and welcoming. Naturally, there were highs and lows, but in retrospect I wouldn’t have wanted to miss any of them. Well, maybe one or two.

I wish I might have known Charlie Dent. My personal image was of a charismatic man who crooked his finger and people followed. I suspect that capturing the essence of Charles Dent offers a challenge similar to retrieving the contents of a feather pillow on a windy day. Never married, but a friend to all, Charlie was in his own way a modern day Leonardo. He painted, sculpted, cherished ambitious thoughts, wasn’t limited by the opinions of others, spent his life in the clouds and for his sprawling family of parents, sisters and brothers, nieces and nephews was much loved Uncle Charlie. It’s easy to imagine him as a small child, into everything, fascinated with the adventures of the Wright brothers and fabric planes, determined to find his future in the sky. So here were two men, five hundred years apart with many of the same passions – especially the fascination with flying. Although Charlie would be the last person to consider himself in the same league – for there was only one Leonardo – each of them died dreaming of a huge bronze horse in Milan. Charlie succeeded in transferring his dream to the mere mortals who sat on the board, and they in turn went far beyond their own original expectations. With a touch of whimsy, think of Charlie sitting on the edge of a rosy cloud, watching as the veil lifted from Leonardo da Vinci’s Horse on September 10, 1999 – five hundred years to the day that the first horse was destroyed by victorious French archers.

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Off and Running: The Months Fly By

THROUGHOUT FEBRUARY ‘97, I EXPLORED THE CONTRIBUTOR LIST AND made new contacts, discovering to my surprise some familiar names, one being Lynn Benoliel Jacobson who sat next to me in Spanish classes at Mount Holyoke and also was the primary angel behind the college’s splendid equestrian center, for which I served as steering committee chair. Lynn and I quickly reconnected, and before long she and her husband Jake had said yes, they would fly to Milan for the unveiling festivities. Another bonus arrived in the form of Mozelle Richardson, a spunky woman in her early eighties from Oklahoma City who was visiting in New York City and wanted to see the Horse. John and I arranged to meet her and a granddaughter-in-law at the train station in Beacon. At the foundry, we introduced her to the Horse, and to the Tallix crew and several LdVHI board members who were on the scene. By the time we shared lunch in a funky diner where scenes from Paul Newman’s Nobody’s Fool were shot and returned her to the train station, Mozelle had increased her pledge and invited us to Oklahoma City. None of us realized how quickly that day would arrive. We also learned that she had written several mystery books. The next day we requested as many of her titles as our library could find.

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March brought my first board meeting, with Roger as a passenger to the Dome, seventy miles from home. This was also my first but far from last experience with Roger’s unusual ability to power nap. This elderly gentleman was a master at conserving and recharging his energy. In the car on the way to Fogelsburg, in a taxi maneuvering through Rome’s cobbled streets, in a busy airport waiting area – Roger would excuse himself, let his head drop forward and immediately go to sleep. Five or ten minutes later, he’d sit up, bright-eyed and ready to move on.

This particular day was my formal introduction to the six member non-profit board that Charlie Dent had formed. It included Roger, Diane Skidmore and her husband Rod, a well- respected artist who specialized in painting polo players and their mounts; Skip Kralik, high school English teacher and sculptor of welded stainless steel, and Charlie’s nephew Peter Dent, appointed after his uncle’s death. Only Rip Munger, Charlie’s former co-pilot for United Airlines, was absent – away on one of his frequent trips to Tokyo, serving as flight engineer since he was over-age for the captain’s seat. Each one had followed a different route to the Horse, but the common thread was Charlie’s vision, enthusiasm and commitment. And, of course, there was Barbara Strohl, keeper of the Dome and the finances, repository of an incredible array of responsibilities.

It was clear that, for several board members, my inclusion less than three years before the unveiling was not an welcome decision. It would take the board several more meetings before I was invited to return as a full participant. However, when individuals are intensely invested in a project, a sense of ownership develops and