A painting dubbed “the lost Leonardo” — attributed by some experts to da Vinci — sold for $400 million in 2017, five centuries after the artist’s death. Wagner College’s own lost Leonardo didn’t come with a price tag — just a 27-year overdue return.
Gregg Gavioli ’98 recently reunited Wagner’s library with a long-missing copy of “Leonardo Da Vinci,” a book he checked out for an art history class in the fall of 1997.
“I was taking an art history class and needed to do a report on a favorite artist,” said the Staten Island native. “The Italian culture and Renaissance are most interesting to me, so I selected Leonardo.”
Now managing director of the accounting and finance recruitment practice at Solomon Page in Manhattan, Gavioli said the book “somehow got packed up with my memorabilia” — alongside his gavel from two terms as Wagner’s student government president.
“My parents found it while cleaning out the basement 27 years later,” he said.
Rather than slipping it back onto the shelf unnoticed, Gavioli personally returned the book to Paul Barretta, interim dean of the Nicolais School of Business.
“He’s a very active alum and was one of the mentors for the Career Activator program,” Barretta said. “He handed it back to me at our end-of-program celebration.”
A very active alum. Gavioli has spent the past two decades mentoring Wagner students on job searches, interviews, and career placement as co-chair of the Business School advisory council. But his ties to Wagner go beyond the professional—he still keeps close with his Theta Chi brothers and looks back fondly on his college days. From running legendary Thursday night parties at The Caves, a once-beloved Staten Island hotspot, to planning Greek life formals and homecoming floats, Gavioli has always played a role in shaping Wagner’s story.
Lisa Holland, director of Horrmann Library, officially welcomed back Wagner’s lost Leonardo. The book will return to circulation soon, she said. “It needs to be re-cataloged since it was purged from our system and presumed lost.”
And as for Gavioli? “No fine,” Holland confirmed.
