YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

LEONARDO DA VINCI BY HERBERT P.
HORNE: NUMBER NINE OF THE ARTIST'S
LIBRARY EDITED BY LAURENCE BIN-
YON AND PUBLISHED BY LONG
MANS GREEN AND CO. XCI AND
XCIII FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK

THE LIFE OF LEONARDO DA
VINCI BY GIORGIO VASARI DONE
INTO ENGLISH FROM THE TEXT
OF THE SECOND EDITION OF
THE "LIVES" WITH A COM
MENTARY BY HERBERT P.
HORNE AND PUBLISHED BY
LONGMANS GREEN & CO. XCI
AND XCIII FIFTH AVENUE NEW
YORK MCMIII

TO

BERNHARD BERENSON

PREFATORY NOTE

The life of Leonardo da Vinci has always been regarded as one of
Vasari's most fortunate essays : it certainly stands apart by itself
among the " Lives of the Painters." " Why has Vasari written so
admirably of Leonardo ? " asked Mariette already in the earlier
part of the eighteenth century. Vasari is ordinarily at his best
when he is writing of men with whom he was personally acquainted ;
but he could never have seen Leonardo, for he was only a child
of four when the master went to France, in 15 15. Yet not only
does Vasari draw a portrait of him such as he has given us of no
other master of the fifteenth century, but he relates the successive
events of his life in their proper order ; whereas the lives of the
earlier masters which precede it, excepting that of Brunelleschi,
which Vasari took from an earlier biography, are little more
than so many collections of anecdotes.
In the present volume, I have attempted to convey something
of the literary charm of Vasari's narrative, and to illustrate its
value as a piece of biography and criticism. His "Lives" have
still to be adequately translated into English ; for, in spite of a
recent attempt, Mrs. Forster's version, such as it is, remains the
best, and in a sense the only complete, rendering. To convey the
inimitable charm of his style is a task the difficulty of which can
be appreciated only by those who have made the attempt. In
much, Vasari recalls the English writers of the seventeenth cen
tury ; but, unlike them, he is never merely quaint. With no real
literary training, garrulous, often redundant, and sometimes even
ungrammatical, he attempts to write the Ciceronian prose of his
age; yet notwithstanding he always remains easy and natural,
?

the most engaging of story-tellers, a.master x>f literary portraiture,
and, though it is now the fashion to deny it, a master of -criticism.
In my notes, which I have been forced to cast into the briefest
form, on account of the restricted space of these little volumes,
I have chiefly attempted to illustrate Vasari's narrative, correcting
those errors which modern research has placed beyond discussion,
and supplying the more important omissions in his story. In this
way I have endeavoured to give the tenor of all the chief docu
ments relating to Leonardo's life, with the places where the originals
may be found at length ; and also to describe and discuss all his
genuine paintings, and to indicate the nature of his extant
manuscripts, and the more important collections of his drawings.
For my aim has been not only to give the general reader as
adequate an account of Leonardo and his art as my space might
admit of, but also to furnish more serious students of Italian
painting with a brief introduction to the study of Leonardo.
More than this, there are several Leonardesque questions which
I have been able to elucidate more fully, I believe, than has
hitherto been done.
I have to thank my friend Mr. Bernhard Berenson for several
suggestions both in regard to the translation and the notes ; and
especially for calling my attention to the allusion in Anton
Francesco Doni's letter to the *' Battle of the Standard." H. P. H.

THE LIFE OF LEONARDO DA VINCI BY GIORGIO
VASARI, DONE INTO ENGLISH FROM THE
TEXT OF THE SECOND EDITION OF THE
"LIVES," WITH A COMMENTARY, BY HERBERT
P. HORNE. I
The greatest gifts, and at times of a supernatural order, are often
seen in the course of nature, rained by heavenly influences on
human creatures ; beauty, grace, and ability, being beyond measure
united in a single person, in a manner that whatever such an one
turns to do, his every action is so divine, that, surpassing all other
men, it is plainly recognised as a thing bestowed by God, and
not acquired by human art. This was seen by all the world in
Leonardo da Vinci, in whom, besides beyond a beauty of body
never to be sufficiently extolled, there was an endless grace in all
his actions ; and so great, and of such a kind, was his genius, that
to whatever difficult things he turned his mind, he solved them with
ease. In him, great physical force was joined to a dexterity, spirit
and courage, ever royal and magnanimous ; and the fame of his
name so increased, that not only in his lifetime was he held in
estimation, but after his death his renown became still greater
among posterity. Truly marvellous and celestial was Leonardo,
the son of Ser Piero da Vinci ; and in learning, and in the
elements of letters, he would have made great proficience if he
had not been so variable and unstable : by reason of which he set
himself to learn many things, and then abandoned them after he
had begun them. Thus, in arithmetic, during the few months
that he studied it, he made such progress, that by continually
b 9

presenting doubts and difficulties to the master who taught him,
he very often perplexed him. He gave some little study to music,
and presently resolved to learn to play the lyre, as one who was
by nature of a most lofty spirit, and full of delicacy ; wherefore
he sang divinely to that instrument, improvising upon it.
IT Leonardo was bom in 1452, the love-child of Ser Piero d' Antonio di Ser Piero di Ser
Guido di Ser Michele da Vinci, by a girl " of good blood," as the Anonimo Gaddiano
records, called Caterina, who afterwards became the wife of Accattabriga di Piero del
Vacca da Vinci. The little town of Vinci, in which Ser Piero's family had its origin, and
Leonardo his birth, is situated in the lower valley of the Arno, on the slopes of Mount
Albano, some twenty miles from Florence. At the time of Leonardo's birth, his father
was a young man of twenty-five : the same year he married his first wife, Albiera
Amadori. He came of a race of notaries, his forebears, as their style of " Ser" implies,
having followed that calling for many generations ; and he appears to have settled early
at Florence, in the practice of his profession. In 1469 his name first occurs in docu
ments as Procurator of the monastery of the SS. Annunziata, and notary to the Signoria
of Florence. In course of years, he engrossed the chief business of the city ; and no
other notary of his time has left behind him so vast a number of notarial attestations.
He was four times married, and the father of nine sons and two daughters begot in
lawful wedlock ; his youngest son being bom shortly before 1 504, the year in which Ser
Piero died, at the age of seventy-seven.
Leonardo had already been received into his father's house in 1457, and his mother
married to Accattabriga. In a Declaration to the Officials of the Taxes, returned in
1469, Ser Piero enumerates, among the other members of his family, "Leonardo, figluolo
di detto Ser Piero, non legiptimo, d'eta 17." Ser Piero was then living in a house in
the Piazza San Firenze, on the site of which the Palazzo Gondi was afterwards erected
by Giuliano da San Gallo, c. 1490. [N. S. Scognamiglio, Ricerche e DocuTnenti sulla
Giovinez2a di Leonardo da Vinci, Napoli, 1900, pp. 132, 135, 143, 144, etc.]
Leonardo's early education appears to have been of the elementary kind ordinarily
given in the fifteenth century to the sons of well-to-do citizens. In the schooling of a
Florentine boy, Abbaco, that is the elements of arithmetic, necessary to the casting of
accounts, played so important a part, that the expression, Sta all' Abbaco, became a
synonym for going to school. Leonardo's manuscripts afford several indications that his
knowledge of the higher mathematics was formed in after life. For the rest, he would
have acquired as a boy, but "small Latin and less Greek." In one passage in the
Codice Atlantico, Leonardo expressly says that he was no man of letters, meaning that
he was not read in the Greek and Latin writers, nor able to express himself in the
Ciceronian prose of the Humanists : " So bene che per non essere io letterato, che alcuno
prosuntuoso gli parra ragionevolmente potermi biasimare, coll' allegare io essere omo
sanza lettere." [C. A., fol. 119, r.]
Nevertheless, although he employed himself on many various
matters, he never gave over drawing and working in relief;
those being things which took his fancy more than any other.'
Ser Piero having remarked this, and having considered the
loftiness of his genius, took one day some of his drawings, and,
carrying them to Andrea del Verrocchio, who was much his
friend, straitly besought him that he should tell him whether
Leonardo, by studying drawing, would make any proficience.
10

Andrea was amazed to see the extraordinary beginnings of
Leonardo, and exhorted Ser Piero that he should make him
study it ; whereupon his father arranged with Leonardo that he
should go to the workshop of Andrea, which Leonardo did with
no ordinary willingness. And he practised not one branch of art
alone, but all those of which drawing formed a part, and having
an intellect so divine and marvellous, and being an excellent
geometrician, he worked not only in sculpture, executing, in his
youth, in clay, some heads of women that are smiling, of which
casts in plaster are still taken, and likewise some heads of boys
which possess all the appearance of having come from the hand
of a master, but in architecture, also, he made many drawings both
of plans, as of other projections of buildings ; and he was the first,
although a mere youth, that put forward the project of reducing the
river Arno to a navigable channel, from Pisa to Florence. He
made designs for flour-mills, fulling-mills, and machines, which
might be driven by the force of water : and because he wished
that painting should be his profession, he studied much in drawing
from nature, and often in making models of figures in clay, which
he covered with soft, worn linen dipped in clay, and then set himself
to draw them with great patience, on a particular kind of very
fine Rheims cloth, or prepared linen ; and he executed them in
black and white with the point of a brush, to a marvel, as some of
them which I have in our book of drawings still bear witness :
besides which he drew on paper with such diligence, and so well,
that no one has ever attained to such fineness of execution ; and
of such I have a head drawn with the style in chiaroscuro, that is
divine. IT To the influence of Andrea del Verrocchio (1435-1488), "goldsmith, master of
perspective, sculptor, inlayer of woods, painter and musician," Leonardo largely owed
the development, if not the bent, of his genius, his mastery of many arts, his universal
curiosity and love of knowledge. The date is not known at which Leonardo was placed
with Verrocchio : but it cannot well have been earlier than 1465, or later than 1469. At
Florence, in the 15th century, boys were commonly put to learn a craft, or trade, on
completing their thirteenth year. Leonardo was still working with Verrocchio in June,
1476. One of the first works of importance which was executed in Andrea's workshop,
after Leonardo had entered it, was a difficult piece of constructional art, namely, the
ball, or sphere, of gilded copper to be placed on the lantern above the dome of the
Cathedral at Florence, in accordance with the design of Brunelleschi. Luca Landucci
records in his Diario, that it was drawn up into its place on 27th May, 1471, and
three days after, the cross was placed above the ball, amid the singing of the Te Deum.
In 1472, Verrocchio finished the tomb of Giovanni and Piero de' Medici, in the Church
of San Lorenzo at Florence ; and in 1476 he cast the bronze statue of David, now in the
Bargello, for the staircase of the Palazzo Vecchio. The following year he executed the
II

relief of the " Decollation of the Baptist," for the silver altar of the Baptistery ; and c.
1478, he began the bronze group of " Christ and St. Thomas," which still stands in one
of the niches of Or San Michele. [Vasari, ed. Sansoni, vol. iii. p. 381.]
Of Leonardo's life during the time he was working under Verrocchio, few notices are
extant. In the Libro Rosso, an account book of the fees payable to the "Compagnia
di San Luca," the religious society of the Florentine painters, by its members, " Leonardo
di Ser Piero da Vinci " is debited in an entry of the year 1472, with the ordinary fees of
membership, which, as the credit side of the account is left blank, were presumably not
paid. [G. Uzielli, Richerche intorno a Leonardo da Vinci, ed. 1872-84, p. I49-] Since it
appears from the same volume of accounts, that Leonardo duly paid fees to the com
pany, after his return to Florence in 1502, it would be unjustifiable to argue that the
omission to do so in 1472 arose from any indifference to the orthodox observances of
religion. Vasari, however, in a passage in the first edition of the Lives, which he after
wards suppressed, asserts that Leonardo " was of so heretical a cast of mind, that he
conformed to no religion whatever, accounting it, perchance, much better to be a philo
sopher than a Christian." Nor does Leonardo entirely escape some shadow of censure
of a kind which, in pre-Christian Italy, would have been lightly passed over.
In the earlier part of the 15th century, a Magistracy had been erected at Florence,
known as the " Officiali di Notte e Monasteri," who were charged with the regulation of
the morals of the community in general, and of the religious bodies in particular. On
8th April, 1476, a tamburazione, or secret and anonymous accusation, was dropped
into one of the boxes provided by this Magistracy for the purpose, of which the following
copy is preserved among the records of this office, in the Florentine Archives :
" Notifico a Voi, Signori Officiali, com' egli e vera cosa, che Jacopo Saltarelli, fratello
carnale di Giovanni Saltarelli ; sta collui all' orafo, in Vacchereccia, dirimpetto al buco
[tamburo] — veste nero, d' eta d' anni 170 circa ; il quale Jacopo va dietro a molte miserie,
et consente conpiacere a quelle persone lo richieggano di simili tristizie.
" Et a questo modo a avuto a fare di molte cose, cioe servito parecchie dozzine di
persone, delle quali ne so buona data : Tal parte diro d'alcuni : Bartholomeo di
Pasquino, orafo, sta in Vacchereccia. Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, sta con Andrea
del Verrocchio. Baccino farsettaio, . . . Leonardo Tornabuoni, dicto il Teri, veste nero.'"'
Against the names of the four persons accused, is a minute to the effect that they
were released on the condition that they might be again brought up on further evidence :
" absoluti cum conditione ut retamburentur." On the following 7th June, the accusation
was repeated (at that time Leonardo was still working with Verrocchio), and against
the four names is another minute to the effect that they were again released on the same
condition : and there is a passage in the Codice Atlantico that seems to point to the fact
that Leonardo in his youth had been in prison. [Arckivio Storico dell' Arte, Roma,
Ser. n. vol. ii. p. 313, 1896.]
Neither the heads of smiling women in terra-cotta, nor the casts of them which were
still sold in Florence when Vasari wrote, nor the heads of putti, are known to have
survived. Giovan Paolo Lomazzo, in his Trattato delV Arte de la Pittura, Milano, 1584,
lib. 11. cap. viii. p. 127, says that he possessed a little head of Christ as a child, in
terra-cotta, by the hand of Leonardo, which was perhaps one of the " teste de' putti "
described by Vasari.
Among the evidences which we possess of Leonardo's studies in architecture, may be
mentioned a manuscript of a Treatise of Civil and Military Architecture, by the Sienese
painter, sculptor, and architect, Francesco di Giorgio (1439-1502), the margins of which
contain annotations in the handwriting of Leonardo. This manuscript, which is pre
served among the Codici Ashburnliam, No. 361, in the Biblioteca Laurenziana at
Florence, has hitherto remained inedited.
It is probable, as Dr. Solmi suggests, that the project for reducing the Arno to a
navigable canal, from Florence to Pisa, was brought forward by Leonardo, after his
return to Florence in 1 500 : a little before that time, designs for such a project had been
given by Luca Fancelli. [E. Solmi, Leonardo, p. 127-8.]
In devising such projects, and in inventing mills and other machines, Leonardo was
concerning himself with problems which had occupied not only architects and engineers
12 '

but even painters, goldsmiths, and sculptors at Florence, during the 15th century.
The sketch-book of the goldsmith, bronze-caster and architect, Buonaccorso di Vittorio
Ghiberti (1451-1516), the grandson of Lorenzo Ghiberti, which is preserved among the
Magliabechian Manuscripts, cl. xvii. cod. 34, in the Biblioteca Nazionale at Florence,
contains many drawings for machines and engines of various kinds, besides studies of
paintings and sculpture.
II Cecca, the Florentine engineer (1447-1488), is especially mentioned by Vasari
among those who " employed their industry in methods of traction, in machines of war,
in water-works, and in all those cautionary devises proper to military engineering and
architecture, by means of which, disconcerting their enemies, and accommodating their
friends, they render the world beautiful and convenient." [Vasari, ed. Sansoni, vol. iii.
P- 195] And there was infused in that brain such grace from God,
and a power of expression in such sublime accord with the in
tellect and memory that served it, and he knew so well how to
express his conceptions by draughtsmanship, that he overcame with
his arguments, and confuted with his reasons, every stalwart wit.
And he was for ever making models and designs to enable men to
remove mountains with facility, and to bore them in order to pass
from one level to another ; and by means of levers, and cranes,
and screws, he showed how great weights could be lifted and
drawn ; together with methods of emptying harbours, and pumps
for drawing up water from low places, all which his brain never
ceased from inventing ; and of these notions and labours many
drawings are to be seen, scattered abroad among artists ; and I
myself have seen a good number. Moreover, he was so prodigal
of time as to draw knots of cords, contrived according to an
order, that from one end all the rest might follow on till the
other, so as to fill a round ; of which a most difficult and beauti
ful one is to be seen executed in stamp, and in the midst are
these words, Leonardus Vinci Accademia. Among these designs
and models, there was one by which he often demonstrated to
many ingenious citizens, who then governed Florence, that he was
ready to raise the temple of San Giovanni in Florence, and place
steps under it, without damage to the building ; and with such
weighty reasons he counselled it, that it appeared possible ; although
each one of them, after he had departed, would recognise, when
alone by himself, the impossibility of such an undertaking.
Leonardo was so pleasing in conversation, that he attracted to
himself the affections of men. And although he possessed one
might say nothing, and worked little, he always kept servants and
horses ; in which latter he greatly delighted, and particularly in all
other animals, which he controlled with the greatest love and
13

patience ; and this he showed when often passing by places where
birds were sold, taking them out of their cages with his own hand,
and, having paid to those who sold them the price that was asked,
he let them fly away into the air, restoring to them their lost
liberty. Wherefore nature desired so to favour him, that wher
ever he turned thought, brain, and mind, he showed such divine
power in his works, that, in bringing them to perfection, no one
was ever his equal in readiness, vivacity, excellence, bounty, beauty,
and grace.
It is evident that Leonardo, through the comprehension of
art, began many things, and never finished any of them, since
it appeared to him that the hand was not able to attain to the
perfection of art in executing the things which he conceived ;
seeing that he imagined difficulties so subtle and marvellous, that
they could never be expressed by the hands, be they ever so
skilful. And so many were his caprices, that, philosophising of
natural things, he gave himself to understand the properties of
herbs; going on and observing the motions of the heavens,. the
course of the moon, and the going forth of the sun.
If Vasari here digresses to speak of Leonardo's genius and character in general. A
great number of his drawings for machines and mechanical inventions of all kinds
are scattered among his manuscripts. Of the knots in stamp, to which Vasari here
alludes, there are three prints in the British Museum, which are described by J. D.
Passavant in his Peintre-Graveur, Leipsic, 1860-4, vol. v. p. 182, No. 9. They all
consist of an endless cord, elaborately interlaced and twisted, according to different
geometrical designs, so as to fill a circle. On a roundel, suspended in the centre of
the first print, is the inscription, academia leonardi vinci ; and the same legend
is repeated, in various ways, on the other two prints. This inscription has been
adduced, by some writers, as evidence that an Academy of the Arts and Sciences
was formally established by Leonardo at Milan ; but there can be little doubt that
the word "Accademia" is here to be understood in the sense of an academical exercise.
There is a fourth print of the same kind, which is undescribed by Passavant, in
the Ambrosian Library at Milan. The proposal to raise the Baptistery of San
Giovanni at Florence was put forward, in all probability, after his return there, in 1 500.
This Baptistery is probably the oldest building now remaining in Florence ; and, in
course of centuries, the accumulation of the surrounding soil has been such, that the
level of the existing pavement of the church, laid down in the 14th century, is many
inches below the level of the piazza in which it stands. Leonardo's proposal to place
it upon steps, similar no doubt to those on which the beautiful octagonal temple in
Raphael's "Sposalizio" at Milan rests, might have proved a difficult, but by no
means insuperable, problem to the science of engineering in Leonardo's time. In
Bologna, Aristotile Fioravanti had moved an entire tower from one place to another.
[E. Solmi, Leonardo, p. 128.]
Having been placed then in his boyhood, as I have said
at the instance of Ser Piero, to learn art with Andrea del
Verrocchio, who was making a picture on panel of St. John
14

baptizing Christ, Leonardo painted an angel who was holding
some garments ; and although he was a mere lad, he executed
it in such a way that it was much better than the figures of
Andrea ; which was the reason that Andrea would never again
touch colour, disdaining that a child should know more than he.
IT In his life of Verrocchio, Vasari states that this picture was painted for the Church
of the Monastery of San Salvi, a house of the Congregation of Vallombrosa, without
the Porta alia Croce, at Florence. After the suppression of the monastery in 1808, the
picture was taken to the gallery of the Florentine Academy, where it is now preserved,
No. 71. It is not in a fine state of preservation. The two kneeling angels on the left
of the picture [Plate I.] were clearly executed from Verrocchio's cartoon, though not
by the master himself. The assumption that the foremost of these figures was painted
by. Leonardo, is, perhaps, not altogether unsupported by the internal evidence of the
picture. His story that Verrocchio abandoned painting in consequence of Leonardo's
progress, must, however, be taken cum grano salts. Although Verrocchio executed,
as Vasari says, a number of cartoons from which his various assistants painted pictures,
few paintings by his hand have come down to us.
The commission was given to him for a cartoon for a door-
hanging that was to be executed in Flanders, woven in gold and
silk, in order to be sent to the King of Portugal, of Adam and Eve
sinning in the Earthly Paradise, wherein Leonardo drew with the
brush in chiaroscuro, heightened with white, a meadow of endless
kinds of herbage, with some animals, of which, in truth, one could
say that, for diligence and truth to nature, divine wit could not
make the like. In it is the fig-tree with the fore-shortening of the
leaves, and the various aspects of the branches, executed with such
care that the brain turns at the mere thought of how a man could
have such patience. There is also a palm - tree that has the
radiating crown of the palm, executed with so great and marvellous
art, that only the patience and brain of Leonardo was able to
accomplish it. This work was not carried farther ; hence the cartoon
is now at Florence, in the illustrious house of the Magnificent
Ottaviano de' Medici, given to him not long since by the uncle of
Leonardo. If The Anonimo Gaddiano also mentions this cartoon of " Adamo et Eua d'aquarello."
[ed. Frey, p. III.] Ottaviano de' Medici, to whom this cartoon had been given by the
uncle of Leonardo, was descended from an elder, but less illustrious branch of the
Medici, than that from which the Ducal family was descended. He died on 28th May,
1546. The passage from Vasari in question occurs in the ed. of 1550.
It is said that Ser Piero da Vinci, being at his villa, was
besought, as a favour, by a peasant in charge of his estate, who
had made a buckler with his own hands, out of a fig-tree which
IS

he had cut down on the farm, to get it painted for him at Florence,
which he very willingly did, since the countryman was very
ready in catching birds and fishing, and Ser Piero made great use
of him in those pursuits. Whereupon, having taken this buckler
with him to Florence, without telling Leonardo whose it was, Ser
Piero asked him to paint something upon it. Leonardo having one
day taken this buckler in his hands, and seeing it twisted, ill-made,
and clumsy, straightened it by the fire, and, having given it to a
turner, from the rough and clumsy thing that it was, caused it to
be made smooth and equal ; and afterwards, having covered it with
gesso, and having prepared it after his own method, he began to
think of what he might paint on it, that should be able to terrify
all who should come upon it, producing the same effect as once
did the head of Medusa. Leonardo therefore, to this end, carried
to a room into which no one entered but himself alone, slow-
worms, lizards, field-crickets, snakes, moths, grasshoppers, bats,
and other kinds of such-like animals, out of the number of which,
variously put together, he evolved a most horrible and terrifying
creature, which poisoned the air with its breath, and turned it into
flame ; and he represented it coming from out a dark and jagged
rock, belching poison from its open throat, and fire from its eyes,
and smoke from its nostril, in so strange a manner, that it seemed
altogether a monstrous and horrible thing ; and such pains did
he take in executing it, that although the smell of the dead
animals in the room was very noisome, it was not perceived by
Leonardo, so great was the passion that he bore towards his art. The
work which, no longer asked for either by the countryman or his
father, being finished, Leonardo told the latter that he might send
for the buckler at his convenience ; since, for his part, it was finished.
Ser Piero therefore, having gone one morning to the room for it,
and having knocked at the door, Leonardo opened it to him,
asking him to wait a little ; and, after he had adjusted the buckler
to the light on the easel, and put to the window, in order to lower
the light, he made him come in and see it. Ser Piero, at the
first glance, taken unawares, immediately started, not thinking
that that was the buckler, nor the figure which he saw there
was merely painted, and, falling back a step, Leonardo checked
him, saying, " This work serves the turn for which it was made •
take it then, and carry it away, since this is the effect that it
was intended to produce." The thing seemed to Ser Piero little
16

short of a miracle, and he greatly praised the ingenuity of
Leonardo. Then, having privately bought from a pedlar, another
buckler painted with a heart transfixed by an arrow, he gave it to
the countryman, who remained obliged to him for it, for the rest
of his life. Ser Piero afterwards secretly sold the buckler of
Leonardo to certain merchants in Florence, for a hundred ducats ;
and in a short time it came into the hands of the Duke of
Milan, having been sold to him by those merchants for three
hundred ducats.
T The form of this anecdote shows that Vasari is here relating a legend which was
current in his own time, in the Florentine botteghe: of the picture itself, which had
already disappeared when Vasari wrote, no other notice has come down to us.
Leonardo then made a picture of Our Lady, which belonged to
Pope Clement vn., a work of great excellence ; and, among other
things painted there, he counterfeited a glass vase full of water,
with some flowers in it, in which, besides its marvellous natural
ness, he had imitated the drops of dew on the flowers, so that it
seemed more real than the reality.
IT No picture painted by Leonardo's own hand, and answering to this description, is
known to exist. The motive of the glass vase filled with flowers was a common one, at
the time of Leonardo's youth.
For Antonio Segni, who was very much his friend, he made,
on a folio sheet of paper, a Neptune drawn with such diligence
that it seemed wholly alive. It represents the ocean troubled,
and Neptune's car drawn by sea-horses, with fantastic creatures,
monsters, and winds ; and there are in it some heads of sea-
gods that are exceedingly beautiful. This drawing was given by
Fabio, the son of Antonio Segni, to M. Giovanni Gaddi, with this
epigram — " Pinxit Virgilius Neptunum, pinxit Homerus ;
Dum maris undisoni per vada flectit equos.
Mente quidem vates ilium conspexit uterque,
Vincius ast oculis ; jureque vincit eos."
1f This drawing is now lost ; but a study, apparently for the principal group of Neptune
in his Car, drawn by Sea-horses, is preserved in the library at Windsor. [Plate 1 1.] Antonio
di Neri d' Antonio di Segna Guidi, as he describes himself in his Declarations to the
Officials of the Taxes, preserved in the Florentine Archives, was of a different family
from that from which Bernardo Segni, the historian, was descended. He states, in a
return of February 1480-1, that he was then living with his widowed mother, in their
house in the parish of San Romeo, or Remigio, in the quarter of Santa Croce, Gonfalone
Lion Nero ; that he was 21 years of age ; that he was not in trade, but that he "re-
17

paired at times to the bank of the Bartolini." He was then by no means a rich man :
the wealth which enabled him to become a patron of the Arts, must have come to
him at a later period of his career. In the first years of the last decade of the 15th
century, Botticelli painted for him the famous " Calumny of Apelles," now in the Uffizi :
and if the style of the study at Windsor furnishes any clue to the date of the lost
drawing of the " Neptune," we may conclude, with tolerable certainty, that it was
executed by Leonardo after his return to Florence, in 1500. Fabio, the son of Antonio
Segni, and a celebrated dilettante of his day, wrote the epigrams on the painters which
Vasari inserted into the first edition of the Lives : from him Vasari no doubt obtained
this notice of the " Neptune" of Leonardo.
The fancy took him to paint a picture in oils of a head of a
Medusa, with the head attired with a coil of snakes ; the most
strange and extravagant invention that could possibly be imagined ;
but since it was a work that took time, it remained unfinished, as
happened with almost all his things. This picture is preserved
among the choice works of art in tbe palace of" the Duke Cosimo,
together with the head of an angel, who raises one arm in the
air, which, coming forward, is foreshortened from the shoulder to
the elbow, and with the other raises the hand to the breast.
IT The painting of the "Head of Medusa" is thus described in an inventory of the
Gnardaroba, or Wardrobe of the Duke Cosimo 1., taken in the year 1553 : " Uno quadro
di legname pittovi una Furia infernale di mano di Leonardo da Vinci senz' omamento."
[C. Conti : La Prima Reggia di Cosimo I, nel Palazzo gia della Signoria di Firenze,
p. 138.] The Anonimo Gaddiano describes the picture as "una testa di megera con
nrirabilj et rarj agruppamenti di serpi." [ed. Frey, p. m.]
The finished painting in the Uffizi, No. 11 59, which tradition has attempted to
identify with the unfinished picture described by Vasari, is a work executed many years
after Leonardo's death. It cannot even be regarded as a copy of the lost picture. The
other painting of an angel, which, according to Vasari, was also preserved in the
Guardaroba of Duke Cosimo, is not described in the inventory of 1553. J. W. Brown,
in his Life of_ Leonardo da Vinci, London, 1828, p. 249, sought to identify it with a
painting then in the possession of Signor Fineschi, at Florence ; but small reliance can
be placed on such assertions.
It is a thing to be marvelled at how that genius, wishing to give
the highest relief to the things which he executed, went so far
with dark shadows, in order to obtain grounds of the deepest tone,
that he sought for blacks that might produce deeper shadow and
be darker than other blacks ; that by their means he might make
the lights appear the brighter : and this method resulted in the
end so dark, that, no clear light remaining there, his paintings have
rather the appearance of things made to counterfeit an effect of
night, than the pure quality of daylight ; but all this was the result
of seeking to give greater relief, in order to arrive at the limit and
perfection of art.
He took so great a delight in beholding certain bizarre heads of
18

men with the beard or hair naturally worn, that he would follow
one that pleased him a whole day, and so stored him up in idea,
that afterwards, when he came home, he drew him as if he had
had him present before him. Of this kind, many heads are to be
seen, both of women and men ; and 1 have several drawn by his
hand with the pen, in our book of drawings, to which I have
alluded so many times : such was the drawing of Amerigo
Vespucci, which is a most beautiful head of an old man
drawn in charcoal ; and likewise that of Scaramuccia, the captain
of the gypsies, which afterwards belonged to M. Donato Valdam-
brini of Arezzo, Canon of S. Lorenzo, left to him by Giam-
bullari. IT Amerigo Vespucci, the navigator, who gave his name to the Continent of America,
was born in Florence in 1451, and was, therefore, only a year older than Leonardo
himself. The drawing of him as an old man must, consequently, have been done after
Leonardo's return to Florence, in 1502.
He began a panel-picture of the Adoration of the Magi, contain
ing many beautiful things, especially the heads, which was in the
house of Amerigo Benci, opposite the Loggia de' Peruzzi, and
which also remained unfinished, like his other works.
If This " Adoration of the Magi," of which only the under-painting in umber and terra-
vert was executed, is now in the gallery of the Uffizi, No. 1252. [Plates III. and IV.]
There can be little doubt, not only on account of the early character of the picture, but
also of the subject and the dimensions of the panel, that this is the altar-piece which
Leonardo was commissioned by the monks of San Donato a Scopeto to paint for the
high altar of their church, which, up to the time of the siege of Florence in 1529, stood
in the suburb of the city, without the Porta Romana. According to a document preserved
in the Florentine Archives, Leonardo began the picture in March, 1480-1 : he undertook
to execute it for the sum of three hundred gold florins, and to finish it within twenty-four,
or, at the most, thirty months. In August, 1481, he received a load of wood and fagots,
in payment for having painted the clock of the monastery of San Donato a Scopeto.
[G. Milanesi, Archivio Storico Italiano, 1872, Ser. III. vol. xvi. p. 228.]
A number of drawings for this altar-piece have been preserved. An admirable study
in pen and ink, for the whole composition, once in the Galichon Collection, is now in the
Louvre. [Reproduced in E. Miintz's Leonardo da Vinci, London, 1898, vol. i. p. 65.]
Another fine study for the horsemen and buildings in the background, is in the Uffizi,
Frame 96, No. 436 [Plate V.]. Other studies are in the Valton and Bonnat collections,
at Paris. With this notice of the " Adoration of the Magi," Vasari concludes his account of
the first period of Leonardo's career, which ends with his departure from Florence,
c. 1482, in order to enter the service of Lodovico Sforza, at Milan. In this portion of
his narrative, Vasari ascribes to Leonardo's earliest years, at least two works, namely,
the "Neptune" executed for Antonio Segni, and the head of Amerigo Vespucci, which
must have been executed after his return to Florence, in 1500. Vasari, at the same
time, omits to notice more than one work of Leonardo's early period, of which authentic
notices have been brought to light.
Among the drawings in the Uffizi, Frame 97, No. S^, is a study in pen and ink of a
19

landscape, inscribed : " Di di sancta Maria della Neve, addi 2 daggosto, 1473 " [Plate VI.].
This is the earliest dated study by his hand which has come down to us.
Leonardo, as we have seen, was still working with Verrocchio in June, 1476 ; but in
the course of the following year, at the latest, he must have set up for himself as an
independent master. On 1st January, 1477-8, he received the commission to paint the
altar-piece for the Chapel of San Bernardo, in the Palazzo Vecchio, a work which had
been given to Pietro Pollaiuoli, eight days before, and which had probably been declined
by that master. On the 16th March, 1478, Leonardo received 25 gold florins on account
of the work. [G. Milanesi, Archivio Storico Italiano, 1872, Ser. ill. vol. xvi. p. 227.]
A sheet of studies by Leonardo, preserved in the Gallery of the Uffizi, Frame 97,
No. 446, containing a head of an old man and a slighter sketch of a young man's head,
bears the following memorandum in his hand: ". . . . bre 1478 inchominciaj le 2
Vergini Marie" : that is, between the months of September and December (the first
part of the date being cut away), 1478, Leonardo began two pictures of the Virgin.
There are several early drawings by Leonardo, which may well have been intended to
serve as studies for these pictures. In the Uffizi, Frame 93, No. 421, is a design in pen
and wash for a composition of the Virgin, at half-length, with the Child, who is playing
with a cat. On the margins of another sheet in the Uffizi, Frame 95, No. 435) a copy
of some lost original by Leonardo, are a series of studies for the same composition.
Others are in the Royal Library at Windsor, and in the British Museum.
On the 28th December, 1479, Bernardo Bandini, who had assassinated Giuliano der
Medici, in the Pazzi conspiracy, was hanged at one of the windows of the Bargello, or
official residence of the Capitano di Giustizia, which at that time adjoined the Palazzo
Vecchio, on the side towards the Via de' Gondi. On the miscarriage of the plot,
Bernardo fled to Constantinople, but, at the request of Lorenzo de' Medici, he was given
up to the Florentines by the Grand Turk. As the wretched man hung dangling from
the window of the palace, Leonardo made a drawing in pen and ink of him, noting the
colours of his dress on the margin. This drawing is now at Paris, in the collection of
M. Leon Bonnat. [Reproduced in J. P. Richter's Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci,
vol. i. pi. lxii. No. 1.]
Two other works of Leonardo's early period must be mentioned here, on account of
their importance : one is the head of a knight in silver point, a highly finished
Verrocchiesque drawing, in the Malcolm Collection, No. 34, in the British Museum
[Plate VII.] ; the other, in the Gallery of the Vatican, at Rome, is a small picture
or panel of " St. Jerome," of the same period, and in the same unfinished condition,
as the "Adoration of the Magi," in the Uffizi ; the under-painting in umber and terra-
vert having alone been completed. [Plate VIII.]

20

II
It happened that Giovan Galeazzo, Duke of Milan, being dead,
and Lodovico Sforza raised to the same rank, in the year 1494,
Leonardo was brought to Milan in great credit to the Duke, who
much delighted in the sound of the lyre, in order that he might
play it : and Leonardo took with him that instrument, which he
had made with his own hands, in great part of silver, and in the
form of a horse's skull (a thing bizarre and new), to the end that
the harmony might be of greater volume and sonority of tone ;
whereby he surpassed all the musicians that had assembled there
to play. Moreover, he was the best improviser in verse of his
time. The Duke hearing the marvellous discourse of Leonardo,
became so enamoured of his genius, that it was a thing incredible ;
and at his request, he painted an altar-piece containing a Nativity,
which was sent by the Duke to the Emperor.
IT Vasari, beyond all question, was in error when he stated that Leonardo went to
Milan in 1494. The Anonimo Gaddiano states that Leonardo was sent " in his thirtieth
year," that is, in 1482, to the Duke of Milan by Lorenzo de' Medici, II Magnifico. [ed.
Frey, p. ] Such indications as we possess, serve to confirm this statement. Again, it is
difficult to believe Vasari's statement, that Leonardo was called to Milan, by reason of
his skill in playing on a lyre, which he had constructed in imitation of the instruments
•of the ancients. There can be little doubt that he first attracted the notice of Lodovico
Sforza, called II Moro, the uncle and regent of the young duke, Giovan Galeazzo Maria, .
as a sculptor capable of executing the equestrian statue of the Duke Francesco.
In the Codice Atlantico is preserved the following draft of a letter addressed to Lodo
vico, II Moro, in which Leonardo offers his services, as a military architect and engineer,
and sets forth at length what he is able to achieve in that capacity. The letter was
apparently written after Leonardo had arrived in Milan, and certainly after the proposal
had been discussed, that the execution of the equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza
should be entrusted to him.
" Having, most illustrious Lord, now sufficiently seen and considered the essays of
all those who proclaim themselves masters and inventors of warlike instruments, and
that the invention of those instruments, as regards their operation, differs in nothing
from those in common use, I will attempt, without derogating from the merits of others,
21

to make myself understood by your Excellency, laying open my secrets to you, and
afterwards offering them to you, at your pleasure, as occasions admit, to put them
effectively into operation, as well as all those things, which for the sake of brevity shall
be in part only set forth here below.
" i. I have forms of very light and strong bridges, and contrived so as to be trans
ported with great ease, that, while carrying them, the enemy can be pursued, and, on occasion
fled ; and others secure and indestructible by fire and battle, and easy and convenient to
remove and set up ; together with methods of burning and destroying those of the enemy.
" 2. I know, during the siege of a town, how to draw off the water from the fosses,
and make endless bridges, battering rams, scaling ladders, and other instruments
pertaining to such expeditions.
" 3. Moreover, if by reason of the height of the ramparts, or on'account of the strength
of the place or situation, it should not be possible, during the siege of a town, to make
use of bombards, I have modes of destroying every fortress or other stronghold, even if
it should be built upon rock.
" 4. I have also forms of bombards, very convenient and easy to remove ; and with
these I am able to hurl forth [showers of] small stones, almost in the semblance of a
tempest ; and with the smoke of it to strike terror into the enemy, to their heavy damage
and confusion.
"5. Moreover, I have methods of forming mines, and secret and tortuous ways,
without any noise, in order to reach a given [point], although there be need to pass
under fosses, or a river.
" 6. Moreover, I will make covered chariots, secure and unattackable, which, entering
among the enemy with their artillery, there is no multitude of men-at-arms so great,
that they will not break them ; and behind these, infantry will be able to follow wholly
unharmed, and without any hindrance.
" 7. Moreover, as need may arise, I will make bombards and mortars and field-pieces
of most beautiful and useful forms, and out of the common use.
"8. Where the employment of bombards should fail, I will contrive catapults, man
gonels, trabocchi, and other machines, of marvellous efficacy, and such as are not in
use ; and in brief, according to the variety of the circumstances, I will contrive various
and endless means of offence and defence.
" 9. And when [the encounter] should happen to be at sea, I have forms of many
machines admirably adapted for offence and defence, and ships that are able to resist
the attack of all the largest bombards, and powder and fumes.
" 10. In time of peace, I believe that I can very well give satisfaction, in rivalry with
any other, in designing both public and private buildings, and in bringing water from
one place to another.
" Moreover, I will execute in sculpture, whether of marble, bronze, or clay, and
likewise in painting, whatever may be done, and in rivalry with any other, be he whom
he may. " Also, I shall be able to put the work of the [bronze] horse into execution ; which
will be to the immortal glory and eternal honour of the prince your father, of happy
memory, and of the illustrious house of Sforza. And if any one of the above named
things seem to any one to be impossible, and not to be done, I am prepared to make
a trial of it in your park, or in whatever place may please your Excellency, to whom
I commend myself with the utmost humility" [J. P. Richter, Literary Works of
Leonardo, vol. iii. p. 395.]
The Anonimo Gaddiano also, records that Leonardo "painted an altar-piece on panel
for Lodovico, Lord of Milan, which was said by those able to judge, who have seen it'
to be one of the most beautiful and rare works that have been seen in painting ; which
painting was sent by the said lord into Germany, to the Emperor" [ed. Frey, p. i'i2].
No other notice of such an altar-piece has come down to us : but is it not possible
that Vasari and the Anonimo are here alluding, from hearsay, to the altar-piece in
the Louvre, known as the " Madonna of the Rocks," No. 1599 [Plate IX.] which, though
not strictly a "Nativity," might loosely be so described? If this conjecture is
allowable, the history of the picture may thus be explained. At some unspecified date
22 '

but not long after Leonardo's arrival in Milan, he and the Milanese painter, Ambrosio
de Predis, received a commission from the members of the Confraternity of the Con
ception, to execute an altar-piece for their chapel in the Church of San Francesco, at
Milan ; Leonardo undertaking to paint " a picture of Our Lady in oil," and de Predis
to paint " two pictures with two large figures of angels in oil," and to make an altar-
frame, or " Ancona of figures in relief, overlaid with fine gold." Some time after the
work was finished, the two painters drew up a supplicatio, or petition, addressed to
some high official, perhaps the Duke of Milan. This document is undated, but a
minute of the same suit has recently been found in another Protocol, preserved in the
Milanese Archives, from which it appears that the petition was presented between
1491 and 1494. \Rasscgna d' Arte, Milano, Luglio, 1901, p. no.] In the petition
in question, Leonardo and Ambrogio de Predis state that three appraisers, two being
members of the confraternity and the third a monk, having been appointed, according
to agreement, to estimate the value of the work, a grave dispute had arisen as to the
price to be paid ; and, amongst other things, they assert that these three appraisers
wish " to estimate the said picture of Our Lady executed in oil by the said Florentine,
at only 25 ducats, although it be of the value of 100 ducats, as appears by an
account of the petitioners, and this price of 100 ducats they have arrived at from
certain persons who have wished to buy the said picture of Our Lady." Wherefore,
on the ground that "the said members of the confraternity are not expert in such
things," they petition that two expert appraisers be appointed, and that the members
of the confraternity, according to their estimate, either reimburse the said petitioners,
or release to them the said picture of Our Lady executed in oil." [E. Motta, Am
brogio Preda e Leonardo da Vinci, printed in the Archivio Storico Lombardo, 1893,
Anno xx. p. 915.] How the suit ended, we can only conjecture. It is unlikely that
the confraternity were either able, or willing, to pay the large sum of 300 ducats
demanded for the entire ancona,- and the picture of Our Lady appears to have been
returned to Leonardo, and afterwards bought by Lodovico, II Moro, who presented
it to the Emperor Maximilian, probably about the time of his marriage with Bianca
Maria Sforza, the sister of Lodovico, in December, 1493. At an early period, it passed
into the French Royal collection : there is a tradition that it was in the possession of
Francis I. ; but it is first mentioned by Pere Dan, in 1642, among the pictures at
Fontainebleau. [F. Engeraud, Inventaire des Tableaux du Roy ridigi en 1709 el 17 10,
par Nicolas Bailty, Paris, 1 899, p. 8.]
In order to fill the place of Leonardo's picture in the ancona, Ambrogio de Predis
appears to have undertaken to execute, from Leonardo's cartoon, and probably with his
supervision, a replica of the original. This, and the two side panels, were still in the
Church of San Francesco in 1751 : about 1777, the central panel was brought to
England ; and all three panels are now in the National Gallery, Nos. 1093, 1661, and
1662. He also executed in Milan, for the Friars of Saint Dominic,
at Santa Maria delle Grazie, a Last Supper, a most beautiful and
marvellous work ; and to the heads of the apostles he gave such
majesty and beauty, that he left the head of Christ unfinished,
thinking that he was not able to give it that divine air which is
looked for in the image of Christ. This work, remaining thus
almost finished, has always been held by the Milanese in vast
veneration, and by other strangers as well ; seeing that Leonardo
so imagined and executed it, as to express that apprehension which
possessed the apostles in wishing to know who should betray their
Master. Wherefore in all their faces are seen love, fear, anger, or
23

grief, at not being able to understand the meaning of Christ :
which thing does not arouse less wonder, than the sight of it in
contrast with the obstinacy, hatred, and treachery of Judas. More
over, every least part of the work shows an incredible diligence ;
since even in the table-cloth, the texture of the fabric is imitated in
such a manner that linen itself could not appear more real.
It is said that the Prior of that place urged Leonardo, in a most
importunate way, to finish the work ; it seeming strange to him
that the painter should sometimes stand half a day at a time, lost in
thought : and he would have had him go on with his work as if he
were digging in a garden, without ever stopping his brush. And
this not contenting him, he complained of it to the Duke, and so
besought him, that he was constrained to send for Leonardo, and
adroitly urged him to finish the work, showing nevertheless that he
did all this on account of the importunity of the Prior. Leonardo,
knowing the intellect of that Prince to be acute and discerning,
began to discourse at large with the Duke upon this matter, a thing
which he had never done with the Prior ; and arguing with him
much about art, made him understand how men of lofty genius
sometimes produce the most, when they work the least ; seeking
out inventions with the mind, and forming those perfect ideas,
which the hands afterwards express and portray from the images
already conceived in the brain. And he added that there were still
wanting two heads for him to paint : that of Christ, which he was
not willing to seek on earth ; and he could not think that it was
possible to conceive in the imagination, that beauty and celestial
grace which ought to belong to God incarnate. Next, there was
wanting for him to paint that of Judas, to which he also had given
thought, not believing that it was possible to imagine a face which
should express the countenance of him who, after so many benefits
received, had a mind so cruel, as to resolve upon the betrayal of
his Lord and the Creator of the world. Wherefore he would
seek out a head for the latter ; but if in the end he did not find
a better, he should not want that of the importunate and unreason
able Prior. This thing moved the Duke mightily to laughter, and
he said that he had a thousand reasons on his side. And so the
poor Prior, in confusion, betook himself to look after the work of
the garden, and left Leonardo alone, who finished only the head
of Judas, which seems the very presentment of treachery and
inhumanity : that of Christ remaining unfinished, as I have said
24

The nobility of this picture, both on account of its design, and
from its having been executed with an incomparable diligence,
caused the King of France to wish to transport it into his own
kingdom ; for which reason, he attempted by every possible means
to find out whether there were architects who, with cross-stays of
wood and iron, might have been able to strengthen it in such a
manner, that it might be transported in safety, without regard to
the cost which might have been incurred therein ; so much did he
desire it. But the circumstance that it was painted on the wall
deprived his Majesty of his desire ; and the painting remained
with the Milanese. In the same refectory, while he was executing
the " Last Supper," on the end wall where is a " Passion " in the old
manner, Leonardo drew the portraits of this same Lodovico with
Massimilliano, his eldest son ; and, on the other side, the Duchess
Beatrice with Francesco, their other son, both of whom after
wards became Dukes of Milan : all of whom are portrayed
divinely well.
T The first memoranda for the design of the " Last Supper" occur in one of the note
books in the South Kensington Museum, and were written apparently c. 1494-5.
[Forster Collection, MS. No. ii. fol. 2 recto, 1 tergo, &c] The actual painting was
probably begun c. 1495, and brought to an end in 1498. [Plate X.]
In a letter addressed to his secretary, Marchesino Stanga, dated 29th June, 1497,
Lodovico Sforza sends instructions, among other things, "to urge Leonardo, the
Florentine, to finish the work of the Refectory [of Santa Maria] delle Grazie, which
he has begun, in order to attend afterwards to the other wall of that Refectory [of Santa
Maria] delle Grazie, and that articles subscribed by his hand be executed, which shall
oblige him to finish the work within the time that shall be agreed upon with him."
[E. Solmi, Leonardo, p. 97.]
The large " Crucifixion " on the wall of the Refectory, opposite to the " Last Supper,"
to which Vasari refers as "a 'Passion' in the old manner," was executed, in 1495, by
Giovanni Donato Montorfano. Of the kneeling figures of Lodovico, II Moro, and his
wife, Bianca Maria, with their children, which Leonardo introduced into the lower part
of Montorfano's work, little more than the mere outlines now remains.
Several original studies for the " Last Supper " have come down to us, and will be
found reproduced in Dr. J. P. Richter's Literary Works of Leonardo; namely, two
preparatory sketches for the general composition of the picture ; one in pen at Windsor
[Richter, vol. i. pi. xiv.], and the other in red chalk in the Accademia at Venice [/. c,
pi. xlvi.]. At Windsor, also, are studies for the following heads of the apostles : St.
Matthew, the fourth figure on the left of Christ, in red chalk [/. c, pi. xlvii.], St. Philip,
the third figure on the left of Christ, black chalk [/. c, pi. xlviii.], Judas, red chalk [I. c,
pi. 1.], and the study for the right arm of St. Peter, black chalk [/. c, pi. xlix]. The head
of Christ in the Brera, at Milan, is probably the original study ; but it has been so com
pletely retouched that it retains scarcely a trace of Leonardo's hand.
At a very early period, the painting of the " Last Supper" began to flake from the
wall. Lomazzo, writing in the latter part of the sixteenth century, says it was then
"entirely ruined" : and in 1652 its condition was such, that the monks did not scruple
to make a doorway in the wall on which it is painted, destroying the legs of the Christ
and the apostles next to him. In 1726, and again in 1770, it was so completely
c 25

restored, that only in a few passages, such as the heads of St. Matthew, Thaddeus, and
St. Simon, can any trace of Leonardo's hand be detected. However, a number of
early copies have come down to us, of which the most important is the one by Marco
da Oggionno, in the Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy.
The story of Leonardo and the Prior occurs in its original form (though with con
siderable variation from Vasari's version), in one of the Discourses of Giovanni Battista
Giraldi, who relates the story as told him by his father. According to Giraldi, Leonardo
having finished the painting of the " Last Supper," with the exception of the head of
Judas, the Prior complained to the Duke, he had left it in this state for more than a year.
Leonardo replied that for more than a year he had gone every morning and evening
into the Borghetto, where all the worst sort of people lived, yet he could never find
a head sufficiently evil to serve for the image of Judas ; but, he added, " if perchance
I shall not find one, I will put there the head of this Father Prior, who is now so
troublesome to me, which will become him mightily." [Discorsi di M. Giovannibattista
Giraldi, . . . intorno al comporre de i Romanzi, delle Comedie, e delle T7-agedie, e di altre
vianiere di Poesie, Vinegia, 1554, p. I94-]
Of far greater interest is the picture which Matteo Bandello, Bishop of Agen,
has drawn in his Novelle, of Leonardo at work on the " Last Supper." " Leon
ardo," he relates in the Prologue to the 58th novel of the First Part, "was often
used (and I myself have more than once seen and observed him) to go early
in the morning and mount the scaffolding, for the "Last Supper" is somewhat
raised above the ground — he was used, I say, from sunrise to dusk, never to lay
the pencil out of his hand ; but, oblivious of both eating and drinking, to paint without
ceasing. After that, he would remain two, three, or four days, without touching it ;
yet he always stayed there, sometimes for one or two hours, and only contemplated,
considered, and criticised, as he examined with himself, the figures he had made."
Bandello then goes on to relate, that a certain German cardinal who was staying in
the monastery, came one day to the refectory to visit Leonardo, and view the
painting on which he was engaged. In the course of their conversation, the cardinal
asked the painter what salary he received ; to which Leonardo replied, " 2000
ducats, besides the gifts and presents which the Duke constantly made him, in
the most liberal fashion." This seemed to the prelate, adds Bandello, a great sum.
After the cardinal had retired to his own room, Leonardo related to his followers, the
story of Filippo Lippi, the Florentine painter, among the Turks, which forms the
subject of the 58th novel, in order to show the esteem in which the art of painting
had always been held. [La Prima Parte de le Novelle del Bandello, Lucca, 1554,
P- 363-] While he was occupied with this work, he proposed to the
Duke to make a horse in bronze, of an extraordinary greatness,
in order to place upon it, as a memorial, the image of the Duke.
And on so large a scale, he began and went forward with it,
that he was never able to bring it to completion. And there
are those who have held the opinion (since the judgments of
men are various, and often malign out of envy), that Leonardo,
as in the case of his other works, began it and did not finish it'
in that, being of so great a size, he encountered an incredible
difficulty in the attempt to cast it in a single piece ; and one would
also be able to think that, for this reason, many may have formed
such a judgment, although not a few of his works have remained
unfinished. But, in truth, one may believe that his vast and most
26

excellent mind was hindered in being too full of desire ; and that
the wish ever to seek out excellence upon excellence, and perfec
tion upon perfection, was the cause of it : "Tal che Vopera fosse
ritardata dal desio," as our poet Petrarch has said. And in truth,
those who saw the great model that Leonardo made of clay,'
declare that they have never seen a more beautiful, or more superb]
work : and this remained up till the time that the French came"
to Milan with King Louis of France, and broke it all in pieces ;
and they also destroyed a little model in wax that was held to be
perfect, together with a book of the anatomy of the horse which
he had made by way of study.
T So far from the project of the Bronze equestrian statue having been proposed by
Leonardo, during the time that he was engaged on the painting of the " Last Supper,"
as Vasari states, the painting was not taken on hand until some twelve years after
Leonardo had begun the statue.
Since the year 1473, the Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza had had the intention to erect
a colossal equestrian statue of bronze, gilt, to the memory of his father, the Duke
Francesco. This intention on the part of Galeazzo Maria was, however, interrupted by the
events of the time, and by his death in 1476. At a later period, c. 1482, the project was
again taken up by the regent, Lodovico, II Moro ; and there appears to have been a
competition of sculptors who submitted designs for the work. Vasari relates that he
possessed two drawings by Antonio Pollaiuoli for the statue : one of these is now
preserved in the Print Room, at Munich.
Sabba da Castiglione states that over "the model of the horse of Milan," Leonardo
" consumed sixteen consecutive years." [Ricordi overo Ammaeslramenti di Monsignor
Saba da Castiglione, . . . Vinegia, 1554, fol. 51 /ergo.] As the undertaking was finally
interrupted by the fall of Lodovico, II Moro, in 1499, it must have been begun, according
to this statement, in 1483. On 22nd July, 1489, Pietro Alamanni, the Florentine am
bassador at Milan, wrote to Lorenzo de Medici, II Magnifico, that " the Signor Lodovico
desires to erect to his father a great monument, and has already ordered that Leonardo
da Vinci should execute the model, namely, a great horse of bronze, on which is the
Duke Francesco armed. And since his Excellency would wish to make a work of more
than ordinary perfection, he has requested that I should write to you on his behalf,
that you may send him a master capable of such a work ; and though he has entrusted
this work to Leonardo da Vinci, it does not seem to me that he is greatly persuaded that
this master knows how to execute it." [fahrbuch der K. Prcuss. Kunstsammlungen, 1897,
vol. xviii. p. 155.]
This letter, I think, leaves it an open question, whether Lodovico desired a
sculptor to begin the statue afresh, or merely a bronze - caster, to execute the model
which Leonardo had made. On the other hand, it may be argued both from this letter
and other indications, that Leonardo has finished the model, but was already confronted
with the difficulty of casting it. '"The Anonimo Gaddiano says that Leonardo was
resolved " to cast it in one piece," which was declared to be impossible, [ed. Frey, p. 1 1 2.]
And the sting of Michelangiolo's bitter gibe, related by the same writer, lay in the
reproach that, after Leonardo had finished the model, he was unable to cast it. [/. c, p. 1 1 5.]
His capacity to model the statue was never called into question. It is probable that,
failing in his attempt to cast the first model about the time of Alamanni's letter, Leonardo
began a second one with a view to facilitate the casting ; for in one of his note books at
Paris, is the entry : " On the 23rd day of April, 1490, 1 began this book, and began again
the horse." [Bibliotheque de l'Institut, Paris, MS. C., recto of cover.] Among the "shows"
exhibited in honour of the marriage of Bianca Maria Sforza with the Emperor Maximilian,
in November, 1493, was Leonardo's finished model of " the horse." [fahrbuch der
27

K. Preuss. Kunstsammlungen, 1897, vol. xviii. p. 159.] From the passage out of Ban
dello, already cited, it appears that he was still working on it, at the time he was
finishing the "Last Supper," c. 1497-8.
The model was still in existence in September, 1501, when Ercole d'Este begged it
of the Cardinal of Rouen, for a statue to be erected at Ferrara. [G. Campori, Nuovi
Documenti per la vita di Leonardo da Vinci, Modena, 1865, p. 6.]
Sabba da Castiglione mentions among the works of Leonardo "the model of the
horse of Milan, whereon," he adds, "he consumed sixteen consecutive years; and
assuredly the dignity of the work was such, that he cannot be said to have lost his time
and labour ; but the ignorance and carelessness of certain persons, who, being ignorant
of the worth of genius, set it at naught, shamefully left it to fall into ruin, and I have
to record (and not without grief and displeasure, I say it) that a work so noble and_
ingenious, became a target for Gascon archers." [Ricordi overo Ammaestramenti di
Monsignor Saba da Castiglione, . . . Vinegia, 1554, fol. 51 tergo."]
A number of original studies for the statue of Francesco Sforza are in existence, for
the most part in the Library at Windsor, of which the most important are reproduced
in Dr. Richter's Literary Works of Leonardo, vol. ii. pi. lxv. to pi. lxxvi. They chiefly
consist of studies for various projects of the monument ; and a careful study of them
has not shown what was the definitive form of the statue. [Plate XL] On this point,
M. Louis Courajod's little book, Leonard de Vinci et la Statue de Francesco Sforza,
Paris, 1879, may be consulted.
He next turned his attention, but with greater care, to the
anatomy of the human body, aided by, and in turn aiding, in this
study, Messer Marc' Antonio della Torre, an excellent philosopher,
who then lectured in Pavia, and wrote of this matter ; and he
was one of the first (as I have heard say) that began to illustrate
the questions of medicine with the doctrine of Galen, and to throw
true light upon anatomy, which up to that time had been plunged
in the thick and gross darkness of ignorance. And in this he
was wonderfully assisted by the mind, work, and hand of Leonardo,
who made a book drawn in red chalk, and annotated with the pen,
of the subjects which he dissected with his own hand, and drew
with the greatest diligence ; wherein he showed all the frame
of the bones, and then added to them, in order, all the nerves,
and covered them with muscles ; the first attached to the bone,
the second that hold the body steady, and the third that move
it ; and against them, part by part, he wrote in letters of an
ill-shapened character, made with the left hand, backwards ; and
whoever has no practice in reading them, cannot understand them,
because they cannot be read except with a mirror. Of these
papers of the anatomy of the human body, a great part is in the
hands of M. Francesco da Melzo, a Milanese gentleman, who in
the life-time of Leonardo was a beautiful youth, and much beloved
by him, and now is a beautiful and gentle old man ; and he holds
them as precious, and keeps such papers together, as though they
28

were relics, along with the portrait of Leonardo of happy memory ;
and to all who read these writings, it seems impossible that that
divine spirit should have so well discoursed of the art, and of the
muscles and nerves and veins ; and with such diligence of every
thing. So also, there are in the hands of N. N., a painter of
Milan, some writings of Leonardo, likewise in characters written
with the left hand, backwards, which treat of painting, and of the
methods of drawing and colouring. This person, not long since,
came to Florence to see me, wishing to print this work ; and he
took it to Rome, in order to give it effect, but 1 do not know what
may afterwards have become of it.
IT In the Library at Windsor are a great number of sheets of anatomical studies, which,
according to Dr. Richter, formed portions of four distinct treatises, or series, or books
of studies. [J. P. Richter, Literary Works of Leonardo, vol. i. pp. 5-6.] Among these
are a number of sheets drawn in red chalk, and annotated with the pen, which probably
formed portions of the volume which Vasari saw in the possession of Francesco Melzi.
One of these sheets is inscribed : " On the 2nd day of April, 1489, the book entitled, Of
the Human Figure, that it may please our Lord God that I may be able to demonstrate
the nature of men and their habits, in the same manner as I am describing their form."
[I.e., vol. i. p. 132.]
It is evident, however, that the anatomical studies of Leonardo occupied him at
intervals during the greater part of his life. Already in the workshop of Verrocchio,
there is evidence that Leonardo fell under the influence of Antonio Pollaiuoli, who worked
in the same street, Vacchereccia. Antonio was not only a goldsmith, painter, and caster
of bronzes, but also the greatest draughtsman of his generation. In the words of Vasari,
"he understood the nude more modernly than the masters who preceded him had
done, and dissected many bodies in order to study their anatomy ; and he was the first
to show the method of finding out the muscles that have form and order in the human
figure." In Antonio, the school of the nude in Florence had its definite beginning. His
influence over Leonardo in this regard, has never been adequately discussed : it is
marked, among other traits, by the Pollaiuolesque character of the male heads in
Leonardo's anatomical drawings.
After Leonardo's return to Florence in 1500, he continued these studies : the Anonimo
Gaddiano records that he drew the anatomy of many bodies in the Hospital of Santa
Maria Nuova. [ed. Frey, p. 112.]
During his second stay at Milan, between the years 1506 and 15 13, Leonardo made
the acquaintance of Marc Antonio della Torre, the greatest anatomist of his age, who
had been born at Verona, in 1481, and who at that time held the chair of anatomy in
the university of Padua. [G. B. De Toni, Intorno a Marco Antonio Dalla Torre, analomico
Veronese del xvi secolo, Atti del R. Instituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, ser. vii.
vol. vii. 1895-6, pp. 190-203.] During this time Leonardo made a series of anatomical
studies in pen and ink, now preserved at Windsor, which have been published in facsimile
under the title : I Manoscritti di Leonardo da Vinci della Reale Biblioteca di Windsor.
DelP Anatomia — Fogli A — Pubblicati da Teodoro Sabachnikojp : transcritti e annotati
da Giovanni Piumati, etc., Parigi, 1898. Leonardo has written on one of these sheets :
"During this winter of 1510, I look to finish all this anatomy." [/. c, p. 179.]
Leonardo's Treatise of Painting was first published in a garbled form, at Paris, in
1651. Only fragments of his original manuscript have survived ; but the work has come
down entire, in more than one manuscript copy, of which the best and earliest is
preserved in the library of the Vatican at Rome. It has been excellently edited,
and published in vols. 15-18 of the series, Quellenschriften fiir Ktmstgeschichte, etc.,
29

under the title, Das Buck von der Malerei : nach devi Codex Vaticanus (JJrbinas) 1270,
herausgegeben, ubcrsctzt und erlantert, von H. Ludwig. Wien, 1882.
The Manuscripts once in the possession of Francesco Melzi are now dispersed,
some being mutilated and others lost. Of those that have survived, the most important
are : the Codice Atlantico in the Ambrosiana, at Milan, a vast collection of miscellaneous
sheets, formed by Pompeo Leoni, of which a reproduction in facsimile, and a transcrip
tion of the text, is now in course of publication by the Accademia de' Lincei, at Rome.
Another large volume of miscellaneous drawings, etc., also formed by Pompeo Leoni,
and bought by Charles 11., on the advice of Sir Peter Lely. This volume, which is now
split up, originally consisted of 234 leaves, and contained 779 drawings : these are now
preserved in the library at Windsor Castle. [C. Rogers, A Collection of Priiits in
Imitation of Drawings, 1778, vol. i. p. 4.] A series of twelve note-books, once in the
Ambrosiana at Milan, and now in the Bibliotheque de l'lnstitut, at Paris. These have
been admirably edited under the title, Les Manuscrits de Leonard de Vinci . . . de la
Bibliotheque de FInstitut publies en facsimile's, avee t?-anscription litte'rale, traditction
francaisc, . . . par M. Charles Ravaisson-Mollien, Paris, 1881-1891. Three unedited
note-books are in the South Kensington Museum, in the Forster Collection, and another
in the British Museum. A complete Bibliography of Leonardo's manuscripts will be
found in Dr. Richter's Literary Works of Leonardo, vol. i. pp. 5-7.
And to return to the works of Leonardo : in his time the King
of France came to Milan, on which account Leonardo being
besought to contrive some bizarre thing, made a lion that came
forward several paces, and then opened its breast which was found
full of lilies.
IT The lion, here described by Vasari, probably formed part of an entertainment offered
to Louis XII., during his visit to Milan, in May 1507.
While in Milan he took Salai, the Milanese, for his servant,
who was most comely in grace and beauty, having fine locks,
abundant and curled, in which Leonardo much delighted ; and he
taught him many things of the art ; and there are certain works
in Milan that are said to be by Salai, but which were retouched
by Leonardo.
H The name of Salai occurs for the first time in the manuscripts of Leonardo, in an
entry of the year 1494. [Bibliotlieque de l'lnstitut, Paris, MS. H., fol. 142 tergo.]
Vasari, in his account of Leonardo's life at Milan, alludes to little else than his works
in painting and sculpture, and his studies in anatomy. Sabba da Castiglione says that
few other works in painting by Leonardo were to be seen at Milan, in the middle of the
16th century, besides the " Last Supper," " because when he ought to have attended to
painting, in which without doubt he would have proved a new Apelles, he gave himself
entirely to geometry, architecture, and anatomy." [Ricordi overo ammaestramenti di
Monsignor Saba da Castiglione, Vinezia, 1554, fol. 51 tergo.] Leonardo appears to have
spent no inconsiderable portion of his time at Milan, upon architectural works, both civil
and military, for Lodovico, II Moro. He seems to have been chiefly engaged upon works
for the Cathedral, and the Castle of the Sforza, the " Castello di Porta Giova." The best
and most concise account of Leonardo's life in Milan, is to be found in Edmondo Solmi's
Leonardo, Firenze, 1900, cap. iii.-v.

30

Ill
He returned to Florence, where he found that the Servite
Friars had commissioned Filippino to paint the panel for the high
altar of the Annunziata ; at which Leonardo said that he would
gladly have executed such a work. Whereupon Filippino having
heard it, like the amiable person that he was, withdrew from the
undertaking ; and the friars, in order that Leonardo might paint
it, took him into their house, bearing the charges of himself and
al! his family ; and in this way he put them to trouble and
expense, a long time, yet never began anything. At length, he
made a cartoon wherein was a Madonna and a St. Anne with a
Christ, which not only caused all the artificers to marvel ; but
when it was finished, men and women, young and old, continued
for two days together to flock as if to a solemn festival, to the
room where it was, in order to behold the marvels of Leonardo,
which caused all those people to be astounded ; for in the counte
nance of that Madonna was seen whatever of the simple and
beautiful can by simplicity and beauty lend grace to an image of
the Mother of Christ ; for he wished to show that modesty and
that humility which should be in a figure of the Virgin, wholly
content with joy at seeing the beauty of her Son whom she holds
with tenderness in her lap : the while that with most chastened
gaze she was regarding St. John, as a little child, who was
playing below with a lamb ; not without a smile from St. Anne,
who, overflowing with gladness, was beholding her earthly pro
geny become divine ; conceptions born, indeed, of the intellect
and brain of Leonardo. This cartoon, as will be related below,
was afterwards taken to France. He made the portrait of
Ginevra d'Amerigo Benci, a most beautiful work ; and abandoned
3i

the execution of the altar-piece to the Friars, who once more gave
it to Filippino ; but he, being overtaken by death, was not able to
finish it.
IT Vasari makes no allusion to the departure of Leonardo da Vinci from Milan, after the
fall of Lodovico, II Moro, nor to the wanderings of the painter, previous to his return to
Florence. II Moro, having set out from Milan, on 2nd September, 1499, for the Tyrol,
with the intention of raising an army to resist King Louis xn. of France, who laid claim
to the Duchy of Milan, the Milanese immediately sent ambassadors to invite the
French king to take possession of the city. Twelve days after the departure of II Moro,
Bernardino da Corte, to whom the Duke had entrusted the Castle of Milan, then deemed
to be impregnable, sold it. to the French, without so much as firing a shot. In less than
twenty days, Louis xn. had quietly possessed himself of the whole Duchy ; and, on 6th
October, he made his solemn entry into Milan. The Milanese quickly discovered that
there were worse evils than the tyranny of Lodovico, II Moro. " Already every one is
deploring the Sforza," exclaims Girolamo Morone, who had accepted office under Louis
XII., in a letter of November, 1499, " the people are disillusioned of their hopes ; the lust
and abuse of the French soldiers are extreme, and the obligations of entertaining them
in the private houses exceeds the horrors of whatever tyranny."
Leonardo soon determined to retrieve his broken fortunes elsewhere. Having trans
mitted by a letter of exchange, dated 14th December, 1499, the sum of 600 gold florins
to be deposited with the authorities of the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, at Florence [G.
Uzielli, Ricerche, ed. 1872-84, vol. i. p. 165], Leonardo set out for Venice, accompanied
by his assistant Salai, and Luca Pacioli, the mathematician. On their way thither, they
made a brief stay at Mantua, where Leonardo drew the portrait of the famous Isabella
d'Este, the wife of Giovan Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua. On 13th March,
1500, Lorenzo Gusnasco da Pavia, a maker of musical instruments, who had known
Leonardo at the court of Lodovico, says, in a letter to Isabella of Mantua : "Leonardo
Vinci, who is at Venice, has shown me a portrait of your Ladyship, which is extra
ordinarily like you : it is scarcely possible that it can be so well done." [A. Baschet,
Aldo Matiuzio, Venezia, 1867, p. 72.] This, no doubt, is the beautiful drawing now in
the Louvre. [Plate XII.] In a later letter of 1504, addressed to Leonardo, Isabella,
referring to this drawing, says : " When you were in this city, and drew our portrait in
charcoal, you promised you would one day certainly execute it in colour." [A. Luzio,
I Precettori d' Isabella d'Este, Ancona, 1887, p. 34.]
Meanwhile, on 4th February 1500, Lodovico, II Moro, had re-entered Milan in
triumph ; but his success was destined to be of brief duration. On the 10th April
following, the French army under Louis xn. routed the mercenaries of Lodovico, near
Novara, and Lodovico himself was taken prisoner. " The pen must of necessity keep
company with the pen-knife ; and, moreover, useful company, for the one can do nothing
without the other," Leonardo had written on the cover of one of his note-books, and,
under it, he jots down in a confused, dejected manner : " The castellan made prisoner.
Visconti [?] betrayed, and afterwards his son dead. Gian della Rosa robbed of his
money. Borgonzo made a beginning, and then would not, and therefore fortune fled
him. The Duke has lost his State and goods and liberty ; and no one of his works
is finished for him." [Bibliotheque de l'lnstitut, Paris, MS. L., ist verso of cover.]
After a brief stay in Venice, Leonardo set out for Florence, in company with Salai
He arrived there previously to 24th April, 1500, for on that day he drew from the

piece for the church of the Benedictine monastery of San Donato a Scopeto, which
Leonardo had abandoned before going to Milan, yielded to Leonardo the commission
for the altar-piece for the Annunziata. Within a year of his arrival in Florence
Leonardo has designed the cartoon for this altar-piece, of which Vasari speaks A
32

letter written on 3rd April, 1501, by Fra Pietro da Nuvolaria, Vicar - General of the
Carmelites, in answer to. the inquiries of Isabella d'Este, contains a minute description
of this cartoon. Isabella had written to know whether Leonardo was still in Florence,
how he passed his time, and whether he had begun any work there : she was desirous
that he should paint a picture for her famous study in the palace at Mantua, for the
decoration of which Mantegna, Perugino, and Lorenzo Costa afterwards painted the
pictures now in the Louvre. More than that, she would have Fra Pietro persuade him to
paint for her "a little picture of the Madonna, devout and sweet, as is his wont " ; together
with "another sketch" of her portrait, since her husband had given away the one which
Leonardo had left at Mantua. To these injunctions, Fra Pietro replies : " I have had the
letter of your Excellency, and I will do with all haste and diligence that which you write
to me. But, so far as I can gather, the life of Leonardo is extremely variable and un
determined, so that he seems to live from day to day. Since he has been here in
Florence, he has made only a sketch in a cartoon. It represents a Christ, as a little
child of about the age of one year, who reaching forward, almost out of the arms of his
mother, takes a lamb, and seems to embrace it. The mother, half-rising from the lap
of St. Anne, catches at the child, in order to take it away from the lamb, the animal of
Sacrifice, signifying the Passion. St. Anne, rising a little from where she is sitting, seems
desirous to restrain her daughter from separating the child from the lamb : which,
perhaps, is intended to figure the Church, that would not wish that the Passion of Christ
should be hindered. And these figures are large as life, but they are contained in a
small cartoon, since all of them sit, or are bent ; and the one figure [of the Virgin] is
somewhat before the other [of St. Anne], turned towards the left hand. And this sketch
is not as yet finished. He has not executed any other Work, except that his two assist
ants paint portraits, and he, at times, lends a hand to one or another of them. He
gives profound study to geometry, and grows most impatient of painting." [A. Luzio,
/ Precettori d Isabella d'Este, Imola, 1887, p. 32.] From this letter, then, it is clear
that the composition of the cartoon was identical with that of the picture of the " Virgin
and Child with St. Anne," now in the Louvre, No. 1598. [Plate XIII.] Vasari, there
fore, who, in all likelihood, never saw either the cartoon or the painting, but described
the design from hearsay, was in error when he stated that it contained a figure of St.
John. It is also clear, from this letter, that the beautiful cartoon of the same subject,
preserved in the Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy, in London [Plate XIV],
although a work of about the same period, cannot be the cartoon of which Vasari
speaks : whether it was a preliminary study for the altar-piece, or, as its size suggests,
a wholly different design for a smaller and independent picture, is a question which we
have no means of determining. A sketch for the composition of the picture in the
Louvre, is preserved in the Academy at Venice.
For an account of the various school-versions of these two compositions, see The St.
Anne of Leonardo da Vinci, by Alfred Marks [London, 1884], reprinted from the
Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature.
The Anonimo Gaddiano, also, records that Leonardo " drew in Florence, from the
life, Ginevra d' Amerigo Benci." [ed. Frey, p. 1 1 1.] No such picture by Leonardo's own
hand is now known to be in existence. On the other hand, it may have been one of
those portraits, mentioned by Fra Pietro da Nuvolaria, which were executed by Salai, or
some other assistant, and retouched by Leonardo. The portrait known as " La Belle
Feronniere," in the Louvre, is a picture of this kind.
At this point Vasari again passes over an eventful episode in Leonardo s life, namely,
his appointment as military architect to Caesar Borgia. A memorandum in one ot
Leonardo's note-books marks his hurried departure from Florence, on this occasion—
" Where is Valentino ? [as Caesar Borgia was popularly called.]— Riding boots-
Boxes in the custom-house-Collars of office— Friars of the Carmine— Set-squares—
Piero Martelli— Salvi— Borgherini— Ask for the travelling bags—Frame of the eye
glasses—The nude of Sangallo," etc. [British Museum, Arundel MS. 263, fol. 202 tergo.]
Leonardo, we know, was still in Florence in the beginning of May, 1502. On 13th June,
1502, Caesar Borgia set out from Rome to resume his bloody campaign in the Komagna ;
33

and on the 21st of the same month, he had already made himself master of Urbino.
One of the note-books of Leonardo contains several entries which show that he was at
Urbino at this time, engaged on military works for Caesar Borgia. In one instance, he
made a note of the construction of a dovecot at Urbino, on the 30th day of July 1502."
[Bibliotheque de l'lnstitut, Paris, MS. L., fol. 7 tergo.] Other entries in the same
volume show that Leonardo was at Pesaro on the ist August, at Rimini on the 8th
August, and at Cesena on the 10th August : "Alia fiera di Sancto Lorenzo a Cesena,
1502." [/. c, recto of cover, fol. 78 recto, and fol. 46 tergo.] A document records that one
of the architects of Caesar Borgia, doubtlessly Leonardo, gave the design for a canal
from the walls of Cesena to Cesenatico, in August 1502. [E. Solmi, Leonardo, p. 137.]
On the following 18th August, Caesar Borgia issued at Pavia, where he had gone to
visit Louis XII., a ducal patent to Leonardo, granting him free pass and access to all
the fortresses which he was required to inspect in his capacity as architect and engineer-
general : — " To all our lieutenants, castellans, captains, leaders, officers and subordinates,
to whom these presents shall come, we require and command that, to our most excellent
and well-beloved servant, architect and engineer-general, Leonardo da Vinci, the bearer
of these letters, who holds our commission to inspect the strongholds and fortresses of
our States, to the end that, according to their exigencies and his judgment, we may be
able to repair them, they be obliged everywhere to grant a pass, free from every public
payment, to him and his assistants, and a friendly reception ; and allow him to see,
measure, and well estimate as much as he shall desire ; and, to this end, to place men
at his disposal, as he may require them, and to lend him whatever aid, assistance, and
favour he shall ask for : it being our will, that, in regard to the works to be carried out
in the dominions, every engineer shall be required to confer with him, and conform to
his judgment." [E. Alvisi, Cesare Borgia, Imola, 1878, p. 537.]
Meanwhile Leonardo remained at Cesena and Cesenatico, engaged, apparently, on
the restoration of the castle and the work of the canal. The latest entry, bearing a date
which occurs in the notebook already cited, is: "Porto Cesenatico, on the 5th day of
September, 1502." [/. c, fol. 66 tergo.] Suddenly, these undertakings were interrupted
by the rebellion against Caesar Borgia, which broke out in the Romagna, at the beginning
of October 1 502. What attitude Leonardo assumed amid these disorders, we can only
vaguely conjecture. Dr. Solmi, relying on certain doubtful indications to be found in
the manuscripts, seeks to show that Leonardo still followed for a time the fortunes of
Caesar Borgia. [E. Solmi, Leonardo, p. 140.] One thing, however, is certain, that he
had returned to Florence before 4th March 1 503 ; on which day he drew 50 florins from
the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. [G. Uzielli, Ricerche, ed. 1872-84, vol. i. p. 164.]
Leonardo undertook to paint, for Francesco del Giocondo, the
portrait of Monna Lisa, his wife ; and after he had lingered over it
four years, left it unfinished : which work is now in the possession
of King Francis of France, at Fontainebleau. In this head, who
ever wished to see how nearly art is able to imitate nature, was
readily able to comprehend it ; since therein are counterfeited all
those minutenesses that with subtlety are able to be painted :
seeing that the eyes had that lustre and watery sheen which are
always seen in the living creature, and around them were all those
rosy and pearly tints, together with the eyelashes, that cannot be
depicted except by the greatest subtlety. The eyebrows, also, by
reason of his having represented the manner in which the hairs
issue from the flesh, here more thick and here more scanty, and
turn according to the pores of the flesh, could not be more natural
34

The nose with its beautiful nostrils, rosy and tender, seems to be
alive. The mouth with its opening, and with its ends united by
the red of the lips to the flesh tints of the face, appeared, indeed,
to be not colours but flesh. Whoever intently observed the pit
of the throat, saw the pulse beating in it. And, in truth, one could
say that it was painted in a manner that made every able artificer,
be he whom he may, tremble and lose courage. He employed,
also, this device : Monna Lisa being very beautiful, while he drew
her picture, he retained those who played or sang, and continually
jested, that they might make her continue merry, in order to take
away that melancholy that painters are often used to give to the
portraits which they paint. And in this picture of Leonardo's,
there was a smile so pleasing, that the sight of it was a thing more
divine than human ; and it was held to be a marvel, in that it was
not other than alive.
IT Francesco del Giocondo, a Florentine citizen, born in 1460, married as his third wife,
in 1495, Monna Lisa, a gentlewoman of Naples, of the Gherardini family. If the letter
of Fra Pietro da Nuvolaria to Isabella d'Este is to be relied upon, Leonardo has not
begun the portrait of Monna Lisa in April, 1501. It is probable, then, that it was begun
soon after the painter's return to Florence in March, 1503, and that he lingered over it
till his departure for Milan in May, 1506. Upon the supposition that Monna Lisa was
about eighteen at the time of her marriage, she would have been about twenty-seven
when Leonardo began the picture in 1 503. The portrait of Monna Lisa passed at an
early period into the possession of Francis I., probably before the painter went to
France, in 15 16. After being preserved for nearly three centuries in the old Royal
Collection of France, it is now in the Louvre, No. 1601. [Plate XV.]
On account, therefore, of the excellence of the works of this
most divine artificer, his fame so increased, that all persons who
delighted in art — indeed, the entire city of Florence— desired that
he should leave them some memorial, and the means were
discussed to commission him to execute some notable and great
work, by which the common wealth might be adorned and
honoured by such intellect, grace, and judgment, as were shown
in the works of Leonardo. And it was arranged between the
Gonfalonier and the principal citizens, that the Great Council
Chamber, having been newly built, the architecture of which had
been contrived with the judgment and advice of Giuliano da
San Gallo, Simone Pollaiuoli, called II Cronaca, Michelangiolo .
Buonarotti, and Baccio d' Agnolo, and finished in great haste (as
will be related more particularly elsewhere), it was ordained, by
public decree, that some splendid work should be given to
Leonardo to paint ; and so the aforesaid hall was allotted to him
35

by Piero Soderini, then Gonfalonier of Justice. To this end
Leonardo, desiring to carry out the work, began a cartoon in the
Sala del Papa, an apartment in Santa Maria Novella, of the
story of Niccolo Piccinino, Captain of Duke Filippo of Milan ; in
which he designed a group of horsemen that were fighting for a
standard, a work held to be most excellent, and of great mastery,
on account of the marvellous conceptions which he had formed in
designing" that fight : for rage, hatred, and revenge are seen no
less in the men than in the horses, among which two with the
fore - legs interlocked, are fighting as fiercely with their teeth,
as he who is on horseback does in fighting for that standard,
which has been seized by a soldier, as he puts his horse to flight,
turning backwards with his body, and seizing the staff of the
standard, in order, by means of his shoulders, to wrest it by force
from the hands of the four, of whom two are defending it, each
with one hand, and with their swords raised in the other, are
attempting to sever the staff; whilst an old soldier in a red cap,
crying aloud, seizes the staff with one hand, and with the other
raises a scimitar, angrily threatens a blow in order to cleave both
the hands of those who, grinding their teeth in the effort, attempt,
in attitudes of the greatest fierceness, to defend their banner.
Moreover, on the ground, between the legs of the horses, there
are two figures in foreshortening, who are fighting together, the
one on the ground having over him a soldier who has his arm as
high as he is able, that with greater force he may plunge a dagger
into his throat, in order to end his life ; while the other, struggling
with his arms and legs, does what he can to avoid death.
One is not able to describe the invention which Leonardo
showed in the habits of the soldiers, all varied in different ways by
him, or in the weapons and other ornaments; much less the
incredible mastery which he showed in the forms and lineaments
of the horses, the fiery spirit, the muscles and shapely beauty of
which Leonardo drew better than any other master. It is said
that, in order to draw this cartoon, he made a most ingenious stage
what was raised by bringing it together, and lowered by expanding
it. And, conceiving the wish to colour in oils on the wall, he
made a composition of so gross an admixture, as a binder' for
painting on the wall, that, continuing to paint in that hall, it began
to flake off in such a way that in a short time he abandoned it
seeing that it was spoiling. Leonardo had great spirit, and in all
36

his actions was most generous. It is said that, going to the bank
for the money that he was wont to receive every month from
Piero Soderini, the cashier wanted to give him certain paper-
packets of pence, but he would not take them, saying to him, " 1
am no penny-painter." Being blamed for having deceived Piero
Soderini, the thing began to be whispered against him ; whereupon
Leonardo so wrought with his friends, that he collected the money
and took it to Piero to repay him, but he would not accept it.
T The Great Council Chamber, or " Sala del Cinquecento " as it is now called, was
begun in July, 1495, from the designs of II Cronaca, and hurriedly finished in May, 1496, to
serve for the assemblies of the Consiglio Maggiore, instituted by Savonarola. [L. Landucci,
Diario, pp. 112 and 131.] It was erected at the back of the original portion of the
Palazzo Vecchio, on the site of the old offices of the Bargello and the Dogana.
Leonardo, as I have shown, had returned to Florence by 4th March, 1503 ; but it
was not until the following 24th October, that the keys of the Hall of the Pope, in Santa
Maria Novella, where he executed the cartoon of the " Battle of Anghiari," were ordered
to be delivered to him. [Vasari, ed Sansoni, vol. iv. p. 43, note.]
Again there was a delay ; and though the stage for the execution of the cartoon had
been built by the following February [J. Gaye, Carteggio ineditio, ii. 88], it was not
till 4th May, 1504, that the contract for the work was definitely settled by a resolution of
the Signoria of Florence. By the terms of this contract, it was stipulated that the
cartoon was to be finished by February, 1505, and that Leonardo was to receive 15 gold
florins the month, reckoning from 20th April, 1504. If the work was not finished by the
stipulated time, Leonardo was to pay back the entire sum which he had received. The
execution of the painting was to be determined by a further contract. [Vasari, ed.
Sansoni, vol. iv. p. 44, note.] The cartoon appears to have been duly finished, for, on
28th February, 1505, certain payments were made for the erection of the stage in the
Sala dei Cinquecento, to enable Leonardo to begin the painting. From that time, till
30th August, 1505, a series of entries of payments made for gesso, linseed oil, colours, etc.,
occur in the books of the Operai, or Wardens of the Works, of the Palazzo della Signoria.
[J. Gaye, Carteggio inedito, vol. ii. pp. 89-90.] But before these payments had come to
an end, Leonardo had already gone back to his mathematical studies. A treatise in his
handwriting, preserved in the South Kensington Museum, bears the inscription : " Begun
by me, Leonardo da Vinci, on the 12th day of July, 1505, the book entitled, Of the
transformation of one body into another, -without diminution or accretion of matter.
[Forster Collection, MS. No. I., fol. 1 recto and tergo.] On the 30th May, 1506,
Leonardo obtained permission to leave the city, "on condition that he would present
himself, within the space of three months, before the Priors of Florence, under a penalty
of 150 gold ducats" : and the painting of the " Battle of Anghiari" was destined never to
be resumed. Vasari says that Leonardo abandoned the painting, because he found
that the colour was flaking from the wall ; the Anonimo Gaddiano, who is more
explicit, adds that Leonardo "took the stucco on which he coloured, from Pliny, but
that he did not well understand it. And the first time he tried it in the Sala del Papa,
in which place he was working, after he had placed it on the wall, he lighted a great
fire of charcoal in front of it, by which, on account of the great heat of the said charcoal,
he evaporated and dried the said material ; and afterwards, he wished to put it into
execution in the Sala [del Consiglio], where, in the lower part, the fire reached and dried
it, but above, on account of the great distance, the heat did not reach it, and it ran."
The group which Vasari describes, and which is known as the " Battle of the Standard,"
formed only an incident in the foreground of Leonardo's design. It was the one portion
of the cartoon that Leonardo executed in colour on the wall. There can be little doubt
37

that both Leonardo's cartoon, and the cartoon of the " Surprise of the Pisan Soldiers,"
which Michelangiolo prepared for the decoration of the same hall, were finished, and that
they both early disappeared. Benvenuto Cellini, writing in 1558, or shortly after, says,
in his Autobiography, that these "two cartoons hung, one in the Palazzo de' Medici, and one
in the Sala del Papa ; and that, while they remained entire, they were the schoolof the world."
Michelangiolo's cartoon was cut to pieces at the time of the death of Giuliano di Medici,
in 15 16: the Anonimo Gaddiano relates that among the drawings and other property
which Leonardo left in charge of the authorities of Santa Maria Nuova, at Florence, on
going to France, in 1 5 16, was "the greater part of the cartoon of the Sala del Consiglio,
of which the drawing for the group of horses still to be seen executed there, remained in
the Palace." [ed. Frey, p. 1 1 1.] At the present time, not so much as a fragment of either
cartoon remains ; but there are several original studies extant for the "Battle of Anghiari,"
which are reproduced in facsimile in Dr. Richter's Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci.
They consist of several sheets of groups of fighting horsemen in pen and ink, preserved
in the British Museum at Windsor and at Venice [/. c, pi. Iii. to pi. Ivi.], and two sheets
of studies in chalk for three of the heads in the group of the " Battle of the Standard,"
preserved at Buda-Pesth [/. c, vol. i. pp. 338-9]. [Plates XVI. and XVII.] The fate of
the painting of the "Battle of the Standard" which Leonardo began on one of the walls
of the Sala dei Cinquecento may be surmised with more certainty than that of the
cartoon. Luca Landucci records in his Diario, in an entry of 12th December, 1512, that
the costly wall-panelling, and other fine wood-work, were removed from the hall, at this
time, some two months after the return of Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici to Florence,
in order to construct rooms for their guard : and on 30th April, 15 13, the "Operai" of
the palace paid lire 8. 12. o to a carpenter for boards "to enclose the figures painted in
the great hall of the guard, by the hand of Lionardo da Vinci." Q. Gaye, Carteggio
inedito, vol. ii. p. 90.] The unfinished painting was still to be seen on the wall of the
Sala dei Cinquecento at the time when the Anonimo Gaddiano was writing, between
1542 and 1548. [ed. Frey, p. 112.] A yet later allusion to the painting occurs in a letter
of Anton Francesco Doni, dated 17th August, 1549, giving an account to a friend about
to visit Florence, of the "things worthy to be seen in the city" : " having ascended the
stairs of Sala Grande," he writes, " take a diligent view of a group of horses and men
(a portion of the battle of Leonardo da Vinci), that will appear a miraculous thing to
you." [G. Bottari, Raccolta di Letlere sulla Pittura, Scultura ed Architettura, Roma,
1754, vol. iii. p. 234.] It would seem, therefore, that the painting was still in existence
when Vasari, shortly after 1557, began the work of remodelling the Sala Grande ; raising
the roof from 20 to 32 braccia, and decorating the ceiling and walls with paintings.
[Vasari, ed. Sansoni, vol. iv. pp. 448-450.] The ceiling was already finished in 1565 ;
but the paintings on the walls were not uncovered until 4th January, 1571-2. [A.
Lapini, Diario, Firenze, 1900, pp. 150 and 174.] There can be little doubt, then, that
Leonardo's painting was destroyed to make way for Vasari's vast frescoes, on the walls
of the Sala dei Cinquecento. Vasari himself is ominously silent on the subject There
are a number of ancient copies of the painting of the " Battle of the Standard." These
include a copy in colour, on a reduced scale, preserved in the Depot of the Gallery
of the Uffizi, which probably records the actual state of the painting as it was left by
Leonardo, unfinished and without a background ; a slight sketch by Raphael in pen
and ink, in the University Galleries at Oxford, No. 28 ; a small copy in colour with
an added background by some Milanese follower of Leonardo, in the possession of
Madame Timbal, at Paris, which has been engraved by H. Haussoullier ; a large copy
on canvas, probably of the size of the original, in the possession of the writer • the
drawing by Rubens in the Louvre, No. 565, which was done after the original' had
disappeared, and of which there is an engraving by Edelinck. There is also a print
on a folio sheet, inscribed : "Ex tabella propria Leonardi Vincii manu picta opus
sumptum a Laurentio Zacchia Lucensi ab eodemque nunc excussum 1558" Its publi
cation probably marks the date at which the destruction of the painting was determined
upon. Lastly, among the Malcolm drawings in the British Museum, Add No I is an
early drawing of a portion of the " Battle of the Standard." [Plate XVI III '
Vasari, who appears to be describing the "Battle of the Standard" from memory
38 "

has somewhat misinterpreted the motive of the principal action of the group. Not five,
but four, soldiers on horseback are contending for the standard. One of them, the
standard-bearer, has been carrying the flag over his right shoulder, while an opponent
has seized it by the staff, from behind. In order to prevent it from being wrested from
him, the standard-bearer has turned round in the saddle, and has seized the staff with
his left hand, thus acquiring a double purchase. The third figure, that of the old
soldier in the red cap, lifts his scimitar in order to cut at the hands of the assailant
of the standard ; at the very moment that the fourth figure charges at the old soldier
in the red cap, to prevent his attack.
At this point, Vasari again passes over in silence a significant passage in the life of
Leonardo. After the painter had obtained the permission of the Signoria, on 30th May
1506, to absent himself from Florence for three months, he set out for Milan in order
to undertake certain works for Charles d'Amboise, Lord of Chaumont-sur-Loire, the
Governor of the Duchy of Milan, in the name of Louis XII. On the 18th August 1506,
Chaumont wrote to the Signoria, requesting that the painter might remain at Milan the
whole of the coming month of September ; " since," he adds, " we have still need of the
master, Leonardo, in order to furnish certain works, which we have caused him to
begin." [fahrbuch der K. Preuss. Kunstsammlungcn, 1899, vol. xx. p. 116.]
The letter of the Signoria to Chaumont granting the permission, is dated 28th August
1506. [Vasari, ed. Sansoni, vol. iv. p. 45, note.] When, at the end of September,
Chaumont again requested that Leonardo might be allowed to remain some time longer
in Milan, Piero Soderini, the Gonfalonier, replied in a letter of gth October : " May
your Excellency excuse us from coming to an agreement about a day with Leonardo da
Vinci, who has not borne himself as he ought to have done, towards this Republic, in
that he has received a good sum of money, and has made a little beginning of a great
work, which he is under obligation to execute, and he has already comported himself as
a laggard, out of deference to your Excellency." [J. Gaye, Carteggio inedito, vol. ii.
P-87-] In spite of this brusque remonstrance, Leonardo still remained at Milan. At length,
on 1 2th January, 1507, the Signoria of Florence received a letter from Francesco
Pandolfini, their ambassador at the Court of Louis xn. at Blois, in which he writes :
" Being this morning in the presence of the Most Christian King, his Majesty called me,
saying : "Your Signoria must do me a service. Write to them, that I desire the master,
Leonardo, their painter, who is now at Milan, to serve me, and that I wish him to make
several things for me. See that their Lordships exhort and command him, to serve me
speedily, and that he do not leave Milan before my coming." "And all this," adds
Pandolfini, " has been occasioned by a little picture by his hand, which has lately been
brought here, and which is held to be a most excellent work. In speaking with him,
I asked his Majesty, what were the works he desired. He replied to me : ' Certain
little panel-pictures of Our Lady, and other things, as the fancy shall take me : and
perhaps, I shall also cause him to make my own portrait.' " [E. Solmi, Leonardo, p.
167.] A few days later, on the 14th January, 1507, Louis wrote himself to the Signoria
of Florence, to the same effect. [E. Delecluze, Saggio intorno Leonardo da Vinci,
Siena, 1844, p. 127.] .
On the 24th May 1507, Louis xii. made his solemn entry into Milan. It was probably
on this occasion that Leonardo contrived, in honour of the French King, the lion, to
which Vasari alluding, " which came forward several paces, and then opened its breast
which was found full of lilies."
In the autumn of 1 507, Leonardo returned to Florence, in order to defend a lawsuit
brought against him by his brothers, who sought, on the ground of his illegitimacy, to
upset the will of an uncle bequeathing to Leonardo a small property at Fiesole. The
painter's arrival in Florence was preceded by a letter of Louis xn. to the Signoria,
dated 26th July, requesting that they should use their influence to render the suit as
brief as possible." This letter was followed by another from Chaumont, dated 15th
August, in which he says, that " the master, Leonardo da Vinci, painter to the Most
Christian King, to whom with the greatest difficulty we have given licence on account
of his being under promise to execute a panel-picture for his Most Christian Majesty,
39

came thither wishing to end certain differences, which have arisen between him and his
brothers," etc. Leonardo had arrived in Florence during the first days of September ;
and in spite of the letters of Louis and Chaumont, his suit still dragged on. It was at
this time, as the Anonimo Gaddiano records, that Leonardo lived six months in the
house of Giovan Francesco Rustici, the sculptor [ed. Frey, p. no], who was then
engaged on the large bronze figures of " St. John the Baptist, between the Levite and the
Pharisee." Rustici was then living in the Via de' Martelli, probably in a part of the house
of Piero di Braccio Martelli, for on the first leaf of the manuscript, in the British Museum,
Leonardo has written : " Begun in Florence, in the house of Piero di Braccio Martelli,
on the 22nd day of March, 1 508 : and this is to be a collection without order, drawn
from many papers, which I have here copied, hoping afterwards to put them in order, in
their places, according to the matters of which they treat." etc. [Arundel MS., No. 263,
fol. i. recto.] Only the first portion of this manuscript, however, is a clean copy ; the
rest is a collection of miscellaneous papers, belonging chiefly to the first decade of the
16th century. In the Codice Atlantico are two draughts of a letter addressed about this
time to Chaumont at Milan, in which Leonardo says : " I send Salai to inform your
Excellency how I am almost at the end of my litigation with my brothers, and how I
hope to be there [at Milan] by this Easter, and to bring with me two pictures, in which
are two Madonnas of various dimensions, which I have begun for the Most Christian
King, or for who ever shall please you." [J. P. Richter, Literary Work of Leonardo,
vol. ii. p. 403, Nos. 1349-50.] Although no such paintings by Leonardo's own hand are
now known to exist, it is yet possible, perhaps, to trace the composition of one of these
two pictures. In the latter part of the manuscript in the British Museum, which con
sists, as I have already said, of a collection of miscellaneous papers, dating from the
first years of the 16th century, and brought together by Leonardo in 1508, there is a
folded sheet of blue silver-point paper, bound up with other sheets, and forming two
leaves of the volume. [Arundel MS., No. 263, fol. 253 tergo, and 256 recto.] On the
verse of the first leaf is a slight study in silver-point of the head of a child, suckling ;
and on the recto of the second leaf, a study of a child's hand and foot on a larger scale ;
all of which appear to be preliminary studies, but in reverse, for the composition,
certainly of Leonardo's invention, which has come down in the " Madonna Litta," at
St. Petersburgh, by Bernardino de' Conti, and in another painting, perhaps by the same
hand, in the Museo Poldi-Pezzoli, at Milan. Leonardo's study for the head of the
Virgin in the same composition, is in the Louvre. [Vallardi Collection, No. 2376.]
The occurrence of this sheet of studies in the Arundel manuscript, formed in 1 508,
points to the composition in question being a work of that period ; if, indeed, it did not
serve for one of the two pictures begun by Leonardo, for Louis xii., in that year, and
apparently never finished.
After his return to Milan, in 1508, Leonardo remained there in the service of the
French, till 1512. During this time, he appears chiefly to have given himself up to his
scientific and anatomical studies. In painting, he seems to have executed more designs
and cartoons, than finished pictures. He probably painted at this time, with the help
of his assistants, the picture of the "Virgin and Child with St. Anne," now in the Louvre,
No. 1598, from the cartoon now lost,' which he had begun at Florence, in 1501. The
lost picture of the Leda, which appears to have been once in the French Royal Collec
tion, may also have belonged to this period of his career ; but it is a question, whether
Leonardo himself ever executed more than the cartoon. [Plate XIX.] The " Bacchus "
in the Louvre, No. 1602, is another picture for which Leonardo probably gave the design
at this time ; the execution being carried out by his assistants.
The vicissitudes of political events again obliged Leonardo to seek out a new patron
After the death of Gaston de Foix, at the battle of Ravenna, on nth April, 15 12 the
French, m consternation, determined to abandon Lombardy ; and in the following Tune
Massimilliano, the son of Lodovico, II Moro, re-entered Milan under the protection of
the Spaniards, the Pope, and the Venetians. For a while Leonardo remained in Milan
waiting for what the course of events might bring forth. '
He went to Rome with the Duke Giuliano de' Medici, at the
40

election of Pope Leo, who was much given to philosophical studies,
and especially to alchemy; where, forming a paste of wax, he
fashioned creatures very thin, and filled with air, and by blowing
into them, as he walked, made them fly through the air, but on the
wind ceasing they fell to the ground. On a lizard of a most
bizarre shape, found by the vine-dresser of the Belvedere, he
fastened, with a mixture of quick-silver, wings formed of the scales
of other lizards flayed, which, as it walked, trembled with the
motion : and having made it eyes, horns, and beard, taming it, and
keeping it in a box, he made all his friends, to whom he showed it,
fly for fear. He used often to cause the guts of a bullock to be
carefully freed of its fat, and cleaned, and in this way to become
so fine, that it could be held in the palm of the hand ; and having
placed in another room a pair of blacksmith's bellows, to which he
fixed one end of those guts, and blowing into them, filled the room,
which was very large, whereby whoever was therein was con
strained to retire into a corner : showing how, thus transparent
and full of wind, from occupying little space at the beginning, they
had come to occupy much space ; and likening them in this to
virtue. He made an endless number of these follies, and gave his
attention to mirrors, and tried the strangest methods in seeking
out oils for painting, and varnishes for preserving works when
executed. H The election of Giovanni de' Medici, the youngest son of Lorenzo, II Magnifico,
to the Papal throne, took place on nth May, 1 513 ; and Leonardo was called to Rome
some four months later. He has recorded the precise date in one of his note-books :
¦" I departed from Milan for Rome, on the 24th day of September, 15 13, with Giovan and
Francesco de' Melzi, Salai and Lorenzo, il Fanfoia." [Bibliotheque de l'lnstitut, Paris,
MS. E., fol. i. redo.] At Rome, he was lodged in the Belvedere of the Vatican, in
some apartments which had been made ready for him, under the supervision of the
architect, Giuliano Leni, at the instance of his patron, Giuliano de' Medici. [E. Miintz,
Les Historiens et les Critiques de Raphael, Paris, 1883, p. 133.]
Vasari has recorded only the tradition which had come down in his time, of the
bizarre toys that Leonardo invented for the entertainment of his patrons. His own
manuscripts, however, contain some scattered allusions to his mathematical and scien
tific studies at this time. In one passage, he records the completion of his De ludo
geometrico, treating of an infinite variety of the quadrature of curved surfaces ; which,
he adds, was "finished on the 7th day of July, at the 23rd hour, at the Belvedere,
in the study made for me by the Magnifico [Giuliano]." [Codice Atlantico, fol.
90 tergo.] In the Belvedere, a German mechanic, Giovanni degli Specchi, so
called from his skill in the manufacture of mirrors, had his workshop. Jealous
of Leonardo's influence with Giuliano, this Giovanni contrived to give the painter
great annoyance, invading his study, and even traducing him behind his back. In
the Codice Atlantico are two draughts of a letter addressed by Leonardo to Giuliano,
in which he complains bitterly of Giovanni's conduct. [J. P. Richter, Literary Works
of Leonardo, vol. ii. p. 407, Nos. 135 1-2.] One characteristic passage shows how this
D 41

German went so far as to disparage Leonardo's studies in anatomy. This man, writes
Leonardo, " has hindered me in anatomy, blaming it before the Pope, and likewise
at the hospital ; and he has filled this whole Belvedere with workshops for mirrors
and workmen, and he has done the same in the chamber of Maestro Giorgio," — another
German mechanic, who also worked in the Belvedere, and gave Leonardo trouble.
He made at this time, for Messer Baldasare Turini da Pescia,
who was Datary to Pope Leo, a little picture of Our Lady with the
Child in her arms, with infinite diligence and art : but whether
through the fault of whoever covered the panel with gesso, or by
reason of his so many and capricious mixtures of grounds and
colours, it is now greatly ruined. And in another little picture he
drew the portrait of a boy, beautiful and graceful to a marvel : and
both of them are at the present day in Pescia, in the possession of
Messer Giulio Turini. It is said that a work being given to him
to execute by the Pope, he immediately began to distil oils and
herbs, in order to make the varnish ; whereupon Pope Leo
exclaimed, " Ah me ! he will never do anything, for he begins by
thinking about the end, before the beginning of the work."
T The two paintings executed for Baldassare Turini da Pescia are now lost. Else
where, Vasari relates that Giulio Romano designed and decorated the villa at Rome,
on the Janiculum, now known as the Villa Lante, for Baldassare Turini. [Vasari, ed.
Sansoni, vol. v. p. 534.] He died, as the inscription on his tomb by Baccio da Monte-
Iupo, in the Cathedral at Pescia records, in 1543, at the age of 58.
There was great disdain between Michelangiolo Buonarotti and
him, by reason of which Michelangiolo departed from Florence, with
the excuse of the Duke Giuliano, having been called by the Pope, for
the competition for the facade of San Lorenzo. Leonardo, under
standing that, departed and went into France, where the King,
having already possessed his works, was much affected towards
him, and desired that he should colour the cartoon of St. Anne ;
but he, as his habit was, put him off a long time with words.
IT A document preserved among the Carte Slrozziane at Florence, records that
Leonardo was attached to the household of Giuliano de' Medici, after his marriage
with Filiberta of Savoy, in January, 1 515.
At the beginning of the following July, Giuliano set out from Rome with the Papal
army, in order to anticipate any designs which Francis 1., in his descent upon Italy,
might have on Parma, and the other Lombard cities, of which Giuliano was Governor
but, falling gravely ill by the way, Giuliano was forced to retire to Florence, which he
reached on 17th July, 1515. [L. Landucci, Diario, p. 350.]
There is no evidence to show that Leonardo followed in the train of Giuliano, in
virtue of his office of military engineer, as Dr. Solmi conjectures : for the drawing in
he Ambrosiana at Milan inscribed, "Portrait of M. Artus, Master of the Chamber
to King Francis I." which is erroneously ascribed to Leonardo, cannot be taken as
42

evidence of Leonardo's presence at the meeting of the Pope and the King at Bologna,
on 13th December, 1515. [E. Solmi, Leonardo, p. 207.] If any definite meaning is to
be read into the osbcure passage from Vasari, in question, it must be conjectured that
the presence of Michelangiolo at Rome, where he is known to have been working on
the tomb of Julius Ii. in 1515, was the cause of Leonardo's resolution to go into
France. Michelangiolo would never tolerate any artist of real genius to cross his path.
This circumstance may have contributed to Leonardo's determination to accept the
service of Francis I. ; but there can be little doubt that the chief circumstance which led
to this resolution was the death of his patron, Giuliano de' Medici, at the abbey of
Fiesole, on 17th March, 15 15. [L. Landucci, Diario, pp. 360-2.]
The Anonimo Gaddiano has preserved a significant anecdote of the enmity which
existed between Leonardo and Michelangiolo. " Leonardo," he says, "passing one day,
in company with Giovanni da Gavina, near Santa Trinita, by the bench of the Spini,
where were gathered together a number of men of repute who were disputing about
a passage of Dante, they called Leonardo, asking him to explain the passage to them.
And by chance Michelangiolo passed by at that very moment, and, having been called
by one of them, Leonardo replied, ' Michelangiolo will explain it to you.' At which
Michelangiolo, thinking that he had said it in order to make jest of him, replied in
anger, ' Explain it yourself, you who made a model for a horse in order to cast it in
bronze, and was not able to cast it, and to your shame abandoned it.' And, having
said this, he turned his back to them and went away : and at those words Leonardo,
who remained there, grew red." [ed. Frey, p. 115.] This is one of three anecdotes of
Leonardo, which the Anonimo had from the painter, Giovanni da Gavina, and which,
no doubt, relate to the time when Leonardo and Michelangiolo were working together
in rivalry upon the cartoons for the Sala Grande.
Leonardo must have gone to France, in the service of Francis I., shortly after the
death of Giuliano de' Medici. He was assigned a yearly pension, and the chateau of
Cloux near Amboise, for his residence.
Of Leonardo at Cloux, we possess a significant picture in a passage of a manuscript,
in the Biblioteca Nazionale, at Naples, entitled, "The Itinerary of Monsignor the very
Reverend and Illustrious the Cardinal of Aragon, my Lord, begun at Ferrara, in the
year of our Lord 15 16, in the month of May, and described by me, Don Antonio de'
Beati." In the course of his journey, on 10th October, 15 16, the Cardinal, being at
Amboise, paid a visit to " Leonardo, the Florentine, more than seventy years of age
[in reality he was only sixty-four], the most excellent painter of our age, in a suburb
of the town." The writer of the Itinerary goes on to state that Leonardo showed to
his illustrious visitor, " three pictures ; one of a certain Florentine lady, done from
the life, at the instance of the late Magnificent, Giuliano de' Medici ; the other of St.
John the Baptist, as a Young Man ; and one of the Madonna and the Child, which
are placed in the lap of St. Anne, and all of them most perfect : but, indeed, on account
of a certain paralysis having seized him in the right hand, one cannot expect more fine
things from him. He has well instructed a Milanese disciple, who works excellently
well ; and although the aforesaid Messer Leonardo is not able to colour with that sweet
ness which he was wont, nevertheless he works at making designs and giving instruc
tion to others.
"This gentleman has compiled so particular a treatise of anatomy, with the de
monstration in draught not only of the members, but also of the muscles, nerves, veins,
the junctures of the intestines, and of whatever can be reasoned about in the bodies
both of men and women, in a way that has never yet been done by any other person.
All which we have seen with our eyes ; and he said that he has already dissected more
than thirty bodies, between men and women of all ages. He has, also, written con
cerning the nature of water, and of divers machines, and other things, which he has set
down in an endless number of volumes, and all in the vulgar tongue, which, if they be
published, will be both profitable and very delectable." [G. Uzielli, Ricerche, ed. 1872-
84, vol. ii. p. 459.]
The pictures of " Our Lady and the Child in the Lap of St. Anne," and the " St. John
43

the Baptist, as a Young Man," are now in the Louvre, Nos. 1598 and 1579. [Plate XX.]
Of the portrait of the Florentine lady, done at the instance of Giuliano de' Medici, nothing
is known. At length, having become old, he remained ill many months, and
finding himself near to dea'1!, he wished to be diligently informed
of the matters of the Catholic faith, of the good way and holy
Christian religion, and then with many sighs, confessed and was
penitent ; and although he was not able to raise himself well on his
feet, supporting himself on the arms of his friends and servants, he
wished to receive devoutly the most Holy Sacrament, out of his
bed. The King, who often and lovingly was used to visit him,
came to see him : whereupon he, out of reverence, haying raised
himself to sit upon the bed, giving an account of his illness, and
the circumstances of it, showed withal how he had offended God
and mankind in not having laboured at his art, as he ought to have
done. Whereupon he was seized with a paroxysm, the messenger
of death, by reason of which the King having risen, and having
taken his head, in order to aid him and show him favour, in the
hope of alleviating his sufferings, his divine spirit, knowing that it
could have no greater honour, expired in the arms of the King, in
the 75th year of his age.
1 The story that Leonardo expired in the arms of Francis I. has long been called into
question. Indeed, it seems clear that at the time of Leonardo's death, the Court was
celebrating the birth of the Queen's second child, at St. Germain-en-Laye, where the
King signed a decree on ist May. On the other hand, we know that Leonardo executed
his will on the 23rd April, 15 19, in the chateau of Cloux, near Amboise. The document
itself,iwhich was drawn up by Guillaume Boreau,- the King's notary, is dated " 23rd April,
1 5 18, before Easter" : now, in France, the year was reckoned from Easter, which in 1518
fell on the 4th April, but which in 15 19 did not fall till the 24th April. After commend
ing his soul to God, Leonardo wills that his body be buried in the church of St. Florentin,
which up to 1808 stood within the precinct of the royal chateau of Amboise, and that
four high masses, and thirty low masses of St. Gregory, be celebrated in the churches
of St. Florentin, St. Denis, and the church of the Franciscans, in Amboise. Next, he
bequeaths " to Messer Francesco de' Melzi, gentleman of Milan, in remuneration of the
services graciously rendered to him in the past, all and each of the books which the
said testator has at present, together with all other instruments andjdraughts [porlracti]
concerning his art and industry as a painter." To Salai and Battista De Villanis,
both of whom he calls " servitore," he severally gives one-half of the garden, or vine
yard, without the walls of Milan, which had been granted to him by Lodovico, II Moro.
Then follow a number of minor bequests, and provisions for his funerals. To his
brothers, he leaves four hundred scudi, deposited with the chamberlain of the hospital
of Santa Maria Nuova, at Florence, and his vineyard at Fiesole ; to Francesco de'
Melzi, his clothes, and the balance of his pension due to him at the time of his death.
[G. Uzielli, Ricerche, ed. 1872-84, vol. i. p. 202.]
The letter, dated ist June, 15 19, is extant, in which Francesco de' Melzi announces
the death of Leonardo to Ser Giuliano da Vinci and his brothers, and informs them of
the will which Leonardo had made, and the bequests to them which it contained. Melzi
44

merely states in it that Leonardo " passed from this present life on the 2nd May, with
all the ordinances of the Holy Mother Church, and well prepared." Of the presence of
Francis I. at the death, he says nothing. [G. Uzielli, Ricerche, ed. 1872-84. vol. i.
p. 208.] The loss of Leonardo grieved, ip, no common way, all those
who had known him ; because there was never any one who had
done so much honour to painting. With the splendour of his
countenance, which was most beautiful, he made serene every
broken spirit ; and with his words he turned to yea, or nay, every
obstinate intention. By his bodily strength he would restrain
any violent outburst of anger ; and with his right hand twisted
the iron ring of a bell, or a horse-shoe, as if it had been lead.
With his liberality he used to gather together and support every
friend, both poor and rich, if only he had wit and virtue. He
adorned and honoured in all his actions, no matter what despised
and bare abode ; for which reason Florence received, indeed, a
very great gift in the birth of Leonardo, and an infinite loss in his
death. In the art of painting, he added to the manner of colour
ing in oils, a certain obscurity, by which the moderns have
given great force and relief to their figures : and in statuary, he
gave proofs of his skill in the three figures of bronze, which are
above the door of San Giovanni on the side towards the north,
executed by Giovan Francesco Rustici, but contrived with the
counsel of Leonardo, which are the finest pieces of casting and
design, as well as the most perfect that have as yet been seen in
modern times. By Leonardo, we have the anatomy of the horse,
and that of man still more elaborated. It was by reason of his so
many divine faculties, although he laboured far more by his words,
than by his deeds, that his name and fame can never be extin
guished. Wherefore it was thus said in his praise by Messer
Giovanni Strozzi :
"Vince costui pur solo
Tutti altri, vince Fidia, vince Apelle,
E tutto il lor vittorioso stuolo."
IT The Anonimo Gaddiano has preserved the following description of his appearance,
at the time, no doubt, of his life in Florence, during the first decade of the 16th century :
" He was of a fine person, well proportioned, full of grace and of a beautiful aspect.
He wore a rose-coloured tunic, short to the knee, although long garments were then in
use. He had, reaching down to the middle of his breast, a fine beard, curled and well
kept." [ed. Frey, p. 115.] , T ¦ , ., ™. • » .-.i
The bronze figures of " St. John the Baptist between the Levite and the Pharisee, still
45

remain above the north door of the Baptistery at Florence. Rustici, no doubt, was
working upon them during the six months that Leonardo was living with him at
Florence, in 1507-8. They were finished and placed in their present position in 15 11.
Elsewhere, in his life of Rustici, Vasari states that " some hold that Leonardo worked
on them with his own hand, or at least aided Giovanni Francesco with his counsel and
good judgment. The statues, which are the most perfect and best understood that
have as yet been made in bronze by a modern master, were cast in the pieces, and
polished in the house where Giovan Francesco lived in the Via de' Martelli." [Vasari,
ed. Sansoni, vol. vi. p. 604.]
Giovan Antonio Boltraffio, the Milanese, a very able and
intelligent person, was a disciple of Leonardo ; and in the year
1500, he painted with great diligence for the Church of the
Misericordia, without the walls of Bologna, a panel-picture in oils of
Our Lady with the Child in Her Arms, St. John the Baptist, St.
Sebastian naked, and the patron who caused it to be made, drawn
from the life, kneeling, a truly admirable work ; and on it he wrote
his name, calling himself a disciple of Leonardo. He has also
made other works, both at Milan and elsewhere ; but it is enough
here to have named this, which is the best. And likewise Marco
Oggioni [was one of his disciples], who made in Santa Maria della
Pace, [at Milan,] the Assumption of Our Lady, and the Marriage
of Cana in Galilee.
T Giovan Antonio Beltraffio, or Boltraffio, was born of noble parents at Milan in 1467,
and died there on 15th June, 1516. The altar-piece, painted for the church of the
Misericordia, near Bologna, is now in the Louvre, No. 1 169. It contains not one, as
Vasari states, but two, figures of donors, Girolamo and Giacomo Casio. The fresco in
the monastery of Sant' Onofrio, at Rome, of the " Virgin and Child with a Donor," and
some beautiful portraits in coloured chalks, in the Ambrosiana, at Milan, all of which
are commonly attributed to Leonardo, are to be ascribed to Beltraffio. His masterpiece
is in the National Gallery, No. 728.
Marco, called da Oggionno, from the village near Milan, where he was born c. 1470,
became at an early age a disciple of Leonardo. His best works are in the Brera at
Milan, where are now preserved the paintings once in Santa Maria della Pace, cited by
Vasari. An admirable and succinct account of the Milanese imitators of Leonardo, and their
works, will be found in Mr. Herbert F. Cook's Catalogue of Pictures by Masters of the
Milanese and allied Schools of Lombardy, exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club,
in 1898.

46

LIST OF PLATES
Plate I. Group of Kneeling Angels in the Altar-piece of the " Baptism
of Christ." By Andrea Verrocchio.
From the painting in the Academy, at Florence.
„ II. Study for the Lost Design of "Neptune." By Leonardo da
Vinci. From the drawing in the Royal Library, at Windsor.
„ III. "The Adoration of the Magi." By Leonardo da Vinci.
From the painting in the Uffizi. Photograph by Houghton.
„ IV. Detail of "The Adoration of the Magi." By Leonardo da
Vinci. From the painting in the Uffizi. Photograph by Houghton.
„ V. Study for the Background of " The Adoration of the Magi."
By Leonardo da Vinci.
From the drawing in the Uffizi.
„ VI. Study for a Landscape, dated 1473. By Leonardo da Vinci.
From the drawing in the Uffizi.
VII. Study for the Head of a Warrior. By Leonardo da Vinci.
From the drawing in the British Museum.
VIII. "St. Jerome." By Leonardo da Vinci.
From the painting in the Gallery of the Vatican.
IX. "The Madonna of the Rocks." By Leonardo da Vinci.
From the painting in the Louvre.
X. "The Last Supper." By Leonardo da Vinci.
From the wall-painting in Santa Maria delle Grazie, at Milan.
XI. Studies for the Equestrian Statue of Francesco Sforza. By
Leonardo da Vinci.
From the drawing in the Royal Library at Windsor.
47

Plate XII. Portrait of Isabella d'Este. By Leonardo da Vinci.
From the drawing in the Louvre. Photograph by Braun, Clement,
& Cie.
„ XIII. "The Virgin and Child, with St. Anne." By Leonardo da Vinci.
From the painting in the Louvre.
„ XIV. " The Virgin and Child, with St. Anne and the Baptist." By
Leonarda da Vinci.
From the cartoon in the Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy.
„ XV. "Monna Lisa." By Leonardo da Vinci.
From the painting in the Louvre.
„ XVI. Study for the Head of one of the Soldiers in the "Battle
of the Standard." By Leonardo da Vinci.
From the drawing at Buda-Pesth.
„ XVII. Study for the Heads of two of the Soldiers in the "Battle
of the Standard." By Leonardo da Vinci.
From the drawing at Buda-Pesth.
„ XVIII. Early Copy of a Portion of the "Battle of the Standard."
From the drawing in the British Museum.
„ XIX. Old Copy of the "Leda" of Leonardo da Vinci.
Formerly in the Dcetsch Collection.
„ XX. "St. John the Baptist." By Leonardo da Vinci.
From the painting in the Louvre.

43

Group of kneeling Angels in the Altarpiece of the "Baptism of Christ." By Andrea Verrocchio.
From the Painting in the Academy at Florence.

•

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Iplate III.

Photo. Houghton.

The "Adoration 01 the Magi." By Leonardo da Vinci.
From the Painting in the Uffizi.

Photo. Honjehtott.

Detail of the "Adoration of the Magi." By Leonardo da Vinci.
From the Painting in the Uffizi.

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Study for a Landscape, dated 1473. By Leonardo da Vinci.
From the Drawing in the Uffizi.

PLATE VII
Study for ihc Head of a 'Warrior. 1!) I.ro-.AUiin da Vinci.
I' wm Ihc Drawing in ihc Iliilish Museum.

PLATE VIII.

"St. Jerome." By Leonardo da Vinci.
From the Painting in the Gallery of the Vatican.

'The Madonna of the Rocks." By Leonardo da Vinci.
From the Painting in the Louvre.

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PLATE XI.
Studies for the Equestrian Statue of Francesco Sforza. By Leonardo da Vinci.
From the Drawing in the Royal Library at Windsor.

PLATE XII.

Photograph ; Braun, Clement et Cie,

Portrait of Isabella d'Este. By LEONARDO DA Vinci.
From the Drawing in the Louvre.

'The Virgin and Child, wilh St. Anne." By Leonardo da Vinci.
From the Painting in the Louvre.

PLATE XIV.

'The Virgin and Child, with St. Anne and the Baptist." By Leonardo da Vinci.
From the Cartoon in the Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy.

'Monna Lisa." By Leonardo da Vinci.
From the Painting in the Louvre.

PLATE XVI.

Study for ihe Head of one of the Sol, hers in Ihc " llalile ol Ihe Standard.''
lly Lki.inarni.i da Vinci. From the Drawing at Lluda-l'cslh.

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PLATE XVII

Study for the Heads of tuo of the Soldiers in the "Battle of the Standard.
By Leonardo da Vinci. From the Drawing at Buda-I'esth.

PLATE XVIII
ly 0>]iy uf a pinimn of ilv- " llalile of ihe Stnnilan
From 1 1n- I>rm\in^ in flu* HiiliOi Museum.

PLATE XIX.

Old Copy of the "Leda," of Leonardo da Vinci.
Formerly in the Dcetsch Collection.

'St. John the Baptist." By Leonardo da Vinci.
From the Painting in the Louvre.

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