2025 Annual Lecture

In the popular imagination, Leonardo da Vinci’s mirror writing has come to embody the eccentricity of genius. This lecture argues that it should not be dismissed as a quirk, but recognised as integral to the artist’s agenda. Moving beyond traditional biographical and psychological approaches, it shifts attention from the origin and motives of mirror script to its reception and consequences. Applying art-historical tools to a field that is traditionally the domain of philologists and palaeographers, it examines when and why Leonardo switches the directionality of his script and abandons his characteristic backwards writing, allegedly bowing to the demands of legibility. Leonardo’s script is thus newly presented as an object that privileges the visual over the verbal, calling for its serious consideration within the broader scope of art-historical inquiry.