Wreath Of Laurel Palm And Juniper With A Scroll Inscribed Virtutem Forum Decorat [Reverse] By Leonardo Da Vinci

About this work

**Wreath of Laurel, Palm, and Juniper with a Scroll Inscribed *Virtutem Forma Decorat* [Reverse]** is a tempera on panel work, c. 1474–1478 , held in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

A laurel branch to the left and a palm branch to the right, both in muted green tones, curve toward each other, crossing near the top to frame a sprig of spiky juniper — all set against a dark, speckle-flecked ground that makes the foliage glow with quiet intensity. Against this deep background, the painted laurel and palm wreath enclose the juniper at the center, while a scroll bearing the words *Virtutem Forma Decorat* — "Beauty Adorns Virtue" — wraps around all three. The composition is heraldic in its symmetry: not a loose garland but a deliberate, emblematic arrangement, more crest than decoration. It reads as a single concentrated symbol — dense with meaning, spare in form, and executed with the same controlled hand Leonardo brought to his most celebrated work.

This is the back of a two-sided panel — the emblematic reverse of *Ginevra de' Benci*, Leonardo's earliest known portrait. The scroll bears Ginevra's Latin motto, meaning "Beauty Adorns Virtue," while the sprig of juniper (*ginepro* in Italian) puns on Ginevra's name, and the encircling laurel and palm symbolize her intellectual and moral virtue — but also happened to be the personal emblem of Bernardo Bembo, the Venetian ambassador to Florence.

Infrared examination has revealed Bembo's motto "Virtue and Honor" beneath Ginevra's on the scroll, suggesting it was likely Bembo who ordered the emblematic painting on this verso. Painted when Leonardo was in his early twenties, the panel belongs to a pivotal moment in his career — he was in his twenties when he created this portrait and had just begun to experiment with the new medium of oil paint.

Only one painting soundly attributed to da Vinci is currently held in a permanent collection by a North American institution — *Ginevra de' Benci* at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. — making this reverse panel one of the most geographically accessible Leonardo works in existence.

As wall art, this reverse carries a different atmosphere than the portrait it backs. Where *Ginevra de' Benci* asks you to read a face, this asks you to read a mind — the mind of a young Renaissance woman whose intellectual life was rendered in symbols as precisely as her likeness. It suits a library, a study, or any space built around the life of the intellect: dark shelves, warm lamplight, good books. The palette of deep ground and muted botanical greens is self-contained and unhurried, neither demanding nor rec