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MRS. BARNARD PIERCE
MRS. CARL HAESSLER
MRS. HOWARD LUCE
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Architectural
Library
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ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHIES OF
THE GREAT ARTISTS.
—2- -3–
LEONARDO D A WINCI.
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ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHIES
OF
THE GREAT ARTISTS.
—eº-º-
THE FOLLOWING ARE NOW READY :—
LEONARDO. From recent researches. By Dr. J. PAUL RICHTER,
Author of “Die Mosaiken von Ravenna.” With 16 Illustrations.
THE FIGURE PAINTERS OF HOLLAND. By Lord
RoNALD Gower, Trustee of National Portrait Gallery. With 18 Engravings.
HOGARTH. From recent researches. By AUSTIN DOBson,
Author of ‘Vignettes in Rhyme.” With 16 Illustrations.
RUBENS. From recent authorities. By C. W. KETT, M.A.,
Hertford College, Oxford. With 16 Engravings.
TURNER. From recent investigations. By CoSMo MonkHouse,
Author of ‘Studies of Sir E. Landseer.” With 20 Engravings.
THE LITTLE MASTERS. From recent authorities. By W.
B. Scott, Author of ‘Lectures on Fine Arts.” With 16 Engravings.
*** An Edition de Zuze, containing 14 extra plates from rare engravings in the
British Museum, and bound in Roxburgh style, may also be had, price ros. 6d.
HOLBEIN. From the text of Dr. A. WoltMANN. By Joseph
CUNDALL, Author of ‘Life and Genius of Rembrandt.” With 20 Engravings.
TINTORETTO. From recent investigations at Venice. By W.
Roscoe Osler, Author of occasional Essays on Art. With many Engravings.
RAPHAEL. From the text of J. D. PASSAVANT. By N. D'ANVERs,
Author of ‘Elementary History of Art.” With 20 Engravings.
VAN DYCK AND HALS. From recent authorities. By PERcy
R. HEAD, Lincoln College, Oxford. With 16 Engravings.
TITIAN. From the most recent authorities. By RICHARD FORD
HEATH, M.A. Hertford College, Oxford. With 16 Engravings.
REMBRANDT. From the text of C. VosMAER. By J. W.
MollBTT, B.A., Brasenose College, Oxford, Officier de l’Instruction Publique
(France). With 16 Engravings.
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LEONARDO DA. VINCI.
FROM A DRAwiNG IN RED CHALK BY HIMSELF. IN THE Roy AL LIBRARY, TURIN.
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“The whole world without Art would be one great wilderness.”
LEONARDO
BY JEAN PAUL RICHTER, PH.D.
e”
Author of ‘A)ie Mosaiken zon Razenna.’
N E W Y O R K :
SCRIBN E R AND WELFORD.
L O N DO N :
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON.
I88O.
s
MoRE or less successful biographies of Leonardo da Vinci
have of late years appeared from the pens of Charles Blanc,
Charles Clément, Mrs. Heaton, and Karl Brun. In this
work, which Mr. Percy E. Pinkerton has kindly translated
for me, I have sought to keep within the limits proper to
a mere biography, endeavouring mainly to verify the facts
of the artist's life, and to confirm the authenticity of those
works which he has left behind. Happily in this instance
it has been not wholly impossible to add somewhat to our
former personal knowledge of the great painter, as the
best and most reliable sources of information are Leonardo's
own unpublished documents, which have hitherto met
with but scant attention from the student of art. The
researches undertaken by me in the four Leonardo MSS.
in London, and the numerous memoranda in the Royal
Library at Windsor—access to which has been most
graciously accorded to me—have led to results which
throw new light upon several facts relating to Leonardo's
Biography, and to the history of his works.
vi PREFACE.
Certainly, a painter's character is to be gauged from a
study of his pictures rather than from the actual incidents
in his life; yet in discussing Leonardo da Vinci's works, it
is primarily with historical questions that we have to do.
In this volume I have purposely treated only of such
paintings by the master which I can conscientiously pro-
nounce to be his. Of these the list is so short a one, that
to some my remarks thereon may savour of hypercriticism.
Yet for this the master himself is to blame; we can only
echo the universal lament as to the dearth of pictures
which he has given to posterity. In Leonardo's own
day, even, his contemporary Ugolino Verino wrote thus
reproachfully of him :
“. . . forsan superat Leonardus Vincius omnes,
Tollere de tabula dextram sed nescit, et instar
Protogenis multis vix unam perficit annis.”
It would have been outside my purpose to sift and
weigh the reasons no less obvious than unwarrantable
whereby so vast a list of spurious pictures has been
traditionally ascribed to Leonardo. Possibly also such
a task would have been quite barren of result; for
when called upon to refute the assertions of prejudiced
egoism, the pen of the art-critic falls powerless. Painting
has a language of its own—a language with dialects not
understood by all. Leonardo himself has justly said,
“Thirst shall parch thy tongue, and thy body shall
waste through lack of sleep and sustenance, ere thou
canst describe in words that which painting instantly
sets forth before the eye.”
In the words of a celebrated Italian connoisseur, “There
is still very little known about Leonardo da Vinci, not only
PREFACE. vii
on the other side of the Alps, but also among us here. To-
gether with Giorgione, he ranks as that one of the great
Italian masters who, thanks to the ignorance and stupid
vanity of some, has met with indifference, may even with
disrespect. To show us this figure aright, in its sublime,
its colossal outline, is in truth the most beautiful as also
the most difficult of tasks which the art-historian can
set himself. England, with its variety of countless un-
discovered treasures, is of all places the fittest whence
to come nearer to the master, to study him closer, and to
know him more thoroughly.”
- J. P. R.
LONDON, December, 1879.
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C O N TENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
The Florentine School of Painting in the Fifteenth Century—
The youth of Leonardo da Vinci—The Studio of his Master,
Verrocchio º e º & e º e º
CHAPTER II.
Journey to Milan—His Letter to Duke Lodovico—The Last
Supper—Goethe's Criticism of the Picture—Preparatory Studies
CHAPTER III.
The Equestrian Statue of Francesco Sforza—Leonardo as an
Architect—As a Painter—Portrait Paintings
CHAPTER IV.
Leonardo's Scholars in Lombardy: The “Academia Leonardi
Vincii”—Milanese Engravings—The Fall of Lodovico Sforza
CHAPTER W.
Leonardo at Venice—His Portrait of Isabella Gonzaga—
Residence in Florence—In the service of Cesare Borgia . º
12
31
48
57
X CONTENTS.
CHAPTER WI.
PAGE
In French Service–Visit to Rome—In the Service of Francis I.
—The Madonnas in the Louvre and at Charlton Park—
Residence at Cloux—Leonardo's Death * > e º . 92
CHAPTER WIT.
Leonardo's personal Appearance—His Principles in Art—Cari-
catures—The ‘Trattato della Pittura’—His Manuscripts—
Achievements in Science — Leonardo's Library—The Phi-
losopher and the Poet. * > tº * . tº * ... 107
ILLUSTRATIONS.
After Paintings.
Adoration of the Kings . . . . . at Florence
The Last Supper . . . . . . . Milan
Virgin and St. Anne * (Double Plate) . London
Battle of Anghiari . . . . . . Lost
Mona Lisa . . . . . . . . . Paris
Vierge aux Rochers . . . . . . Paris
La Sainte Anne . . . . . . . Paris
After Drawings.
Portrait of himself. . . . . . . at Turin
Female Head . . . . . . . . Florence
Head of Christ “ . . . . . . . Venice .
Head of a Boy “ . . . . . . . Louvre .
After Sketches.
Men on Horses fighting with a Dragon . at Paris
Group for the Last Supper . . . . Paris
Suggestion for the Sforza Monument . Windsor
- After Engraving.
Female Head . . . . . . . . in London .
* Drawn by James J. Williamson.
PAGE
9
20
72
80
88
100
Frontispiece.
43
46
112
Wiii
30
35
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L E O N A R D O.
CHAPTER I.
THE FLORENTINE SCHOOL OF PAINTING IN THE FIFTEENTH
CENTURY-THE YOUTH OF LEONARDO DA WINCI—THE STUDIO
OF HIS MASTER, VERROCCHIO.
IEWED historically, there is no School of Painting
which suggests a more definite organization than
that of Florence during the fifteenth and early portion of
the sixteenth century. Her republic, under the guidance of
the most famous of the Medici, Cosimo, the “father of the
fatherland,” and his grandson Lorenzo il Magnifico, was
then at its zenith. In northern Italy at that time Mantegna
and Giovanni Bellini were the stars before whose lustre
every other luminary paled; and no artist having any
hope of fame could fail to visit their school, or at any
rate to make their works a model for self-instruction and
improvement. In Florence it was otherwise. As re-
presentatives of her school a whole list of brilliant names
may be cited—men of marked individuality, every one of
them. Each possessed his own particular method, yet was
not content with simply imparting such method to his
B
2 LEONARDO.
pupils; each was also anxious that by new roads a new
ideal might be reached. All the more important works
of the early Florentine school are alike distinguished
by an intense breadth and grandeur of conception and
execution. With these masters the faculty of regarding
nature from an exalted stand-point appears to have been
innate. The trivial, the commonplace had no share in
their design; their whole aim was a characteristic por-
trayal of the beautiful such as they found it in nature.
Andrea del Castagno, Paolo Uccelli and Masaccio form
the trio, whence, at the commencement of the century,
the movement sprang. Doctrines similar to theirs were
taught to the succeeding generation by the two Polla-
juolos, Piero della Francesca, Alessio Baldovinetti and
Andrea Verrocchio. Fra Filippo Lippi and his son
|Filippino, Botticelli—Filippino's teacher—and Pesellino
of untimely death were among those whose bent lay in a
more romantic direction. Domenico Ghirlandajo prepares
the way for Fra Bartolommeo and Raphael; to Signorelli
succeeds Michelangelo; while in Verrocchio the art of
Leonardo da Vinci finds its immediate precursor. The
style of all these masters is characterised by a marked
decline from the earlier manner of Giotto, the founder of
the Florentine school of painting and indeed of all Italian
art. Since Wasari, it has been affirmed that these old
masters drew their knowledge principally from the
antique. It is certainly possible that they may have been
influenced by those few old Roman statues to which they
had access. At all events, their efforts in the field of art
cannot be ascribed to any less powerful a source of in-
spiration. In discussing this question, however, we must
not forget that, of the splendid monuments of Greek
HIS PREOURSORS. 3
art at its prime, which we can now admire, the Florentine
painters knew nothing whatever.
In the following paragraph, Leonardo da Vinci gives us
a more correct idea of how slight was the influence of the
antique upon Florentine art in the fifteenth century. We
shall notice, too, that he assigns to Giotto and Masaccio
precisely that amount of importance which is still theirs
in the present day.
“A painter will produce works of but poor quality who (
takes for his guide the paintings of others; but if he will
learn from natural objects, he will bring forth good fruit.
This we may see exemplified in the later Roman painters,
who by continually copying the work of others from age
to age hastened the decay of their art. After these came
Giotto, the Florentine, who, brought up among the moun- |
tains, with goats for his companions, yet found himself
urged by nature to be an artist, and began by sketching
upon stones the animals which he tended. From this |
he proceeded to copy all the other animals that he met
with in the neighbourhood, and by these means acquired
such a degree of skill as to surpass not only the artists (
of his own time, but all those of many past ages. After
him, art again fell off, through continual imitations of
pictures, until Tommaso of Florence—known as Masaccio |
—showed by the perfection of his work how fruitless were t
the labours of those who followed any other leader than
Nature, the mistress of all masters.” *
Vasari’s detailed account of the life and works of
Leonardo was written in 1550, just thirty-one years after
the painter's death. Although not the oldest, if taken .
as a whole, it is even now the best literary source whence
we can gain a knowledge of the master. A MS. in the
B 2
4 LEONARDO,
Magliabechian Library at Florence contains a short bio-
graphy of an earlier date, written by an anonymous author,
which throws new light upon the facts of the artist's
life.* Perhaps it was also before Vasari's time that Paolo
Giovio, of Como, published his interesting biography of
Leonardo—Giovio, the greatest Latin historian of the
sixteenth century.f. A few documents, letters of his own
and of contemporaries, with his printed essays, are all that
we have to form the disconnected record of his life.
Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452, at the Castle
Vinci, which is situated in the vale of the Arno, mid-
way between Pisa and Florence. He was the natural son
of Ser Piero Antonio da Vinci, notary to the Signory
of Florence. His mother's name was Caterina, and she
afterwards married a certain Accatabriga di Piero del
Wacca di Vinci. The son was brought up entirely in his
father's house.
Of his youthful education we are unable to judge; we
only know it to have been a varied one. Vasari tells us
that, “In arithmetic he made such rapid progress that
he often confounded the master who was teaching him by
the perpetual doubts he started, and by the difficulty of the
questions he proposed. He also commenced the study of
music and resolved to acquire the art of playing the lute,
when, being by nature of an exalted imagination and full
of the most graceful vivacity, he sang to that instrument
most divinely, improvising, at the same time, both the
verses and the music.”
Yet of his early pursuits, drawing and modelling
* “Archivio Storico Italiano.” Serie Terza, tomo xvi. p. 219–230.
f See G. Bossi, ‘Del Cenacolo di Leonardo da Vinci.” Milano, 1810.
VERROCCHIO's INFLUENCE. 5
in clay had the greatest charm for him. It was this
which induced his father to place him with his friend,
Andrea del Verrocchio, in whose studio the boy's genius
would be developed by a thorough artistic training.
No more fitting teacher could at that time have been
found in Florence. Verrocchio was one of her greatest
geniuses: it is only in productiveness that he ranks
second to most of his contemporaries. Unlike Perugino
and Botticelli, he was not of those who painted for the
market: works from his brush are rare; yet they mark
an epoch in art. Werrocchio's genius was imitative. His
pupils were primarily taught sculpture and modelling in
bronze, and likewise painting. Among those who learnt
of him were Lorenzo di Credi and Perugino.
Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi, whose skill was
greater in painting than in verse, has coupled Perugino's
name with that of Leonardo in the following lines:
“Due giovin, par d’etate e par d'onore,
Leonardo da Vinci e 'l Perugino,
Pier della Pieve, ch'e un divin pittore.”
Of the profound influence exercised by Werrocchio upon
his pupils we have evidence in the fact that his drawings
and those of Leonardo and Lorenzo di Credi bear such
close resemblance in style as to be not easily distinguish-
able. According to Wasari, it was under Leonardo's
supervision that Di Credi produced the graceful figures
in his carefully finished pictures; small wonder, then, if
these should at times be ascribed to his more illustrious
fellow-student. Leonardo was even entrusted with the
completion of Verrocchio's own paintings; and, consider-
ing the existing relations between master and pupil, this is
6 LEONARDO.
less a matter for surprise than a like occurrence would be in
the art world of to-day. Werrocchio was commissioned by
the monks of Wallombrosa near Florence to paint a picture
of the Baptism of our Lord. This is yet to be seen at the
Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. Christ stands in the
river looking downwards, with hands crossed in prayer, to
the right kneel two angels by a palm-tree, holding the
Saviour's robe, while, on the left, John the Baptist is seen
in the act of baptizing. A far-stretching landscape forms
the background. Vasari, in speaking of this work, tells
us that, Leonardo “painted an angel holding some vest-
ments, and completed that figure in such a manner that
the angel of Leonardo was much better than the portion
executed by his master, which caused the latter never to
touch colours more, so much was he displeased to find that
a mere child could do more than himself.” The kneeling
angel in the foreground is certainly the most pleasing
figure in the picture, and thus it comes that Wasari's
anecdote has always been believed. On the other hand, it
is very improbable, and doubtless an exaggeration, that it
was the maestro himself who proclaimed his pupil victor
in the contest. At any rate, upon closer examination, our
verdict will be a different one. The plan, the design, are
clearly Werrocchio's. The same medium which gave such
luminous transparency to all the works of the early
Florentine masters is here used in the painting of the bold
and realistic figure of St. John. The anatomy of vein and
muscle in the gaunt hands of the hermit is given with
absolute accuracy. Donatello and other artists of the
time were all wont to represent John the Baptist as the
most haggard of men, and thus Werrocchio, who is respon-
sible for the figure in question, can scarcely be blamed for
THE ‘BAPTISM OF CHRIST, BY VERROCCHIO. 7
following their example. What share, then, had Leonardo
in the picture? Not merely the angel ascribed to him by
tradition, but also the figures of Christ and of the second
angel, as well as the landscape background are obviously
painted entirely in oil, a method which Leonardo always
employed, whereas Werrocchio never abandoned his
tempera groundwork. The same hand which drew the
charming profile of the angel is discernible in the flowing
locks, in the arms, hands and torso of the figure of Christ,
which are no less perfect in their way. Respecting Da
Vinci's years of study spent in Verrocchio's atelier, we
know that, when there, Lorenzo di Credi became so
imbued with Leonardo's style, that his pictures of that
period have been confounded with those of the latter.
In all likelihood it was he who painted the beautiful
Madonna, in the National Gallery (No. 297), first at-
tributed to Ghirlandajo and at present to Pollajuolo, a
picture rich with reminiscences of Verrocchio's Baptism.
At all events it was in his studio that the Madonna was
produced.
Leonardo probably came under Werrocchio's tutorship
in the year 1470. In the June of 1472 we find an
entry of his name in the account-books of the guild of
painters as an independent artist. He is mentioned as
“Lyonardo di Ser Piero da Vinci.” Of all his early works
not one remains, although both Vasari and the anonymous
biographer mention a cartoon by him in water-colours, re-
presenting the Fall, in which animals and trees are painted
with wonderful truth. It was intended to have a piece of
tapestry woven in Flanders after this design for the King
of Portugal; but this was never done. When Wasari wrote,
* Uzielli, “IRicerche intorno a L. da Vinci.’ Firenze, 1872.
8 LEONARDO.
the cartoon was in Florence; since that time it has entirely
disappeared. The same writer gives a minute description
of a shield which Leonardo painted at his father's request.
His aim was to impart to the panel a power equal to that
possessed by the actual head of Medusa, and therefore he
depicted “a hideous and appalling monster, breathing
poison and flames, and surrounded by an atmosphere of fire.
This he caused to issue from a rift in a dark rock, with
poison reeking from the cavernous throat, flames darting
from the eyes, and vapours rising from the nostrils—in
such sort that the result was indeed a most fearful and
monstrous creature.” This was afterwards sold to the
Duke of Milan for 300 ducats, and since then nothing is
known of it. The same fate befel an unfinished picture
of the Medusa, and its loss is hardly compensated for by
a similar painting of later date, erroneously ascribed to
Leonardo, which is now in the Uffizi at Florence.
On another occasion, Wasari himself would appear to
have been deceived. He mentions “a picture of Our Lady
which was greatly prized by Pope Clement the Seventh :
among the accessories of this work was a bottle filled
with water in which some flowers were placed with dew-
drops on the leaves, so true to nature that they appeared
to be real.” Now it is beyond question that the work
at present in the Borghese Gallery at Rome, and which
narrowly answers to this description, was in reality
painted by Lorenzo di Credi, although ascribed to Da
Vinci. Vasari also speaks of a drawing, made for Antonio
Segni, of Neptune “in his chariot drawn by sea-horses, in
which the turbulent waves, the various phantoms sur-
rounding the chariot, the monsters of the deep, the winds
and the heads of the marine deities” are what provoke his
THE ‘ADORATION OF THE KINGs.’ 9
special wonder. We have likewise to deplore the loss of
this work. Yet among the rare collection of the artist's
drawings at Windsor there is a similar composition, done
in black chalk, probably a rough outline of his design.
His anonymous biographer informs us: “And he began
to paint a picture for the Palazzo Publico which, later
on, was completed from his drawing by Filippo di Fra
Filippo.” The contract of January 1, 1478, is still extant,
in which Leonardo agreed to paint an altar-piece for the
chapel of St. Bernard in the above-named palace. The
young artist set to work at once and as early as March
had received an instalment of his fee. That was all,
however, for after a while the commission was transferred
to Filippino Lippi, whose composition is indeed a totally
independent one, bearing no trace of Leonardo's manner.
We can, however, close this melancholy list of lost
treasures, the first-fruits of the painter's genius, with a
picture, which, although unfinished, bears ample proof
of the master's hand, and the genuineness of which is also
attested by documents. It is the large canvas of the
Adoration of the Kings in the Uffizi at Florence. Although in
an incomplete state, our enjoyment of it is in no way
marred. On the contrary, the more closely we study it,
the more we become convinced that, if completed in
oils, this composition, from the very magnificence of its
design, would lose not a little of its charm. It is painted in
brown, and represents the Madonna seated in the foreground
holding the Infant Christ in her arms. The kings with
their attendants are grouped around, forming a semicircle
of venerable old men and enthusiastic youths. The ordinary
effects to be gained in the colouring of rich robes are not
sought here, lest they should interfere with the beholder's
10 - LEONARDO.
just appreciation of the subtle shades of expression to be
found in the faces and gestures of each. We do not mean
to say that Leonardo left this incompleted because he was
uncertain as to the carrying out of his scheme, which,
in the case of Michelangelo, was the common reason
why so many of his works remained unfinished:—on the
contrary, the work does not bear in any one part the
traces of indecision—not even in the details of background,
composed of horsemen, trees and fantastic ruins. The
several forms are drawn with a sure hand and are all
characterised by great individuality. In this respect, the
picture may be considered as complete as similar works by
Rembrandt in monochrome—as, for instance, the sketch
of John the Baptist Preaching, in Lord Dudley's collection.
In the March of 1480 the monks of San Donato at
Scopeto had given an order to Leonardo for this picture to
adorn the chief altar of their church, and in the July of
the year following a formal agreement was entered into.
The price offered was three hundred florins in gold, on
condition that the work was ready within twenty-four, or .
at the most, thirty months. As the artist failed to fulfil
these conditions, the arrangement with him was can-
celled, and Filippino Lippi was instructed to do the work.
Lippi's unfinished picture, the Adoration of the Kings, is
yet to be seen in the Uffizi at Florence, where it hangs
close to Leonardo's representation of the same subject.
It must have been about this time that the small paint-
ing by Leonardo was produced, now in the Vatican
Pinacoteca at Rome. It is in a brown monochrome, and
represents a kneeling St. Jerome, whose figure is greatly
foreshortened. In the Windsor collection we have found
preparatory drawings for this picture.
EARLY WORKS. 11
Nor does Wasari omit to tell us of the young painter's
energy and skill as a sculptor. Werrocchio, his teacher,
was, as we know, far more proficient with the chisel than
with the brush. According to Vasari, Da Vinci, while
yet quite a youth, executed several heads in terra-cotta
of Smiling women and children, which were afterwards
reproduced in gypsum. But none of these remain; and
of the numerous figures in marble, bronze and terra-cotta
which Werrocchio's studio has furnished, admirable as
most of them are, there is not one that can with certainty
be ascribed to Leonardo.
Vasari's testimony as to the young painter's skill as an
architect is corroborated by the wonderful specimens
of Original architecture to be seen in the picture of the
Epiphany already described.
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CHAPTER II.
JOURNEY TO MILAN–HIS LETTER TO DUKE LODOVICO—THE * LAST
SUPPER’—GOETHE's CRITICISM OF THE PICTURE–PREPARATORY
STUDIES.
EONARDO DA WINCI has often been blamed for
choosing to forsake the home of his youth, and
for making Milan the scene of his energies, with the
Duke Lodovico Sforza as his patron. There was certainly
no lack of offers of employment; nor could he complain
of any neglect. In the following lines, taken from the
anonymous biography, we shall perhaps find the solution
of this. “Lorenzo de' Medici il Magnifico adopted the
young painter, giving him a salary and commissions
for pictures, with the garden of the Medici (near the
Piazza di San Marco at Florence) as his studio.” This
garden formerly contained ateliers for artists, marbles,
and also a small collection of antiques. We know that
Michelangelo worked here some years later. The biography
further tells us that “Leonardo was thirty years old when
he was sent by Lorenzo il Magnifico with Atalanto
Migliorotti to take a lute to the Duke of Milan.”
According to Wasari, Leonardo is reported to have gone
there “on his own account,” with “a lute which he had
JOURNEY TO MILAN. 13
himself constructed almost wholly of silver and in the
shape of a horse's head, a new and fanciful form calculated
to give more force and sweetness to the sound. When
playing this instrument, Leonardo surpassed all the
musicians who had assembled to perform before the Duke;
he was besides one of the best improvisatori in verse
existing at the time; and soon the Duke became enchanted
with the admirable conversation of the young Florentine
artist.”
In fixing the date of this occurrence the anonymous
biographer is undoubtedly more correct than Wasari,
who names Lodovico Sforza as the Duke, but Sforza did
not succeed to the dukedom until the year 1494, when
the artist had reached the age of forty-two. Belinzone,
at all events, tells us that Leonardo conducted the fes-
tivities which took place at Milan on the occasion of
the marriage of the Duke Gian Galeazzo with Isabella
of Calabria. The anonymous biographer who gives the
year 1482 as the date when this occurred is therefore
more entitled to our belief. And he has named Ata-
lanto Migliorotti who used to learn lute-playing under
Leonardo's tuition as his companion.
In the year 1447, the Sforza family had come into power
at Milan. As guardian of his nephew Gian Galeazzo,
Lodovico Sforza, called il Moro, third son of Francesco
Sforza, had likewise succeeded in obtaining the regency.
This was in 1480.
In order to maintain his hold upon the reins of govern-
ment, Sforza sought to appear before his subjects in
the double rôle of a cruel, vindictive tyrant and of a
brilliant philanthropist, who drew around him the lead-
ing representatives of science and art of the day. We
14 ÍFONARDO.
have still a manuscript by Leonardo in which he offers
his services to Lodovico. This remarkable document is
as follows:—
“Having, most illustrious lord, seen and duly considered
the experiments of all those who repute themselves
masters in the art of inventing instruments of war, and
having found that their instruments differ in no way
from such as are in common use, I will endeavour,
without wishing to injure any one else, to make known
to your Excellency certain secrets of my own; as briefly
enumerated here below:—
“1. I have a way of constructing very light bridges,
most easy to carry, by which the enemy may be pursued
and put to flight. Others also of a stronger kind, that
resist fire or assault, and are easy to place and to remove.
I know ways also for burning and destroying those of the
enemy.
“2. In case of investing a place I know how to remove
the water from ditches, and to make various scaling
ladders, and other such instruments.
“3. Item : If, on account of the height or strength
of position, the place cannot be bombarded, I have a
way for ruining every fortress which is not on stone
foundations.
“4. I can also make a kind of cannon, easy and con-
venient to transport, that will discharge inflammable
matters, causing great injury to the enemy and also great
terror from the smoke.
“5. Item : By means of narrow and winding under-
ground passages made without noise, I can contrive a way
for passing under ditches or any stream.
“6. Item : I can construct covered carts, secure and
RECOMMENDATORY LETTER TO THE DUKE. 15
indestructible, bearing artillery, which, entering among
the enemy, will break the strongest body of men, and
which the infantry can follow without any impediment.
“7. I can construct cannon, mortars and fire engines
of beautiful and useful shape, and different from those
in common use.
“8. Where the use of cannon is impracticable, I can
replace them by catapults, mangonels, and engines for
discharging missiles of admirable efficacy, and hitherto
unknown—in short, according as the case may be, I can
contrive endless means of offence.
“9. And, if the fight should be at sea, I have numerous
engines of the utmost activity both for attack and defence;
vessels that will resist the heaviest fire—also powders or
vapours.
“10. In time of peace, I believe I can equal any one
in architecture, and in constructing buildings, public
or private, and in conducting water from one place to
another.
“Then I can execute sculpture, whether in marble,
bronze or terra-cotta, also in painting I can do as much as
any other, be he who he may.
“Further, I could engage to execute the bronze horse
in lasting memory of your father, and of the illustrious
house of Sforza, and, if any of the above-mentioned things
should appear impossible and impracticable to you, I offer
to make trial of them in your park, or in any other place
that may please your Excellency, to whom I commend
myself in utmost humility.”
As Mrs. Heaton rightly observes, this could only
have been written by a genius or by a fool. The hand-
writing is from right to left, as in Hebrew or Arabic,
16 LEONARDO.
and it is far from easy to decipher. Leonardo used
to write all his private memoranda in this way; we
can therefore conclude that this document was nothing
more than a rough copy of the letter which he actually
sent to Lodovico Sforza. To some it has seemed strange
that, among the list of his accomplishments he does not
include lute-playing, for, as Wasari tells us, it was his
fascinating performances on the lute which first brought
him under the notice of the Duke. The anonymous
biographer, however, relates that Leonardo was introduced
as a lute-player to Lodovico by Lorenzo il Magnifico, so
that perhaps it was only natural that he should omit any
mention of a talent which had already been recognised.
Leonardo da Vinci now took up his residence in
Milan, where he remained for nearly twenty years; but
during that period we have comparatively little informa-
tion as to his artistic achievements. A statue and some
few paintings are, as his biographers tell us, all that he
produced during the whole of that time, whereas Raphael,
in a like period, was able to execute an infinite series of
masterpieces. Indeed, Leonardo's entire artistic career is
within the limits of those twenty years.
From political reasons it was necessary for Lodovico
il Moro to secure the favour of the Emperor Maximilian,
and it was probably on this account that Leonardo was
commissioned by the Duke to paint an altar-piece re-
presenting the birth of Christ, which was sent to the
German emperor as a present. Respecting this picture,
the anonymous biographer tells us that, in the opinion of
connoisseurs, it was looked upon as a marvellous and
unique work of art, now, alas ! entirely lost to us.
HIS ENGAGEMENT AT MILAN. 17
The Duke seems to have understood how to profit by
the various talents of his artist. He was entrusted not
only with different matters connected with engineering,
but also at the many court festivities he was made master
of the ceremonies and manager in general; but however
much the people of his epoch may have admired the
lorilliancy of his genius in this capacity, it is a circumstance
which we of this day can only deplore. From the accounts
of these gay proceedings the student of art history can
glean nothing. Although, of course, only in outline, the
designs which Leonardo made on these occasions would
undoubtedly be of the greatest interest: work of that
lcind by great masters has always had a special worth ;
and we may safely assume that Leonardo's contributions
to these decorations would have been stamped with
such taste and such refinement as to serve as a model
for all time.
It is without doubt a sad task for the biographer of the
great Florentine, in recording the story of his manifold
activity, to be unable to point to any tangible result.
Tor at this day, if Leonardo's fame as a great artist be in
popular opinion not less than that of Raphael it can only
rest upon his one supreme creation—only a wreck, now,
it is true—yet which bears abundant proof of the extra-
ordinary qualities of his genius. His large fresco of the
Last Supper in the refectory of the convent of the Madonna
delle Grazie in Milan has for long past been in a greatly
damaged condition, yet—like the Elgin marbles, in which,
despite their mutilation, one may recognise the highest
ideal that sculpture has ever reached—Leonardo's picture
remains the most perfect composition in the history
of painting of all ages. Copied and reproduced times
C
18 LEONARDO.
without number, it is everywhere known and everywhere
admired. Old plates of it in the Florentine and Paduam
style appeared long before Morghen produced his cele-
brated engraving. Most of the old copies on canvas,
which are often to be met with in public galleries and
private collections, are attributed to Marco d’Oggionno,
one of Leonardo's pupils. At the beginning of the cem-
tury, Bossi catalogued some fifty copies, and countless
others are now circulated annually in every part of the
world. We may even see it as a fresco in a Byzantine
convent of the Athos, in Macedonia. Voluminous commen-
taries have been written upon it, which in their turn have
needed commentaries equally lengthy.
The original painting occupies the entire breadth of the
narrow wall of a now-unused dining-hall in the convent.
Of its origin we know but little. A bill sent in by the
architect of the monastery in 1497, “for work in the
refectory where Leonardo has painted the Apostles,” has
hitherto led one to suppose that at that time the fresco
was completed. Yet this theory is confuted by a recently
discovered letter of the Duke's, from which it can be
clearly seen that in that year Leonardo's picture was far
from being finished. The Duke, writing to his secretary
Domino Marchesino Stange, says:
“We have entrusted to you the carrying out of the
matters mentioned on the enclosed list; and although our
orders were delivered to you by word of mouth, it shall add
to our comfort that we set them down in these few words,
to inform you how extraordinary is our interest in their
execution.
“LUDOVICO MARIA SFORTIA.
4% Milan, the 30th of June, 1497.”
THE LAST SUPPER. 19
The “memoriale” appended to this letter shows that
the Duke really took a personal interest in art. Of the
thirteen different matters here mentioned, the greater
portion refers to works of art. “Item : Of Leonardo of
Florence it is to be solicited that he finish the work in the
Refettorio delle Gratie, when he must set to work upon the
other front wall thereof, which, if he can do, the agreements
previously signed by him respecting its completion within
a given time will be cancelled.”
This interesting document proves that it was not only
the monks, but also the Duke who gave him the com-
mission to paint the Last Supper. One is almost inclined
to believe that there was some sort of difference between
Ludovico and the artist, since their correspondence was
conducted in this indirect manner. By the work upon
the “front wall” of the refectory is probably meant
the portraits to which we shall have occasion to refer
later on. Luca Paciolo informs us definitely that in 1498
Leonardo had put the finishing touch to his picture. He
may have been ten years engaged upon it; perhaps even
longer than this, Bandello, in one of his novels, relates
how, “in Lodovico's time, some gentlemen living in Milan
were met one day in the monks' refectory of the convent
delle Grazie, where with hushed voices they watched
Leonardo da Vinci as he was finishing his marvellous
picture of the Last Supper. The painter was well pleased
that each should tell him what they thought of his work.
He would often come to the convent at early dawn; and
this I have seen him do myself. Hastily mounting the
scaffolding, he worked diligently until the shades of even-
ing compelled him to cease, never thinking to take food
at all, so absorbed was he in his work. At other times
c 2
20 LEONARDO.
he would remain there three or four days without touch-
ing his picture, only coming for a few hours to remain
before it, with folded arms, gazing at his figures as if to
criticise them himself. At mid-day, too, when the glare
of a sun at its zenith has made barren all the streets of
Milan, I have seen him hasten from the citadel, where
he was modelling his colossal horse, without seeking the
shade, by the shortest way to the convent, where he would
add a touch or two and immediately return.” These
accounts certainly give one the impression of being trust-
worthy, more to be credited at any rate than the anec-
dotes about the prior of the convent who complained to
the Duke of the artist's dilatoriness, and many like tales,
During the fifteenth century in Florence the Sacrament
of our Lord formed a very common subject for representa-
tion on the walls of convent refectories. In 1480, shortly
before Leonardo left Florence, Domenico Ghirlandajo's
picture there of the Last Supper was completed in the
Refettorie of the convent Ognisanti. Very possibly
Leonardo knew also of Andrea del Castagno's treatment
of the same subject in the refectory of St. Appollonia. Both
frescoes in their general arrangement resemble Leonardo's
picture. The breadth of the wall-painting is occupied
by a long table, behind which the disciples are seated,
with Christ in the centre, who has apparently just
uttered the words, “One of you shall betray Me: ” and
in the faces of the disciples is to be read the various
effect which His words produce. In its main features
Leonardo's presentment of the subject is the same as
that of the earlier masters of the Florentine Renaissance.
But with the Giotto school, as also with Fra Angelico,
the conception was a different one. Andrea del Castagno
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THE LAST SUPPER. 21
was the first to find a new method of treatment, one in
keeping with the Renaissance spirit. In his picture, the
figures only of St. John and of Judas Iscariot recall the
arrangement of medieval compositions. Judas sits apart at
the near side of the table opposite to the Saviour, while
John is leaning forward in slumber, his head resting upon
his arms. In Ghirlandajo's picture we shall find this as
well. The artists were obviously perplexed as to how they
should depict the Apostle actually resting upon Christ's
bosom. In Giotto's Last Supper, in Padua, the heads of the
disciples, turned away from the spectator and surrounded by
enormous nimbi, have an almost ludicrous effect. Andrea
del Castagno, Ghirlandajo and Da Vinci left out the nimbi
altogether; but Leonardo was the first to represent them
all seated on the far side of the table. Yet not only in
general outline, but also in his conception of the figures,
Andrea del Castagno must be regarded as the forerunner
of Leonardo. In Andrea's fresco the pose of every Apostle
is as natural as it is varied; there is individuality in each
face, and great power of draughtsmanship. The picture
makes a profound impression upon us: Botticelli and
Filippo Lippi could certainly never have conceived so
lofty an ideal. A comparison between the Last Supper in
the convent of St. Apollonia, in Florence, with that in the
refectory of St. Maria delle Grazie, clearly proves that in
Andrea del Castagno, Da Vinci had a great predecessor
who stood in about the same relative position to him as
did Masaccio to Raphael.
In order to thoroughly understand Leonardo's composi-
tion as a whole, it is absolutely necessary to study its
individual parts. The master has embodied his thoughts
as plainly and as clearly as can well be, yet their full
22 , LEONARDO.
meaning is not to be gathered from a casual examination.
Nor is this more than can be expected from a man of such
high genius, and when we consider how long was the
time spent in working out his conception. Of all those
who have described the fresco, Goethe has perhaps been
most thoroughly able to give verbal expression to the
artist's intention. He wrote an essay upon this picture,
from which we quote the following important paragraphs:*
“The means of excitement which he employed to agitate
the holy and tranquil company at table are the words of
the Master, “There is one amongst you that betrays Me.” The
words are uttered, and the whole company is thrown into
consternation; but He inclines His head with bent-down
looks, while the whole attitude, the motion of the arms,
the hands and everything, seem to repeat the inauspicious
expressions, which the silence itself confirms. ‘Verily,
verily, there is one amongst you that betrays Me.’”
“Leonardo enlivened his picture chiefly by the motion of
the hands, an obvious resource to an Italian. . . . .
“The figures on both sides of our Lord may be con-
sidered in groups of three, and thus they appear as if
formed into unities corresponding in a certain relation
with each other. Next to Christ, on the right hand, are
John, Judas and Peter.
“Peter, the farthest, on hearing the words of our Lord,
rises suddenly, in conformity with his vehement character.
Judas, with terrified countenance, leans across the table,
tightly clutching the purse with the right hand, while
with the left he makes an involuntary convulsive motion,
as if to say, “What may this mean? what is to happen?”
In the meanwhile, Peter with his left hand has seized
* Adapted from Noehden's translation, 1821.
THE LAST SUPPER. 23
John by the right shoulder, who bends towards him, and
pointing to Christ, apparently signifies that he should ask
who is the traitor. With the handle of a knife which
he holds in his right hand, he accidentally touches the
side of Judas. The pose of the latter, who, stooping forward
alarmed, upsets a salt-cellar, is thus successfully managed.
This group may be regarded as the leading one in the
picture: it is certainly the most perfect.
“While on the right hand with a certain degree of
emotion immediate revenge seems to be threatened, horror
and detestation of the treachery manifest themselves on
the left. James the elder draws back in terror, and with
arms outspread, he gazes transfixed, his head bowed, like
one who imagines that he already sees with his eyes those
fearful things which he hears with his ears. Behind his
shoulder, Thomas approaches our Lord and raises the fore-
finger of his right hand to his forehead. Philip, the third
of this group, completes it in a most pleasing manner.
Rising, he bends forward towards the Master, and with
his hands upon his breast, he is clearly saying; “It is not
I, Lord, Thou knowest it ! Thou knowest my pure heart,
it is not Iſ '
“And now the three last figures on this side afford
us new matter for contemplation. They are conversing
together about the terrible news. Matthew turns eagerly
to his two companions on the left, hastily stretching out
his hands towards the Master. By an admirable con-
trivance of the artist, he is thus made to connect the fore-
going group with his own. Thaddaeus shows the utmost
surprise, doubt and suspicion; his left hand rests upon the
table, while he lifts the right as though he were about to
strike the two together, a common action in everyday life,
/
24. LEONARDO.
as when at some unlooked-for occurrence a man should say,
‘Did I not tell you so? Did I not always suspect it?’
Simon, the oldest of all, sits with great dignity at the
bottom of the table; we thus get a full view of his figure,
which is clad in a long flowing garb. His countenance
and movement show him to be troubled in mind and full
of thought; he does not, however, display any marked
agitation.
“If we turn our eyes at once to the opposite end of the
table, we shall see Bartholomew, who rests on his right'
foot, crossing the left over it, and bending his body
forward, which he supports with both his hands leaning
upon the table. He listens as if to hear what John will
ask of the Lord ; indeed, that disciple's anxiety is shared
in by the whole group. James the younger, standing
behind Bartholomew, rests his left hand on Peter's
shoulder, in the same way as the latter leans upon that
of St. John. On James's face we see only a placid request
for explanation: Peter again seems to threaten revenge.
“And as Peter behind Judas, so James the younger
stretches out his hand behind Andrew, who, being one of
the most prominent figures, expresses by half-lifted arms
and outspread hands, the fixed horror with which he is
seized. This expression occurs only once in the picture,
although, alas ! it is too often repeated in works composed
with less genius and less reflection.”
From this description it is evident that Goethe's en-
deavour has been to do the utmost justice to the painter's
conception. But this, alas ! in its entirety, is no longer
ours; we do not find it in the original, nor in the earliest
copies, nor yet in Raphael Morghen's excellent engraving.
Even in the picture itself, as it now exists, the expression
THE LAST SUPPER. & 25.
in several of the faces of the apostles is exaggerated
and unnatural—no longer worthy of Leonardo's brush.
Ignoring the old method of fresco-painting, Leonardo
mixed his colours with oil—a fatal innovation as it proved.
Donato Montorfono's fresco of the Crucifixion, painted in
1495, which faces the Last Supper in the same refectory,
is to this day in an excellent state of preservation, while
Leonardo's production in its shattered condition is a
melancholy proof of the falsity of his theory. Already his
pupil Lomazzo in his “Trattato della Pittura,’ says of it,
“La pittura è rovinata tutta.” In the course of a few
centuries it has been re-painted no less than three times;
by Bellotti in 1726, by Mazza in 1770, and finally in this
century, perhaps more than once. In 1804, Amoretti, the
compiler of “Memorie Storiche di Leonardo da Vinci, tells
us that in standing before the original he could hardly
recognise it, and that its general features were only dis-
tinguishable when seen from a distance. On the other
hand, if we look at it to-day, both outline and colouring
appear most distinctly marked; this is, of course, owing
to the present thorough method of restoration; and if the
details of the picture provoke our admiration, it is solely
due to the specious talent of modern restorers. In their
delineation of the heads they have probably gone to Marco
d’ Oggionno's copy in Milan for a model. Under these
circumstances it would be unfair to Leonardo da Vinci to
make him responsible for such travestied features of most
of the heads. -
Nor was it solely the latter-day restorers, by-the-way,
who have done harm to the original. With incompre-
hensible indifference the Dominican monks allowed the
lower portion of the central group to be destroyed, in
26 LEONARD0.
order to make a door in the wall. Later on, the refectory
was converted into a stable by Napoleon's dragoons, who
amused themselves by pelting the heads of the apostles
with brickbats.
In the year 1800, Raphael Morghen’s celebrated en-
graving appeared, which is reputed to be the most faithful
reproduction possible, and in every way the best substitute
for the original. Yet even this was not executed from the
picture itself. During the three years which he spent in
the execution of his engraving he was resident at Florence.
His model was a drawing by Teodoro Matteini, made at
the request of Morghen’s employer, the Grand Duke of
Tuscany, who sent Matteini to Milan for that purpose. If
we may believe Amoretti, there is no doubt that Matteini,
finding the original as it stood would not entirely serve
his purpose, was obliged to make use of the picture by
d'Oggionno. Morghen’s engraving is thus simply a copy
of that artist's production, who at the present time is
Credited with all the more important copies of the original.
Besides the one at Milan there is another at Ponte Capriasco
in Switzerland; a third in the Louvre, and a fourth in the
Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy. The last is the
most celebrated of them, yet in the drawing of the heads
the pupil has certainly not kept closely to his master's
model. As regards technical treatment, too, it differs much
from other authentic works by d'Oggionno. The author of
this valuable picture is far more likely to have been Gian
Pietrini, a very clever pupil of Leonardo's. De Pagave
informs us that Bernadino Luini executed a copy for Louis
the Twelfth of France, which was placed in the church of
St. Germain l'Auxerrois in Paris. But of this nothing
further is known. Rubens also made a copy of the picture,
THE LAST SUPPER. 27
which the splendid engraving executed from it has helped
to make familiar. Like all the copied work of the great
Flemish artist from Italian models, it was a translation
in his own peculiar style rather than a faithful repro-
duction. Yet in looking at the figure of Christ it cannot
be denied that Rubens has striven to become imbued with
the spirit of the great Florentine.
We in the present day can scarcely form an adequate
conception of the actual impression which the original
picture created. For the contrast is all too marked
between the ruined original and well-preserved authentic
works by Leonardo, as for instance, the panel pictures in
the Louvre.
Two years had hardly elapsed since the completion of
the Last Supper, when a brilliant assemblage of princes
and condottieri, fresh from the carnage of battlefields, came
to pay Leonardo the tribute of their admiration. The
Italian historian, Paolo Giovio, has briefly described this
episode in Louis the Twelfth's victorious campaign against
Lodovico Sforza, in 1499. In his suite were the Dukes of
Ferrara and Mantua, the Princes of Montferrat and Savoy,
Caesar Borgia and the Ambassadors of Genoa and Venice.
“The King on beholding the picture was greatly struck
thereat, and closely contemplating it, he asked those about
him if it were not possible to hew out the wall whereon it
was painted, being minded to take the picture with him
to France.” Strange, indeed, must the impression have
been which Leonardo's picture must have made upon the
great French king. His wish, however, was fortunately
never realized. It is only of late that a process has been
discovered for the safe removal and transport of large
mural paintings.
Of the studies made by Leonardo for this picture,
28 - LEONARDO.
unfortunately very few authentic ones remain. The full-
size drawings of the heads of several of the apostles in
the collection of the Grand Duchess of Weimar have un-
deservedly the reputation of being genuine, as they are
assumed to be identical with those mentioned by Lomazzo.
Yet they are done in black crayon, whereas Lomazzo tells
us that the heads were in red chalk. A portion of these
missing drawings can be identifiedin the Windsor collection.
Among them are finished studies for the heads of Matthew,
Simon and Judas, who are all shewn with beardless faces.
In the Brera Gallery at Milan, there is a genuine half
life-size study in pencil for a head of Christ, which is in
a deplorable state of preservation. We seem to learn some-
thing of the way in which the picture was first originated
by a pen-and-ink sketch in the Louvre of several nude
figures in various attitudes. It contains also a group of
five seated at a small table; a youth converses with two
older men, while another youth listens, resting his head
on his elbow—a thorough conception of a St. John, even
though the sketch only reminds one of some episode in
ordinary life, the hasty reproduction, it may be, of some
tavern scene. Perhaps Leonardo was meditating upon the
figure of Christ when drawing the man in the lower corner
of the paper, who, with his right hand upon his breast,
points with the left to a dish. The sketches on the
upper portion of the sheet (not given in our illustration)
have no connection with any of his known works; the
inscription, which is clearly legible in a mirror, refers to
an apparatus for ventilation, to which a sponge is affixed.
On two of the pages in one of Leonardo's note-books,
bequeathed in 1876 by Mr. John Forster to the South Ken-
sington Museum, we find a memorandum which shews us
the manner in which he first thought out his conception of
THE LAST SUPPER. 29
the different types of the Apostles.
It is without doubt
the most important document which we possess relating
to the greatest efforts of the master's brush :*
Uno che (voleva bere) beveva
allasciolo stare mel suo sito, e
volselatesta inverso il propo-
mitore.
One (of the apostles) is about to
drink, but leaves it (the glass)
in its place, and turns his head
towards the prolocutor.
Another extends out the fingers
of his hands, and with a severe
expression on his brow turns
towards his neighbour.
Another opens his hands, showing
the palms, and shrugs the
shoulders towards the ears,
whilst with his mouth he ex-
presses his astonishment.
Another whispers in the ear of
one who hearkens, bending
towards him and holding his
ear close to him, whilst in one
hand he holds a knife and in
the other the bread, which is
half cut by the said knife.
Another, holding a knife in his
hand, overturns with this hand
the glass which stands on the
table.
Another rests his hands on the
table and regards his neighbour,
who blows upon his food.
Another bends forward towards
the prolocutor, and shades his
eyes with one hand.
Another withdraws behind the
one who stoops forward and
looks at the prolocutor, between
the wall and the sky.
Un altro rese le dita delle sue
mani insieme echo rigide ciglia
Si volta al co’pagno.
Laltro cholle mani aperte mostra
le palme di quelle, e alzalesspalli
inv’le orechi effa labocha della
maraviglia.
Un altro parlanellorechio allaltro,
ecquello che lascolta si torce
env’so lui e gli porgie liorechi, e
tenendo un choltello neluna-
mano e mellaltra il pane mezo
diviso da tal colfello.
Laltro nel voltarsi tenendo un
choltello in man, v'sa con tal
mano vna zaina Sopra della
tavola.
Laltro posa le mani sopra della
tavola, e guarda laltro soffiar
nel bochone.
Laltro si china per vedere il pro-
ponitore, effarsi obra colla mano
alliochi.
Laltro si tira inderieto acquel
chesichina che vede il proponi-
tore infral muro el cielo.
&
* See Appendix, Note 1.
30 LEONARDO.
On comparing these notes with the picture itself, we
shall easily see that they differ but little from the ideas
which the master has embodied in his fresco; indeed they
possess all the characteristic features of that wonderful
composition. It is worthy of remark that here neither
the apostles nor Christ are mentioned by name, the latter
being repeatedly styled “proponitore,” evidently with
reference to the utterance: “Werily, one of you shall
betray Me.”
There are two other studies for the Last Supper in the
Windsor collection, lightly drawn in pen-and-ink, in which
the figure of Christ corresponds to that in the Louvre
sketch. The arrangement is the same as in the earlier
Florentine pictures; St. John, leaning upon the Saviour's
breast, rests his head upon the table, while Judas is seated
on the opposite side of it.
FROM THE PEN-AND-XNR SKETCH IN THE LOUV RE.
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CHAPTER III.
THE EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF FRANCESCO SFORZA—I.EONARDO A3
AN ARCHITECT-AS A PAINTER—PORTRAIT PAINTINGS.
N the letter which Leonardo sent to Lodovico il Moro,
stating his capabilities, he mentions among other
things that he is willing to “undertake the execution
of the bronze horse in lasting memory of his father
Francesco, and of the illustrious house of Sforza.” We have
various reasons for inferring that the model was begun
without loss of time. According to Bandello, the artist
worked alternately at the Last Supper and this equestrian
statue ; but, as regards the latter, it is certain that he
could not have given it his uninterrupted attention. Of
this we have proof in his own manuscripts, where, in
the essay on “Light and Shade,’ the remark occurs: “I
began to write this on the 23rd of April, 1490, when I also
re-commenced working at the equestrian statue.” And in
a letter to the Duke, of which, unfortunately, we do not.
possess the date, Leonardo complains of the arrears of his
salary, adding: “I say nothing of the horse, because I
know the times.” Besides, as we shall see farther on,
in 1490 and 1495 Leonardo was away from Milan.
32 LEONARDO.
As is well known, it was by sheer injustice that Lodovico
came to succeed his father, usurping, as he did, the rights
of his nephew Gian Galeazzo Sforza. Yet Francesco, the
founder of the dynasty, was himself an usurper; it can thus
be well understood that it was in Lodovico's interest to per-
petuate his father's memory by so pretentious a monument.
The chronicle of the way in which Francesco contrived
to reach the throne of Milan forms an interesting episode
in the history of Northern Italy. When in the year 1447,
the last of the Wisconti, Duke Filippo Maria, died, the
burgesses of Milan declared monarchy to be nothing short
of pessima pestilenza. But Francesco Sforza, the condottiere
and quondam general of the republic in her war with
Venice, and who afterwards himself fought against Milan,
was urged by his successes to add yet further to them,
when, as newly elected duke, he made his triumphal entry
into that city. This seemed, in truth, a fit reward for the
herculean labours of a warrior who had spent his life in
untiring combat with nearly all the powers of Italy. On
entering Milan, so history relates, the victorious condottiere,
seated upon his horse, was thus borne aloft upon the
shoulders of the populace; in such way the conqueror
passed on towards the splendid cathedral, there to offer
up his gratitude to Heaven. Perhaps it was just the glory
of that triumph which Lodovico was mindful of when he
gave Leonardo the commission for the equestrian figure
in bronze. Monuments of that kind are not now to be
met with in Florence, although it was not unusual to erect
statues in honour of the leading heroes of the republic.
In the monuments to the two condottieri, John Hawkwood
(d. 1394) and Niccolo Marracci da Tolentino (d. 1434),
the artists, Paolo Uccelli and Andrea del Castagno, have
FRANCESCO SFORZA. 33
certainly shown them on horseback, but these are simply
mural paintings on the entrance wall of the Florentine
cathedral. In Venice, however, where a horse is never
seen, the erection of equestrian figures in the fifteenth
century became all the more common; and with the
growing demand for them the aid of Florentine artists
was needed. Thus in Padua, Donatello in 1443 completed
his mounted figure of Gattamelata, the commander of the
forces of the Venetian republic. It was the first large
casting that had been made in Italy since classic times.
The year 1495 saw another such monument in the
statue to General Colleoni—the last work of Leonardo's
master, Verrocchio. In the celebrated Windsor collection
of Da Vinci's sketches, there are three of the statues in
question, drawings probably made to aid the master in his
own work. Among these we find numerous designs for the
monument which he himself executed; they are well-nigh
all that can compensate us for the loss of the original.
Leonardo's scheme had, perhaps, this radical defect: it
was far too pretentious ever to be thoroughly realised. The
Venetian republic would have easily enabled him to carry
out such a design; the Duke of Milan, on the other hand,
grew hourly more and more hampered by the lack of money.
Thus this equestrian statue played just such a part in the
story of Leonardo's career, as did the tomb of Pope Julius
in that of Michelangelo.
Leonardo's drawings at Windsor embrace not only all
the stages of his work; they also give us an insight into
those projects which never reached completion; namely,
the casting of the figure and its pedestal. Some are
studies of the horse only; others of both horse and rider;
in some the horse is represented stepping; in others it is
D
34 LEONARDO.
rearing and trampling a fallen warrior beneath its hoofs.
But of all the sketches in the Windsor collection, that
drawn in silverpoint on blue tinted paper is the only one in
which the head of the rider bears a close resemblance to
the Duke of Milan's portrait. This should not surprise
us when we consider that, in his preliminary designs for
a composition, an artist is never at pains to make a faithful
likeness. Among these drawings there are some which
seemingly serve no purpose in the completion of the
statue, as, for instance, the one of a prancing steed over-
turning a vase with its fore-foot. Here we have probably
only the motive for an ornamental statuette of some sort.
After an accurate comparison of all the designs, it becomes
indeed difficult to affirm which of them correspond to the
work which was actually carried out. The sketches in
which the quality of action is more insisted upon, are
probably the earlier ones; and these were followed by
studies of the recumbent warrior beneath the feet of the
galloping horse. It is a act of great importance that in
nearly all these drawings the right arm of the rider
holding the staff, is vigorously stretched backwards, not
held above the horse's head, as in a drawing in the Munich
Gallery, which M. Courajod supposes to be a copy of
the lost original. This drawing was probably done by the
Florentine artist Pollajuolo, and, to judge by the style of
its composition, it is with difficulty that we can ascribe
it to Leonardo. Great differences are also to be noticed
in his designs for the pedestal. One of them shows an
architectural treatment of an ornamental shrine containing
a sarcophagus of the Duke. Those again in which the
statue is made to surmount a triumphal arch, like that of
Constantine in Rome, have a very imposing effect.
THE SFORZA MONUMENT. 35
Several sketches by Leonardo in the Windsor collection
show us the artist's design with regard to the casting of
the statue. In most of them the horse is drawn without
any rider; only in one is it bestridden by the figure of a
Warrior, which here again stretches the left arm back-
Wards holding a baton. It is worthy of remark, that in
O all these sketches, the horse is walk-
\ 2ſ Z. & ing quietly, like the equestrian statues
ſº tº N of Donatello and Werrocchio. This
ſ' ) \, last drawing contains detailed ex-
Atºll planations as to the method of cast-
\ | ing; and to our surprise we discover
º ſ, it to have been the master's intention
to cast the model in separate parts which were afterwards
to be joined together. The explanations given are of so
elaborate a kind as to lead us to believe that the ac-
companying sketch was the one finally decided upon.
If our supposition be a correct one, it certainly answers
once and for all the vexed question as to the real designs
for the statue of Francesco Sforza.” Yet this need not
compel us to differ with Giovio, the historian, who, de-
scribing the statue as he himself may have seen it, writes:
“He also modelled a colossal horse for Lodovico Sforza,
which was to be executed in bronze, with his father Fran-
cesco, the celebrated general, seated upon it. From the
wonderful animation and energy with which this is
depicted, we can see how thorough a knowledge the
artist had of both nature and the plastic art.” The
expressions are nearly identical with those used by Vasari
when describing the Gattamelata statue and Werrocchio's
Ž
* See Appendix, Note 2.
D 2
36 LEONARDO.
statue in Venice, where the horse is also shown in the
attitude of walking.
Leonardo had declared that, in order to cast the statue,
one hundred thousand pounds of bronze were required.
To provide this was no easy matter. The anonymous
biographer mentions another check to its completion. He
tells us: “In Milan he erected a colossal horse, with the
Duke Francesco Sforza as rider; in truth, a splendid work.
It was to have been cast in bronze, which was commonly
believed to have been impossible, especially as it was
Leonardo's intention to east it in one piece. The work re-
mained unfinished,” We can confute this latter statement
by Leonardo's own manuscripts, which are now at Windsor.
In Italy at that time the method of casting in bronze for
large works of that kind had been re-adopted by Donatello
and Werrocchio with much success. Nor can Leonardo's
undertaking be termed an utterly unparalleled one. In
Barletta there is still a Byzantine statue in bronze of an
emperor, which is close upon fifteen feet high. Luca
Paciola, in his “Trattato de Divina proportione” (Venice,
1509), states the height of Da Vinci's equestrian statue
to have been twelve braccie, which is about twenty-
six feet.* We have no reason to dispute this; but in the
face of the fact it is utterly impossible for us to imagine
that the horse can have been represented galloping as
has been hitherto supposed. We can thoroughly under-
stand how full of enthusiasm Leonardo must have
been as long as he really believed that his work would
reach completion. In one of his letters we read the
following energetic sentence : “Let yuor eyes be opened;
* The bronze statue of Prince Albert in the Memorial in Kensington
Gardens is only half as high.
THE SFORZA MONUMENT. 37
and believe me when I tell you that Leonardo of Florence,
who is at work upon the bronze horse of the Duke of
Francesco, needs no commissions from you; for Iknow full
well how to employ the days of my life.” “ In the year
1493, on the occasion of the marriage of Bianca Maria
Sforza with the Emperor Maximilian, the model of the
equestrian statue was publicly erected on the Piazza del
Castello, now the Piazza d'Armi, under an improvised
triumphal arch, where it became the wonder of all Milan.
Lazzaronif and Taccone, the poets who have described the
nuptial festivities, give us brief but decided information
on this point. One bard, by name Lancinio, exclaims:–
“Expectant animi, molemgue futurum
Suspiciant; fluat aes; Vox erit; ecce Deus.”
We cannot by any means assume with Vasari that the
model was only completed in clay, for after it had stood
for years in this place, arrangements were entered into for
its removal to Ferrara.
Vasari tells us that “this model remained as he had
left it until the French with their King Louis came to
Milan, when they totally destroyed it.” Sabba da Cas-
tiglione, who in his youth may have seen the statue, thus
confirms the tale of its destruction. “The model of the
horse, at which Leonardo had worked for sixteen years,
thanks to the ignorance and negligence of those who could
neither understand nor value genius, was abandoned to
destruction. Thus did this wonderful work become a
target for the Gascon archers.” Yet we shall scarcely
find the whole truth in these reports, for, two years after
Milan had been sacked by the French, the Duke Ercole I.
.* “Codice Atlantico,” fol. 3.16. f See Appendix, Note 3.
38 LEONARDO.
d'Este of Ferrara, in a letter recently discovered by
Campori, believes the monument to be still in existence.
This prince, being anxious to adorn his capital, had given
a commission for an equestrian statue to some obscure
artist, who died before he was able to complete his work.
On the 19th of September, 1501, Ercole writes to his
agent in Milan as follows:—
“Seeing that there exists at Milan a model of a horse,
executed by a certain Messer Leonardo, a master very
skilful in such matters, one which the Duke Lodovico
always intended to have cast, we think that if the use
were granted us of this model, it would be a good and
desirable thing to make a casting from it. Therefore,
we wish you to go immediately to the most illustrious
and reverend the Lord Cardinal of Rouen and acquaint
him with our desire, begging his reverend lordship, if he
do not need the said model himself, to be so good as to
make it over to us. We would not deprive him of any-
thing that he holds valuable, yet we are persuaded that
he cares but little for this work. You may add, likewise,
that this will be very agreeable to us for the reasons
aforesaid; and that we would gladly be at pains to
remove it, bearing in mind that the said model at Milan
is, as you have told us, falling daily into decay, there
being no care taken of it. If the very reverend lord
will gratify us, as we hope, in this matter, we will send
persons to bring the said model hither with all care and
due precaution, so that it come by no hurt. Do not fail
to employ all your good offices that our petition may be
granted by his very reverend lordship, to whom prefer
our offers of service and our humble duty.”
The Cardinal of Rouen mentioned in this letter was
THE SFORZA MONUMENT. 39
at that time the French governor of Milan. Giovanni
Walla's reply is dated the 24th of September, in which
he says: “With reference to the model of the horse
erected by Duke Lodovico, as far as he is concerned, his
reverend lordship perfectly agrees to its removal; yet
as his Majesty the King had himself seen the statue,
his lordship dare not grant the Duke's request without
previously informing the King.” This is the last news
which we get about the work.
It is not likely that Louis the Twelfth, who died in
1515, troubled himself any further about the monument;
and when his successor Francis, who was Leonardo's
patron in the early years of his reign, entered Milan, it
had been almost wholly destroyed. It is now utterly
lost. In the year 1559, Maria de' Medici wrote to Michel-
angelo: “I have decided to have a statue made in
bronze of my lord” on horseback, a work which in size
must befit the courtyard of a palace.” Michelangelo was
to have been entrusted with the execution of this, but he
did nothing more than a single sketch for it. At that
time, the easiest plan would have been to make use of
Leonardo's model, if Louis the Twelfth had really brought
it with him over to France.
Paolo Giovio, in his ‘Lives of Celebrated Men,” gives an
accurate description of Francesco Sforza's personal appear-
ance, and, if judged by this standard, the so-called copies
of the original statue fall very far short of the mark.
They certainly cannot be said to possess any of those
characteristics of which the historian in his subtle and
penetrating manner has told us, characteristics which
* Henry II. of France (d. 1559).
40 I.EONARDO.
have leading claims to be deemed authentic. “The
Duke,” so Giovio writes, “was tall in stature and thin
withal, the calves of his legs being more muscular than
shapely. His chest and shoulders were broad, and he
had a military bearing. As the result of abstemiousness,
his waist was so unusually small that he could span it
with both hands. His features were plebeian in type,
and his countenance forbidding in aspect, with a sallow,
discoloured complexion. His bluish-grey eyes, set deep
in the head under bushy brows, were gloomy in expres-
sion; he had a prominent nose, not aquiline in shape,
and thinly-formed lips. The Duke was always clean
shaven, with closely cut hair; and he generally wore a
cap of conical shape.” Here we have a description of
the Duke Francesco's appearance, which we may well
suppose to have been written when Leonardo's statue
was yet fresh in the author's recollection.
It is probable that as long as Da Vinci remained at
Milan in the Duke's service, his talents and his activity
were more directed to engineering than to art. A very
great portion of the manuscripts which he has left behind
him treat of the solution of geometrical and technological
problems, and relate especially to matters connected with
hydraulics. It was he who undertook the regulation of
the beds of the rivers in Lombardy, earning thereby the
lasting gratitude of the country. Our knowledge of his
work as an architect can only be gathered en passant.
We know that in conjunction with Francesco di Giorgio
of Siena (1439–1502), who is better known as a painter,
Leonardo was consulted by Gian Galeazzo as to the con-
* Pauli Jovii “Vitae illustrium Virorum,” Basileae, 1578, ch, 87.
HIS FAME AS PAINTER AND ARCHITECT. 41
struction of the cathedral of Pavia. A record of this
journey we possess, perhaps in one of his drawings at
Milan,” representing the cloister of Santa Maria in Pavia.
In one of the documents at Milan four artists are men-
tioned as being “Ingeniarii ducales.”
Bramantus ingeniarius et pictor,
Jo. Jac. Dulcebonus, ingeniarius et sculptor,
Jo. Jac. Batagius de laude, ingeniarius et murator,
Leonardus de Florentia, ingeniarius et pinctor.
That Bramante is here mentioned shews us that the
title engineer is also meant to include that of architect.
In 1487 Leonardo was commissioned by the authorities
to prepare a model for the cupola of Milan Cathedral.
Within the space of six months a salary of ninety-three
lire and fourteen soldi had been paid to him. Three years
later Leonardo asked to have his model back again, as no
use had been made of it. Nevertheless, in 1510, his name
appears as a member of the committee appointed to super-
intend the erection of the cathedral.f
Court life at Milan was one rapid succession of gaieties.
On each and every occasion Da Vinci was called upon to
act as manager-in-chief; and perhaps it was his efficiency
in this and like capacities which won him most favour in
the eyes of the Duke. It is certainly noteworthy that,
although he was far more often engaged as a contriver than
as a painter, it is Leonardo the artist, rather than Leonardo
the skilful engineer, whom his contemporaries have chosen
as the object of their admiration.
* “Codex Atlanticus.’ See Amoretti, “Memorie Storiche, p. 159.
f C. Calvi, Notizie dei principali professori di belle arti che
fiorirono Milano durante il governo de’ Visconti degli Sforza.
Milano, 1869. Parte iii. Docum, iii-ix, and xxviii, and pages 18–20,
22–24, 56-57,
42 LEONARDO.
Bellinzoni the poet, in his verses commemorating the
glories of Gian Galeazzo's wedding festivities, speaks
thus of the ducal court:—
“Qui come l’ape al mel vienne ogni dotto,
Di virtuosi ha la Sua corte piena,
Da Fiorenza un Apelle ha qui condotto.””
And in another passage:
“Del Vinci e suoi penelli e suoi colore
I moderni e gli antichi hanno paura.” f
Gian Battista Strozzi, the Florentine, writes of the
painter in a similar strain, where, punning upon his sur-
name, he says:
“Vince costui pur solo
Tutti altri, e vince Fidia e vince Apelle,
E tutto il lor vittoriosa stuolo.” It
Ariosto, who mentions Leonardo in the following lines,
together with Mantegna and Gian Bellino, terms him the
greatest artist among his contemporaries.
“E que i che furo a nostri di et son horo
Leonardo, Andrea Mantegna e Gian Bellino.”
This, the opinion of poets, may be looked upon as the
universally accepted one respecting Leonardo.
There are yet some smaller paintings of his produced
* “As comes to honey-laden flowers the bee,
So hither come the learned; and his court
Is filled with cunning artists; also he
Has from fair Florence an Apelles brought.”
f “Da Vinci, colours and his brush in hand,
In awe makes men of old and moderns stand.”
f “He alone
Wanquished [vince] all others, Pheidias he surpassed,
Surpassed Apelles and the conquering troop
Of their proud followers.”
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FEMALE HEAD.
IN THE GALLERY or THE UFFIzi, Florence.
A DRawing.
Gºº
º º
PORTRAIT-PAINTINGS. 43
in Milan which call for mention. As Vasari tells us
Leonardo embellished the other wall of the convent
refectory, where “opposite to that of the Last Supper he
painted the portraits of the Duke Lodovico with that
of his first-born son, Maximilian, and of the Duchess
Beatrice with Francesco, their second son.” No trace,
however, remains of the frescoes, which were done in oil,
and which Vasari himself saw. It is highly probable
that these portraits constitute the unfinished work to
which the Duke alludes in his “Memoriale,’ about the
completion of the Last Supper. From this we should
infer that they were executed between the years 1497
and 1499.
We are also informed that Leonardo painted the portraits
of Lucrezia Crivelli and Cecilia Gallerani, mistresses of the
Duke. At some time during the last century both these
pictures were to be seen in Milan; since then they have
totally disappeared. According to Amoretti, the artist
did not represent the last named simply as she was;
he idealized her as a Madonna, who, with one hand
round the infant Christ, raises the other in the act of
benediction.
The following couplet beneath the picture served as
clue to its meaning :—
“Per Cecilia qual te orna, lauda e adore,
El tuo unico Figliolo, o beata Wergine exora.” "
As regards the portrait of Lucrezia Crivelli, it has
Sk “In
Cecilia thus adorned like thee
O Blessed Virgin thee we praise,
And thy dear Son, and ceaselessly,
Our hearts in adoration raise.”
44 , LEONARDO,
been recently conjectured, without foundation, however,
that it can be recognised in the picture No. 461 now
in the Louvre. To us it seems well nigh inexplicable
that these paintings should have thus been lost, works by
a master who at all times has been held in honour.
Among Leonardo's manuscripts we shall find the fol-
lowing project for an allegorical composition, of which
perhaps nothing more than a sketch was ever made.
“The Duke (il Moro) to represent Fate, his hair, hands
and robes seen in front. Messer Gualtieri advances
towards him, and grasps the hem of his garment in a
respectful manner. Poverty, in the form of a horrible
apparition, follows at the heel of a youth, whom the Duke
shields with his robe, while with a gilt staff he threatens
the phantom.”
Compositions such as this one are by no means un-
common from the master's pencil; the difficulty lies in
solving their meaning, especially when the allegory refers
mainly to the occurrences of a particular epoch. In the
British Museum, at Christ Church College, Oxford, and in
the Louvre collection there are several sketches of this
kind; but we never find such subjects treated on canvas.
Lomazzo, in his ‘Trattato, * mentions a painting by
Leonardo in the church of San Francesco in Milan. It
represents the Annunciation of the Virgin. The same
writer in another passagef refers to Leonardo's ačtivity
as a sculptor, and his statement is well deserving of
belief when we remember that in his youth Lomazzo
was personally acquainted with the master. He says: “I
have in my possession a small head in terra-cotta of an
infant Christ, modelled by Leonardo da Vinci himself, a
* At p. 132. † At p. 127.
SCULPTURE AND DRAWING. 45
figure striking in its infantine simplicity and purity of
expression, yet not without a certain look of dignity and
wisdom, the seeming outcome of matured reflection and
experience. Notwithstanding, this in no way robs the
countenance of its boyish charm; in truth, an excellent
work.”
He further tells us that a sculptor of Arezzo, named
Leo, possessed a bas-relief of a horse done by Leonardo.
Only recently one of the finest pieces of Renaissance
sculpture in the Louvre, the life-size bust of Lodovico's
wife, Beatrice d’Este, has been ascribed to Da Vinci.” The
workmanship is of extraordinary delicacy, but hardly
reaches the master's high standard; it is probably only a
work of the Lombard school, of which we have several
excellent examples in the South Kensington Museum.
In most cases it is a very difficult task accurately to
determine the precise epochs to which Leonardo's drawings
belong. The following list, found among the manuscripts
of the master, should help us in this respect; it certainly
forms an interesting summary of the different studies with
which he was occupied at one period of his activity.
1. Head of a youth, seen full face, with fine hair.
2. Studies of flowers from nature.
3. A head, full face, with curly hair.
4. Some studies of St. Jerome—beneath a figure.
5. A head of the Duke.
6. Sketches of various groups.
7. Four drawings for the panel picture of Sant’Angelo.
8. The history (storietta) of Girolamo da Feghine.
9. A head of Christ, drawn with pen.
10. A figure of St. Sebastian.
* L. Courajod, in the “Gazette des Beaux-Arts,’ 1877, 330–344.
46 LEONARDO,
11. Several studies of angels.
12. A head, in profile, with fine hair.
13. Head, with face uplifted, being the portrait of Atalanta.
14. The head of Geronimo da Feghine.
15. The head of Gianfrancesco Borro.
16. Studies for throats of old women.
17. Several heads of old men.
18. Many entirely nude figures.
19. Studies of attitudes and limbs.
20. A Madonna (finished).
21. One seen nearly in profile.
22. The head of the Madonna who ascends to heaven.
23. Head of an old man, with long mantle.
24. Head of a gipsy woman.
25. Head covered by a hat.
26. Model representing Christ's Passion.
27. Head of a child, with plaited hair.
In the foregoing list a head of Christ (No. 9) is men-
tioned, but this cannot be identical with Leonardo's
drawing of our Lord crowned with thorns, preserved in
the Academy of Venice, as that is done in silverpoint.
The sketches Nos. 4 and 10 can easily be recognised as
those now in the Windsor collection. Genuine drawings
by the master are fortunately not rare. “They are in-
numerable,” says the anonymous biographer; and he does
not much exaggerate. It is very remarkable that in many
cases we find several accurate reproductions of the same
drawing, as for instance the wonderful allegorical com-
position in the British Museum of a dragon and a unicorn
fighting with dogs, while a youth seated near, flashes a
mirror in the rays of the sun. An exact replica of this is
to be found in the Louvre. In the library of the King of
Italy, at Turin, where are several most valuable original
drawings by Leonardo and his school, we are able to
L.
HEAD OF CHRIST.
By Leonardo.
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From a Drawing in the Academy, Venice,
SCULPTURE AND DRAWING. 47
recognise the only authentic portrait of the master done
by himself. This is executed in red chalk, and the more
or less indifferent copies of it, occasionally believed to be
originals, are in the Academy of Venice and elsewhere.
There are countless reproductions of his caricatures of
heads, to which we shall refer later on. We can assume
that in the sixteenth century deliberate forgeries were
already in vogue; even Wasari, who took pleasure in
collecting drawings of the old masters, has certainly at
times been deceived. One of the chapters in Leonardo's
“Trattato della Pittura, gives another reason for the repro-
duction of these sketches. In a passage which is also of
great importance in the criticism of drawings by other
great masters, he says: “The young painter must, in the
first instance, accustom his hand to copying the drawings
of good masters; and when his hand is thus formed and
ready, he should, with the advice of his director, use
himself also to draw from relieves.””
* See ‘Treatise on Painting, by Leonardo da Vinci. Translated by
W. Rigaud, R.A., London, 1877, p. 95.
CHAPTER IV.
LEONARDO’s SCHOLARS IN LOMBARDY : THE “ACADEMIA
LEONARDI VINCII’—MILANESE ENGRAVINGS-THE FALL OF
LODOWICO SFORZA.
CONSIDERABLE number of copies of some of
Leonardo da Vinci's pictures were produced during
his life-time, as for instance the Mona Lisa ; generally
speaking, these cannot be ascribed to his pupils, for as
a rule they belong to a somewhat later epoch. The
greater portion of those pictures of which we possess
authentic record has now either disappeared or been
destroyed. Lomazzo, by the way, in his “Trattato dell’Arte
della Pittura,’ distinctly assures us that only a few of
them survived. On the other hand, instances are all the
more frequent where paintings have been ascribed to the
master, which not only in execution but also the com-
position and design are obviously the work of his scholars.
Perhaps the fact of there being so painful a lack of
genuine works by Leonardo during his long stay in
Milan, may account for the common wish to credit him
with the more or less successful pictures of his pupils.
This is especially the case with the panel pictures of the
LUINI AND BELTRAFFIO. 49
Tombard master, Bernardino Luini, who in matural talent
comes nearest to Da Vinci. Most of these are at present in
England and nearly half of them are set down to Leonardo.
A genuine picture of Luini’s, splendid alike in colour
and design, that of the Youthful Christ surrounded by Four
Scribes (No. 18 in the National Gallery), was for a long
time ascribed to Da Vinci. Although, in Luini’s pic-
tures, we can clearly recognise the influence exercised by
Leonardo, they yet possess a distinct manner, a peculiar
style of their own. Unfortunately we are without in-
formation as to the date of the birth and death of this
master, nor is it certain where he was born, or where he
died. The dates upon six of his pictures are the sole
means by which we can judge when he lived. From
these it is absolutely certain that he outlived Leonardo
by at least fourteen years, and we may certainly conclude
that Luini was one of the great Florentine's more youth-
ful contemporaries. In the absence of actual data, the
question must remain unanswered as to whether Luini
ever visited the studio of Leonardo in Milan, or whether
he was merely influenced by him. It is therefore in
the widest sense only that he can now be termed one of
Leonardo's pupils.
The town of Milan could boast other artists who had
made their mark before Leonardo came upon the scene, as
for instance, Vincenzo Foppa the elder, Zenale, Borgognone
and others, who all kept more or less closely to the early
Lombard style of painting, even after Leonardo's appear-
ance. His advent was the signal for a general revolution;
it was no more than could be expected. The earliest
information as to Da Vinci's pupils is to be found in a
memorandum written by the master himself. In one of
R
50 LEONARDO.
the manuscripts in the South Kensington Museum, we
read: “On the 16th of March, 1493, came Julio the
German to stay with me,” and in another: “On the 24th
of March, 1494, Galeazzo came to stay at my house, on the
understanding that he should pay me the sum of five lire
per month.” Thus, like Raphael at first in Rome, Leonardo
used to have his pupils under the same roof with him.
Luca Paciolo, to whom we shall afterwards have occasion
to refer, tells us himself that he shared a house in common
with Leonardo for three years, from 1495 to 1498.
Wasari names Antonio Boltraffio, or Beltraffio, and Marco
, Uggioni as pupils of Da Vinci. The former, a member of
one of the leading families in Milan, only practised paint-
ing en amateur, and very little is known of him. Besides
the passage in Vasari, the only contemporaneous record
we have hitherto possessed is his tombstone, now in the
Brera at Milan. But among the valuable manuscripts
of Leonardo in the Windsor collection, we find a note of
Leonardo in which he says, that he engaged Beltraffio to
make a picture.f. It is owing to his position, perhaps,
that his works are very rare. To the best of his
pictures belong the Madonna and Child in the National
Gallery (No. 728), and the large altar piece described
by Wasari, entitled La Madonna della Famiglia Casio,
now in the Louvre Gallery (No. 72). To quote the
words of the anonymous biographer, “Leonardo had
several pupils, among whom were Salai of Milan and
Zoroastro of Peretola.” He then gives the names of
Florentine painters who later on attached themselves.
* Adi 18 di marzo 1493, venne Julio tedesco asstare mecho.
f “Ricordo; vedi tonio (= Antonio) del beltraffio effalli trare una.
pittura.”
SALAI — MELZI–LOMAZZO. 5]
to Leonardo. To judge by all existing evidence, Salai
would seem to have been one of his favourite pupils.
Unfortunately not a single authentic work of his has
been preserved, and from this reason paintings have been
unwarrantably ascribed to him, which, although un-
doubtedly of the school, do not correspond to the style
of any of its well-known members. Among Leonardo's
journals, we find a bill of the 4th of April, 1497, for a
suit of clothes and a cap, which the master had ordered
for Salai. And later, on 15th of October, 1507, he seems
to have lent the latter money, on the occasion of his
sister's wedding. Wasari specially brings him into notice:
“Salai was a youth of singular grace and beauty of person,
with waving curly hair, a feature of personal beauty by
which Leonardo was always greatly pleased. This Salai
he instructed in various matters relating to art, and certain
works still in Milan and said to be by Salai were re-
touched by Leonardo himself.”
Francesco Melzi was another of his favourite pupils,
of whom we shall afterwards have to speak. Giovanni
Pietrini, whose works are chiefly to be found at Milan,
is only known to us by name. Paolo Lomazzo, best
known by his treatise upon art, likewise counts himself
among the followers of Leonardo. Two of his works
form the most trustworthy of all available sources of
information, respecting the great artist's life, although
he is only casually alluded to therein. In the year 1584,
his “Trattato dell’Arte della Pittura’ appeared, of
which an English translation was published at Oxford in
1598. Less comprehensive was the other work, ‘Idea
del Tempio della Pittura.’ It is in the former book only
that we find in the brief notice upon artists a mention of
E 2
e
52 LEONARDO,
the influence exercised by Leonardo upon painters of the
Lombard School. In his thirty-seventh chapter, Lomazzo
maintains that Cesare da Sesto and Lorenzo Lotto were
among Da Vinci's imitators, and notably praises these for
their special skill in the management of light. Lorenzo
Lotto was one of the principal artists of the Trevisan school,
which was under the immediate influence of Giorgione.
But his connection with Leonardo can in no way be
vouched for; in the case of Cesare da Sesto, however, the
proof is indisputable.
In the print-room of the British Museum there is an
engraving of a female head seen in profile, whose youthful
locks are crowned with an ivy wreath, and round about
are inscribed the letters ACHA : LE: WI:—an abbre-
viation of Academia Leonardi Vincii. It was thus
executed in the academy of which Leonardo was the
director. The engraving is certainly not the work of the
master himself, but was probably produced under his
supervision. The few letters of this inscription have no
small importance in the history of art, for from them we
learn how the master's energy was employed in the con-
duct of an academy, where the reproductive arts were
also taught. This is the first institution of the kind of
which there is historical record; neither Florence nor
Venice could at that time boast anything similar. As
in the Middle Ages, so too in the Renaissance it was the
rule for all who intended to become artists to choose the
studio of any acknowledged painter where they could
undergo a regular period of tuition. Even in the largest
towns neither artist took precedence of the other; as
members of a compagnia de' pittori they had a general bond
of union. The object of these societies was the pro-
ENGRAVINGs—THE ACADEMY OF MILAN. 53
tection of the common interests of painters; they also
had to pay a general subscription, as in the case of
Leonardo when he first appeared in Florence as an
independent artist. The rights of these associations were
much the same as those of mercantile and trade guilds.
St. Luke was universally their chosen patron saint, in
consequence of the general belief that he was the first
who ever painted pictures of the Madonna. The Fabrica
di San Luca, said to have been in existence at Rome as
early as 1470, is supposed to be the earliest record of an
academy at Rome;” there is some doubt, however, as to
the genuineness of the document which tells us this.f
And when later, in Bologna and in Paris at the close
of the sixteenth century and at about the middle of the
seventeenth, institutions of a like mature and a like
name were formed, under the name of academies, they
were all of them called after the same patron saint.
Both in constitution and organization the academy with
which Leonardo was connected has more points of com-
parison with modern institutions than with any of the
guilds of the Middle Ages.
The significant inscription, with the letters ACH: LE:
VI: is also to be met with in the early Lombard woodcuts,
which represents a knot wrapped up with geometrical
intricacy. As is well known, Albrecht Dürer imitated
this design, omitting the inscription; but it is very
doubtful as to whether he had any direct connection with
Leonardo's academy of art.
* Missirini, “Memorie per servire alla storia della romana Accademia
di S. Luca.” Roma, 1823, p. 4.
f Eug. Müntz, “Les Arts à la cour des Papes.” Paris, 1879, vol. ii.
p. 32. -
54 LEONARDO.
Although it is not unlikely that Leonardo may have
included engraving among his many accomplishments,
we cannot state positively that he did so. Our only
grounds for this belief are founded on an engraving now
in the Print Room of the British Museum, of which no
second copy exists, and which is believed by many
connoisseurs to have been executed by the master himself.
It is the half-length portrait of a female seen in profile,
with hair plaited across the breast. “All tends to assure
us,” says M. d’Adda, “that we have before our eyes a
true production of Leonardo. Even the evident in-
experience in the hand-lines of the burin, the marks of
which escape in places beyond the line of tracery, the
firmness of the contours, the costume, the head-dress, and
above all the forcible expression of the physiognomy
betray the handiwork of the master.” Other engravings,
principally of horsemen, have also been ascribed to
Da Vinci, which from a technical point of view are quite
unworthy to be considered his; they are probably the
work of scholars only, who took the master's drawings as
a pattern.
Leonardo had been in the employ of Lodovico Sforza
since the year 1482, and with the lapse of time his position
grew gradually more and more precarious. It was doubt-
less in those last years that he wrote the letter already
quoted, in which he speaks of the two years' arrears of
pay. From a Latin document bearing the date of the
26th of April, 1499, we learn that the Duke gave him
a vineyard which had formerly belonged to the convent
of San Vittore. In this Leonardo is termed “pictor cele-
berrimus.” At that time Lodovico was involved in the
gravest political difficulties. All things seemed hastening
- ----
HEAD OF A WOMAN.
From an Engraving by Leonanno, in the British Museum.
FALL OF LODOVICO SFORZA. 55
the final catastrophe of the overthrow of his tyranny.
When in the summer of that year the Venetians and
the French attacked the duchy of Milan, one town
after another either through treachery or cowardice
was forced to capitulate. By the 2nd of September, the
Duke had already fled helplessly to the Tyrol, imploring
the protection of the Emperor Maximilian, while his
general in command relinquished the fortress of Milan
with all its splendid supplies to the foe. With jubilant
shouts the citizens hailed their new Duke in the person
of Louis the Twelfth, King of France. While in exile,
Lodovico had speedily rallied around him a band of
Swiss, which was to help him in his task of re-conquest.
His efforts were anticipated, however, for the people
of Lombardy, goaded to revolt by the arrogance and
rapacity of the French, with one accord recalled their
panished prince. As in a dream Lodovico Sforza had lost
his dukedom ; in like manner did he seem to regain it.
On the 5th of February, 1500, he had already re-entered
Milan, and three months later, at Novara, he opposed
the renewed attacks of the French, into whose hands,
through the treachery of the Swiss, he fell a prisoner: he
died ten years later in a gloomy dungeon of the Castle
of Loches in Berri. Giovio passes judgment upon him in
the following sentence: “A man of extraordinary sagacity
but of boundless ambition, born as it were to bring
about Italy's destruction.” On the other hand, Ratti
has fitly termed him the Pericles of Milan. With his
downfall Leonardo's public career at Milan came to an end
for a time. It was just the greatest artists who in that
* Histor. i. 6. “Wir singulari prudentia, sed profunda ambitione,
ad exitium Italiae natus.”
56 LEONARDO.
epoch could only maintain their position by the patronage
of the leaders of the state. The foregoing events were
doubtless in Da Vinci's mind as in the year 1500 he
wrote thus: “The Duke has lost property, fortune
and freedom; not one of his undertakings has he been
able to complete.”
Equally perhaps with Lodovico's misfortune, did
Leonardo regret the destruction of his equestrian statue,
that masterpiece which had cost him such infinite labour,
doomed as it was to be abandoned to the tender mercies
of a brutal soldiery. His only remaining alternative was
to seek his fortune elsewhere.
7. * Q. }º Ø §
sº£; C
CHAPTER W.
LEONARDO AT VENICE—HIS PORTRAIT OF ISABELLA GONZAGA
—RESIDENCE IN FLORENCE—IN THE SERVICE OF CESARE
BORGIA.
HE year 1500, observed by the Church as a year of
jubilee, brought with it great political distress.
Caesar Borgia, the infamous son of a more infamous parent,
that worst of popes, Alexander the Sixth, invaded northern
Italy, allying himself with the troops which Louis the
Twelfth had brought from western Europe. Milan could
no longer form a home for the nurture of the fine arts. Not
the master only, but also most of his pupils were forced
for a time to quit the city. Report says that Leonardo
instantly betook himself to Florence; this is, however,
without foundation. In the archives of Gonzaga in
Mantua, among a collection of documents of the am-
bassadors then resident in Venice, we find a letter in
which Leonardo is mentioned as being in that city.”
It is addressed “A la illustrissima Madamma Elisabetta
Marchesana de Mantova,” and is as follows:
“Most illustrious Lady,
“Leonardo da Vinci, who is in Venice, has shewed
to me a portrait of your Highness, which is in every way
* See A. Baschet, ‘Aldo Manuzio, Lettres et Documents, Venice, 1867.
58 LEONARDO,
a most truthful likeness. Indeed it is so well executed
that nothing could be better. This is all that I write by
this post, and with the repeated assurance of my respect,
“I beg to subscribe myself,
“Your Highness's faithful servant,”
“LORENZO DA PAVIA.
“Venice, 13th March, 1500.”
According to this letter, Leonardo, after the downfall
of the Sforza dynasty at Milan, had gone to Venice, and
while there, he probably visited the Mantuan ambassador.
Isabella Gonzaga was one of the most illustrious women
of the Renaissance. She was in every way a strenuous
upholder of the fine arts. In her cabinet, side by side
with the treasures of antiquity, were to be seen works by
the foremost artists of the age. In the annals of art and
literature she has gained herself enduring fame, by the
special encouragement and sympathy which she gave to
such men as Ariosto, Mantegna, Correggio and Titian.
From the manner in which Lorenzo da Pavia speaks of
Leonardo, we may conclude that his name was not un-
known to the Duchess, but it seems that he had not been
commissioned to paint the portrait in question. It may
have been executed in Milan from a drawing or a minia-
ture, or with some other picture as a guide. Francesco
Gonzaga, the husband of the Duchess Isabella, was one
of Lodovico Sforza's allies before the French invasion
of 1499, and, perhaps, through his connection with the
court, Leonardo may have received a commission for the
Duchess's portrait. The question as to its ultimate fate
is of yet greater significance; no public or private collec-
tion of the present day boasts its possession, nor even a
copy of it. What, then, has become of the picture? We
THE PORTRAIT OF ISABELLA GONZAGA. 59
do not find it mentioned in the lists of the art treasures
of the castle of Mantua, but Père Dan, in the ‘Trésor des
merveilles de Fontainebleau, published in 1642, tells us
that a portrait of Isabella Gonzaga, painted by Leonardo,
was in the collection of Francis the First, King of France.
With the other pictures of this collection, it afterwards
found a place in the Louvre Gallery, where it is still
preserved (No. 461), being catalogued as an anonymous
portrait by Leonardo. Previously it had often been
engraved with the title of La Belle Ferronnière, as it was
then supposed to be a likeness of the mistress of Francis the
First; others again have believed it to be that of Lucrezia
Crivelli. Yet neitheropinion can be considered satisfactory.
One might therefore be disposed to adopt the earliest
theory respecting this picture, viz. that of Père Dan, did
not other reasons compel us to reject such as inadmissible.
In the year 1534, Titian was engaged upon a portrait of
Isabella Gonzaga, for which she had herself given him
the commission. With pardonable vanity, the Duchess, at
that time no longer youthful, was unwilling that the
great Venetian should immortalize her as an elderly
woman, and she accordingly furnished the artist with a
portrait taken in her youth, from which he completed
the picture which now hangs in the Belvedere Gallery,
at Vienna. A comparison between this, the authentic
portrait, and the supposititious one in the Louvre, will
speedily show us how impossible it is that they can be of
one and the same person. The latter, by the way, was
not done by Leonardo himself; it is the skilful work
of a pupil, copied perhaps from a lost original of the
master's.
We have a further proof that Leonardo went to Venice
60 LEONARDO.
on leaving Milan before he returned to Florence in one of
his memoranda on page 229 of his manuscripts in the
British Museum. As up till now this has never been
published, it may not be thought superfluous to give it
exactly as it stands: “Memo: that on this day (April 8th,
1503) I have given Salai two gold ducats, as he tells me .
that he wishes to have a pair of shoes made for himself
with rose-coloured edgings, so that he has yet to give me
nine of the twenty ducats which he owes me, eighteen of
which I lent him in Milan and two in Venice.” +
From the date given as well as from the context we
can see that this was written in Florence. It therefore
becomes evident that Leonardo when in Venice must have
stayed there with at least one of his pupils. Elsewhere on
the same manuscript we come across another memorandum.
which seems to refer to the master's connection with one
of the patricians of Venice. On page 250 there is a pencil
sketch of a horseman, or more probably the design for an
equestrian statue with the words:
“Mess. Antonio Gri
Veneziano Chompagno
D’Antonio Maria.”
Messer Antonio Grimani—for we must thus supply the
missing syllables—is none other than the famous Doge
who, as commander of the Venetian fleet, was defeated in
1499 at Lepanto, when he was deprived of his honours
and forthwith imprisoned. He afterwards lived in exile
with his son the cardinal Domenico Grimani at Rome,
until, upon the death of his rival Loredan—whose portrait
by Gian Bellino is now in the National Gallery—he became
reinstated in his former office. It may not be so easy for
* See Appendix, Note 4. *
OCCUPATIONS IN VENICE. 61
us to determine who the Antonio Maria was, described in
the manuscript as the Doge's companion. Perhaps it was
none other than the Patriarch of Aquileja of that day.
Besides this drawing, the sheet contains a pen-and-ink
sketch of a peacock under a dome-shaped roof, with the
following explanation. “The helmet to be surmounted
by a half-ball as type of our own hemisphere. On this
is a peacock with rich plumage spread over the equestrian
group. All the horse's ornament to consist of peacock
feathers on a gold ground, a symbol of that Beauty which
is derived from Grace.
“In the shield, a large mirror, which signifies that
whosoever would have proofs of favour should make his
virtue as a mirror. *
“On the opposite side Valour has her place, holding a
column and dressed in white, which has an allegorical
signification. All are to be crowned (here a sketch of a
crown), and Wisdom with three eyes (here a face is drawn
with three eyes). The saddle-cloth to be of the purest cloth
of gold, thickly sewn throughout with peacocks' eyes.
“On the left side there is to be a wheel which forms
a circle behind the horse's haunches, and in this circle
Wisdom appears clothed in red, and seated in a fiery
chariot drawn by four horses, holding in her hand a
laurel-branch, as emblem of Hope.” "
The allegorical composition to which these fragmentary
notes refer was probably destined as a decoration upon
some festive occasion; Leonardo's written description of
it is hardly a satisfactory one, but it should not influence
us in forming our opinion as to the artistic merits of his
conception. Michelangelo also, when writing about his
* See Appendix, Note 5.
62 LEONARDO,
allegorical statues in the chapel of the Medici, was wont
to use language the reverse of intelligible. Still we
have to confess that the allegorical sketches of Leonardo,
most of which are now in England, are, and must remain,
unguessed riddles, problems which any explanations such
as the foregoing one do not encourage us to solve.
On the other side of the sheet on which are the drawings
just mentioned, there is this brief remark: “Altogether
something has been accomplished.” Among the drawings
of the master in the Royal Library at Windsor there are
two sketches of Werrocchio's equestrian statue of Colleoni
in Venice, probably done by Leonardo during his residence
there, or drawn perhaps later from memory. And finally,
the following note on p. 274 of the London Codex in
the British Museum, may relate to the Venice period:
“Stefano Cigi (for Chigi), famiglia del conte Grimani a
santo Apostolo.”
Leonardo's stay in Venice can only have been a short
one. About a year after his visit to that town he must
have been staying in Florence; and it was then that the
Marchesa Isabella Gonzaga made an effort to secure the
artist's services. We can conclude from his evasive
answer to this appeal, that besides being at the time
thoroughly indifferent to his position as a painter, he was
not wholly his own master, nor free to act independently.
We gain some information respecting this from the fol-
lowing letter addressed to the marchioness: *
“I have this week heard, through his pupil Salai and
other of his friends, of Leonardo the artist's decision, which
* Document in the Archives of San Fedele at Milan. See C. L.
Calvi, “Notizie dei professori di belle arti chefiorirono in Milano durante
il governo de’ Visconti e degli Sforza,' Milano, 1869, vol. iii. p. 97.
NAVOLARIA’s LETTER TO ISABELLA GONZAGA. 63
led me to visit him on the Wednesday of Passion Week
in order to assure myself that it was true. In brief,
his mathematical experiments have made painting so
distasteful to him that he cannot even bear to take up a
brush. However, I tried all I could, using first every artin
order to get him to accede to your highness's wishes; and
when I saw that he seemed well-disposed to place himself
under obligation to your Eminence, I frankly told him
everything, and we came to the following understanding,
viz.: that, if he should be able to release himself from
his engagement with the King of France without thereby
forfeiting that monarch's goodwill (which he hoped might
be managed in, at the most, a month's time), he would
serve your Eminence in preference to any one else in the
world. In any case, however, he will at once paint the
portrait and forward it to your Eminence, as the small.
picture which he had to execute for one Robertet, a
favourite of the King of France, is now finished. I left
two with him, in order to expedite matters.” The little
picture represents a Madonna seated, and at work with
a spindle, while the Infant Christ, with one foot upon the
basket of flax, holds it by the handle, and looks with
wonder at four rays of light, which fall in the form of
a cross, as if wishing for them. Smilingly, he grasps the
spindle, which he seeks to withhold from his mother.
Thus much I was able to fix with him. I preached my
sermon yesterday. God grant that it may bring forth
rich fruit, for the hearers were numerous. I commend
myself to your Eminence.
“FRATER PETRUs DE N Avoi,ARIA,
“Vice-General of the Carmelite Monks.
, “Florence, April 4th, 1501.”
* Probably a reference to presents of some sort.
64 LEONARDO.
The Robertet mentioned in this letter was no other
than Louis the Twelfth's all-powerful Secretary of State;
who, according to the memoirs of the French marshal
Robert de la Mark, was a man of exceedingly refined
taste. Unfortunately, this picture which Leonardo painted
has not been preserved; nor does even a copy of it exist.
In the year 1502 we find Leonardo in the service of
Caesar Borgia, then in the zenith of his power. He had
left Rome in the June of that year in order to complete
the conquests already begun of the districts south of
the Po. Most of the states of Central Italy had already
been forced to submit to his yoke. Ere long he had
gained possession of Urbino through an act of infamous
treachery; and Camerino had fallen into his hands in a
like way. The lesser states of their own accord acknow-
ledged his supremacy, and forthwith became obedient
to his rule. Henceforth he was wont to style himself:
“Caesar Borgia of France, by the grace of God Duke
of the Romagna and of Valence and Urbino, Prince of
Andria, Lord of Piombino, Gonfaloniere, and captain-
general of the holy Roman church.” Lauded to the skies
by sycophants, who hailed him as a successor to the
Caesars, the deeds of violence by which he sought to
establish his kingdom knew no parallel. Nor can it be
denied that the severity of his régime was in many
respects beneficial, inasmuch as it secured for the Romagna
an immunity from the rapacity of those who had long fed
upon its strength. In 1502 he issued the following decree
dated from Pavia :
“To all those of our locotementi, castellani, capitani, con-
.dottieri, officiali and subditi, whom it may concern, we here-
with charge and command them, that they everywhere and
IN THE SERVICE OF CAESAR BORGIA. 65
in every place give free entrance to our highly-esteemed
court architect Leonardo da Vinci, the bearer of this, who
has been commissioned by us to inspect the fortresses and
strongholds of our states, and to make such alterations and
improvements as he may think needful. Both he and his
followers are to be received with hospitality, and every
facility afforded him for personal inspection, for measure-
ment and valuation, just as he may wish. For that
purpose a band of men is to be placed at his disposal,
which is to give him all the help that he may require.
With reference to the state works already in course of
completion, we desire that every engineer be prepared to
further any undertaking which he may find necessary.”
No written authority could well be more absolute than
was the foregoing. Leonardo da Vinci was now in the
service of his former master's enemy; and although pro-
bably indebted to princely recommendations in gaining
this important position, he owed it before all things to
his incomparable abilities, which had been already tested,
already admired. --
When in the year 1499 King Louis the Twelfth entered
Milan in triumph, Caesar Borgia rode at his side. Paolo
Giovio has told us with what wonder the French king
gazed upon the large painting in the convent refectory;
nor was the statue of Franceso Sforza without interest
for him, albeit the monument of one whose dynasty he, as
successor of the Wisconti, had set out to destroy. It was
then, if not before, that Caesar Borgia's attention must
have been turned to the great Florentine. Supposing
Leonardo to have joined the tyrant in order to make him
the offer of his services, it can scarcely have been a difficult
task to convince him how valuable such services were.
F
66 LEONARDO.
As an engineer of nearly twenty years' standing, his
efficiency in this respect might be attested by facts—
facts which could endorse that confident statement of his
powers, which at an earlier date he had sent to the Duke
Lodovico. Caesar Borgia's rule was certainly of very short
duration. Already in the autumn of the year 1502 his
condottieri had fallen from their allegiance. His conference
with these at Sinigaglia at the close of the year resulted in
the treacherous massacre of the greater part of them. In
the January of 1503 he visited Umbria, where he found
the barons in open revolt against his authority. He
reached Rome in April, where later on, together with
his father the Pope, he fell ill. With the death of the
latter on August 18th his son's dominion naturally came to
an end. Taking these facts into consideration, Leonardo's
period of service cannot have exceeded, at the most, a year
in length. Among his manuscripts we shall find many
notes and memoranda which refer to his travels in
central Italy while in the employ of Caesar Borgia.
From the dates which these bear, we conclude that, if he
was in the Duke's suite at all, it can only have been
for a short time. It is remarkable that while at these
different places Leonardo seems to have been occupied
with entirely other things than those instructions which
he had come to carry out. Several of the condottieri
were then in opposition to the Duke; these may have
thrown difficulties in his path. According to Leonardo's
own statement, he arrived at Urbino on the 30th of
July, forty days after that splendid castle with its price-
less treasures had fallen into the hands of Caesar Borgia.
Here he draws in his note-book a dove-cote and a stair-
case, with various approaches. On the 1st of August
TRAVELS IN CENTRAL ITALY. 67
he is in Pesaro, on the shores of the Adriatic, where
he makes drawings of different sorts of machines. From
there he goes along the coast northward to Rimini, which
place he reaches on the 8th, and makes notes with
reference to the supply of water for the town-well.
By the 11th of August he gets to Cesena, where he
sketches a house and gives a description of a carriage,
as well as of the special mode of cultivating grapes,
which was peculiar to that neighbourhood. On the 6th
of September he makes a drawing of the harbour of
Cesenatico, near Ravenna. Then, going south, he passes
through Buonconvento to Casanuova, and thence to Chiusi,
Perugia and Foligno. While at Piombino, opposite to
the island of Elba, he seeks to define the laws which govern
the wave-beats of the sea on the shore, making special
notes respecting this. While at Siena, he is interested in
a bell of extraordinary construction. Orvieto is the most
southerly point which he mentions in his notes relating
to these tours. Of far greater importance than these sparse
memoranda, are the six geographical maps of different
districts in the Royal Library at Windsor, drawn up by
the master himself. The largest and most important of
these is bounded on the north by the Val d'Ema near
Florence, on the south by the lake of Bolsena, while
Perugia and Cortona form its limit in the east, and in
the west the districts from Siena adjoining the sea. The
configurations of the earth are here given with the greatest
accuracy, and the views of towns like Arrezzo, Siena and
Wolterra are rendered with such exact minuteness of detail,
that they can be instantly recognised, even without the
written text at the side, which is undoubtedly in the
hand-writing of Leonardo. Another map on a far smaller
F 2
68 LEONARDO,
scale shows in the east the Apennines, and in the west it
gives the coast as far as Corneto. All the many intrica-
cies of the river-system are carefully given in detail.
There are also two other maps, one large and the other
small, which represent the lower course of the Arno, show-
ing its mouth. It is, however, uncertain whether both
these were completed while Leonardo was in the service
of Caesar Borgia. The smaller one has obviously been
designed merely for the regulation of the river-course;
the larger one, again, of the district between Lucca and
Wolterra was without doubt drawn up for the purposes
of strategy. Similar in character to these is the map of
the Pontine Marshes and the Wolscian mountains. Here
we find the Via Appia indicated, from Cisterna to Terra-
cina and the sea, and the towns Sermoneta, Piperno
and the Cape of Circe. Besides these, we find at Windsor
a map of the town and the neighbourhood of Imola, with
distinct indications of the fortifications.
These charts have a special value as works of art, owing
to their exquisite finish of draughtsmanship and the clear
and comprehensive way in which they have been designed.
If we compare them with other and better-known maps of
Leonardo's, as for instance the one of the Mediterranean *
and the chart of the Worldt in the Royal Library at
Windsor, the latter seem to be mere hurried and care-
lessly executed sketches. The six maps in question are
the fruit of accurate labour and patient industry, as well
as of a thorough scientific knowledge, in that day as
unparalleled as were the marvellous gifts possessed by the
great draughtsman, who in this, as in every other branch
* In the Milan “Codex Atlanticus.”
f This, however, can scarcely be called a genuine work of Leonardo's.
THE WINDSOR CHARTS. 69
of exact science, was far in advance of his contemporaries.
Hitherto students of Leonardo and his works have paid
scarcely any attention to these charts, which form part of
the treasures of the Royal Library at Windsor. However, as
we have said before, their genuineness is beyond question.
The map of the Pontine Marshes has an additional bio-
graphical interest for us. Leonardo da Vinci when in the
Duke's service was at one time south of Rome, and can
we believe it likely that, when wandering from Bracciano
to the Appii Forum, he neglected to visit the city of
the Emperors ?
The date of his return to Florence has hitherto remained
uncertain; yet from a remark of the master's in the
Codex of the British Museum we may conclude that it did
not take place until the March of 1503, at the latest. The
note on p. 229 is as follows: “Mem: that I, Leonardo
da Vinci, on the 8th of April, 1503, lent to the miniature-
painter Nanni four gold ducats. Salai was the bearer and
delivered them to him ; and he says that they shall
be repaid within forty days.” Among the miniature-
painters who at that time were employed in the illu-
mination and ornamentation of the choir-books of the
Florentine cathedral, was a certain Giovanni di Giuliano
Boccardi, who it may be supposed, was the Nanni—short
for Giovanni–mentioned by Leonardo. We have the proof
of documents that an artist of that name was engaged
in the year 1511 to illuminate an Evangelistarium and an
Epistolarium.f
Without doubt Leonardo da Vinci came to Florence
intending to stay there some time. His colleague Luca
Paciolo states that until the year 1499 he was in the
* See Appendix, Note 6. f Vasari, ed. Le Monnier, vol. ii. p. 200.
70 * LEONARDO,
service (ali stipendi) of the Duke of Milan, and that
“after divers matters had taken place in those parts,” the
two friends went to Florence together, where they lodged
in the same house. In spite of twenty years' residence in
Milan, Leonardo was by no means absolutely estranged
from the city of his birth. It is probable that during that
period he may have gone to Florence more than once, if
only for a short time. We have, for instance, decided
information that in 1495 he was there for some weeks,
perhaps for some months.
The November of 1494 saw the proscription of the
Medici by public voice, while Savonarola the Dominican,
like some second Cola di Rienzi, headed the Florentine
republic during the period of four weeks. It was at his
wish, so Wasari tells us,” that in the year following the
Sala del Consiglio in the Palazzo della Signoria should
be enlarged. Michelangelo, then but a youth of twenty,
Giuliano da San Gallo (1445–1516) and Il Cronaca (1454-
1509), who found in Savonarola a generous benefactor—
all these were asked to join their judgment to that of
Leonardo respecting the designs for this architectural
improvement. After lengthy consultation, the plans were
agreed upon, from which the hall as it now stands was
built. The Giuliano da San Gallo here mentioned had
been sent once before to Milan by Lorenzo de' Medici,
where, as Wasari has it, he had dealings with Leonardo,
and gave him the benefit of sound counsel respecting the
execution of his equestrian statue.
In the environs of Florence there is also a work of art
which seems to point to Leonardo's connection with that
town during the last years of the fifteenth century. One
* In his life of the architect Simone, called Il Cronaca.
RETURN TO FLORENCE. 71
of the salons of the Palazzo Communale at Pistoja contains
a large sculpture in relief of two naked youths holding
a weapon. This bears the date 1494. In the conception
of these figures we can easily recognise the style of the
great master; and when we remember that Leonardo was
in Florence at this particular time, it is not improbable
that he had a share in their design if not in their execution.
When Da Vinci in 1503 came to Florence, he probably
meant to reside there permanently. In this and the follow-
ing years his name appears in the account-books of the
Compagnia de’ pittori.” He was soon met by offers of
employment. Vasari tells us “that the Servite monks
had at that time commissioned Filippino Lippi to paint
the altar-piece for the principal chapel in their church
Santa Maria dell’Annunziata, when Leonardo declared
that he would himself very willingly have undertaken
such a work. This, being repeated to Filippino, like the
amiable man that he was, he withdrew himself at once,
when the monks gave the picture to Leonardo.” The
original contract signed by Filippino with the brethren
of the Servi has been found in the Florentine archives
and bears the date of 1503. Filippino had already
begun upon his picture of the Descent from the Cross, in
which the figures were life-size. Leonardo, however,
was clearly disinclined to go on with this work. Vasari
writes: “To the end that Leonardo might make progress
with the work, the monks took him into their own abode
with all his household, supplying the expenses of the
whole, and so he kept them attending on him for a long
time, but did not make any commencement; but at length
* G. Uzielli, “Ricerche intorno a Leonardo da Vinci, Firenze, 1872,
pp. 164–5.
72 LEONARDO.
however he prepared a cartoon, with the Madonna, Sant'
Anna and the Infant Christ, so admirably depicted, that
it not only caused astonishment to every artist who saw
it, but, when finished, the chamber wherein it stood was
crowded for two days by men and women, old and young,
a concourse, in short, such as one sees flocking to the most
solemn festivals, all hastening to behold the wonders
produced by Leonardo, which awakened amazement in
the whole people. Nor was this without good cause,
seeing that in the countenance of that Virgin there is all
the simplicity and loveliness which can be conceived as
giving grace and beauty to the Mother of Christ, the
artist proposing to show her in the modesty and humility
of the virgin, filled with joy and gladness as she contem-
plates the beauty of her son, whom she is tenderly
supporting in her lap. And while Our Lady with eyes
modestly bent down is looking at a little San Giovanni,
who is playing with a lamb, Sant’Anna, at the summit of
delight, is observing the group with a smile of happiness
and rejoicing as she sees that her terrestrial progeny have
become divine; all which is entirely worthy of the mind
and genius of Leonardo. This cartoon was subsequently
taken to France.”
Lomazzo also informs us * of its removal to France,
adding that in his time (1584) the cartoon was at Milan,
in the possession of the painter Aurelio Luini, Bernardino
Luini’s son. And even in the meagre description of
Leonardo's works by his anonymous biographer, it is this
drawing that is singled out for praise. “His sketches
are well nigh marvellous; among them is a Madonna with
St. Anne, which was taken to France.” This cartoon,
* “Trattato dell’Arte della Pittura, p. 171.
---
Sº
sº
- º -
º:
-
º
º
- º º
- - -
º
º º
º
CARToon of THE VIRGIN AND Holy CHILD, ST. ANNE AND ST. JOHN.
By Leonardo da Vinci. In the Royal Academy, London.
THE CARTOON AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY. 73
drawn in black chalk on white paper, the figures being
half life-size, is at present to be seen in the Diploma
Gallery of the Royal Academy. It is in a tolerably good
state of preservation. Not the slightest doubt as to its
authenticity remains, although there are two points in
which it fails to correspond with Vasari's description. In
the first place the drawing is here and there far from
being complete; and secondly, John is not represented as
playing with a lamb, as in a similar picture of the Infant
Christ in the Louvre, which may have led Vasari into this
€ITOT.
The composition of the group has perhaps not much
that can appeal to our latter-day sympathies; for us the
principal charm is the refinement in the expression of the
figures. The conception is a thoroughly medieval one :
the figure of the Virgin, who is shewn resting in St.
Anne's lap, seems a return to the traditional symbolism of
genealogical trees.
When, on completing this drawing, Leonardo neglected
to work at the picture for which it was only a study, the
monks cancelled their engagement with him, and requested
Filippino Lippi to go on with his unfinished painting of the
Descent from the Cross. Upon the death of this artist, in
the April of 1504, it fell to the lot of Perugino to complete
the lower portion of the panel, which now hangs in the
Academy of Fine Arts at Florence. It is hardly neces-
sary to comment upon the artistic inferiority of this
carefully finished work, when compared with Leonardo's
cartoon. How far greater would have been his success in
art had he not habitually abandoned his designs and left
his pictures in part unfinished 1 Indolence was not so
much the cause of this, as the method in which he usually
74 LEONARDO.
practised his profession. Lomazzo informs us more fully
upon this point.” “When setting to work to paint, it
was as if he were mastered by fear. So also he could
finish nothing which he had begun, his soul being full
of the sublimity of Art, whereby he was enabled to see
faults in pictures which others hailed as miraculous
Creations.”
At this time Michelangelo, Leonardo's junior by some
score of years, had won his first laurels. At the close of
the year 1503, his statue of David “il gigante,” was all
but completed. By the 20th of January, 1504, an assembly
of artists and notable burgesses was convoked, in order to
fix a site for its erection. The protocol of these proceedings
still exists.t. The artists, it appears, held different views.
Giuliano da San Gallo, the architect, was of opinion that
a good position for the statue would be in the central arch
of the Loggia de' Signori (now Loggia de' Lanzi) either
placed in the centre, so that one can pass round on both
sides of it, or in the background against the wall, with a
dark niche behind it. Leonardo di Ser Piero da Vinci
was the eleventh of the assembly who gave his verdict, as
follows: “I am of Giuliano's opinion that it should be
placed in the Loggia, against the background of the low
wall, and with a proper amount of ornament, which, how-
ever, should not interfere with the actual uses of the hall
itself.” Finally, at the wish of Michelangelo, it was
decided the statue should be placed near the door of the
Palazzo della Signoria.
Deep at the bottom of his heart, Michelangelo cherished
for Da Vinci a rooted dislike. The anonymous biographer
* “Trattato dell’Arte della Pittura, p. 114.
f Gaye, ‘Carteggio inedito degli Artisti, ii. p. 455.
RELATIONS WITH MICHELANGELO. 75
of the latter artist relates an anecdote respecting this, an
incident taken from Florentine street-life. “As Leonardo,
accompanied by G. da Gavina, was passing the Spini bank,
hard by the church of Santa Trinità, several notables
were there assembled, who were discussing a passage
in Dante, and seeing Leonardo, they bade him come
and explain it to them. At the same moment Michel-
angelo passed, and on One of the crowd calling to him,
Leonardo said, “Michelangelo will be able to tell you
what it means.’ To which the latter, thinking this had
been said to entrap him, replied, ‘Nay, do thou explain it
thyself, horse-modeller that thou art—who, unable to
cast a statue in bronze, wast forced with shame to give
up the attempt.” So saying, he turned his back upon
them and departed.”
Michelangelo's statue of David was not yet erected when
Leonardo had already begun to work upon the large
cartoon which was to form the principal work of his
Florentine period. Both he and Michelangelo had re-
ceived commissions for large historical compositions for
the Sala del Consiglio in the Palazzo della Signoria at
Florence. Michelangelo chose to depict a scene from the
Florentine wars with the Pisans, entitled Soldiers Bathing,
while Leonardo's subject was the Battle of Anghiari, a
victory gained by the Florentines (on the 29th of June,
1440) over the people of Milan. The undertaking was as
magnificent as it was novel; hitherto scenes of profane
history had but seldom been immortalised in this way,
and certainly never on so large a scale. In order properly
to appreciate and value Leonardo's production, we should
glance for a moment at the battle-pieces of early Florentine
art. Those by Paolo Uccelli, in the galleries of Florence,
76 LEONARDO.
\
Paris and London had been produced some seventy years
previously. In their choice, however, of new problems
in art, both masters seem alike to have striven to out-
strip the age in which they lived. Yet the result is,
in each case, enormously different. About the year 1455,
Piero della Francesca produced his imposing picture of
the conflict between the Persian cavalry and that of
Heraclius. It is in the church of San Francesco, at
Arezzo. In this fresco, as in the similar ones by Uccelli,
the composition is made subservient to the laws which
govern ancient plastic art. There can be no doubt that
Leonardo was the first to introduce and to put into exe-
cution new rules which in works of this kind are of ser–
vice even in the present day. We still possess notes in
his handwriting, details of the battle which must have
served as the basis of his composition.
The original painting has been destroyed, only a
small copy of part of it being preserved; if we would
gain an idea of the whole, we must follow the programme
as it is set forth in the manuscript, even though we
cannot be sure how closely it was actually adhered to.
“Generals on the Florentine side : Niccolò da Pisa, Pietro
Giampaolo, Neri di Gino Capponi, Count Francesco Gulfi
Orsino, Benedetto de Medici, Micheletto, M. Rinaldo degli
Albizzi, and others. It must then be shown how, after
being armed, he took horse, and how the whole army
followed him—forty squadrons of cavalry and two thousand
infantry went with him. The Patriarch” ascended a moun-
tain in the early morning, which commanded a view of
the surrounding hills and valleys of the district; and he
discovers Niccolò Picenino advancing from Borgo San
* Lodovico Scarampi Mezzarota, Patriarch of Aquileja.
THE BATTLE OF ANGHIARI. 77
Sepolero, his army being enveloped in a cloud of dust.
He at once returns to the camp, where he gives his fol-
lowers the various commands, and then prays to God with
hands folded, whereat St. Peter appears in a cloud and
comforts him. Five hundred horsemen are then sent
forward by the patriarch to surround the enemy in case
they should make an attack, or to prevent their doing
so. The foremost ranks were under the leadership of
Francesco, son of Niccolò Picenino. To the left, behind
the bridge, he despatches infantry, under the command of
Micheletto, to whose lot the generalship for that day had
fallen. At this bridge a desperate fight ensues. Our men
hold their ground and drive back the foe. But Guido and
his brother Astorre, the lord of Faenza, being strongly re-
inforced, recover themselves, and the combat is renewed.
This so harasses the Florentine army, that they re-
capture the bridge and press forward as far as the tents.
Simonetto then attacks the enemy with a body of six
hundred horse, forces them a second time to quit the field,
and retakes the bridge. Behind him comes another army
of two thousand cavalry, and the battle rages for a long
time. Then the patriarch, in order to throw the enemy into
confusion, gives orders for Niccolò da Pisa and Napoleone
Orsini, a beardless youth, to advance with a large body of
troops, and a second great military achievement is thus
accomplished. Niccolò Picenino now pushes forward with
the remainder of his forces, which again causes our ranks
to waver, so that, had not the patriarch himself made an
attack, and by word and deed lent courage to the com-
manders, we had been forced to seek our safety in flight.
With the help of a body of artillery which the patriarch
placed upon the hill, he made havoc among the enemy's
78 LEONARDO,
infantry. By these means they fell into so great confusion,
that Niccolò gave orders to his son to withdraw his troops,
when they fled to Borgo. Great was their defeat; only
those eseaped who at the first had taken refuge in flight,
or had hidden themselves. The battle lasted until sun-
down, when the patriarch recalled his troops that they
might bury the slain and erect a trophy.” On reading
this clear and vivid account of the particulars of the
battle, we may conclude that it was the latter deciding
phase in the day's combat which the artist chose to
immortalise in his fresco. During the years 1504 and
1505, he worked diligently at the cartoon, and the
following year saw him already engaged upon the
wall-picture itself, for which he had a special kind of
movable scaffolding constructed.
It was expedient that he should lose no time; Michel-
angelo was also busily at work. Each was naturally
anxious to secure for himself the foremost share of the
glory that was to be theirs. Nevertheless, of Michelangelo,
we know only that he produced the cartoon of his work.
Of Leonardo the anonymous biographer relates: “Follow-
ing some hints which he found in Pliny, he prepared a
special kind of stucco on which to lay on his colours;
but this proved a failure. His first experiment therewith
was when painting a picture in the Sala del Papa * upon
which he had already begun to work. He had painted it
on the wall, and burnt a large fire before it, so that the
great heat might cause the colours to become absorbed
and dried in. But this only happened in the lower
portion where the fire was ; it could not sufficiently heat
the upper part, for it was a great distance off. Paolo
* By this is meant the Sala del Consiglio.
THE BATTLE OF ANGHIARI. 79
Giovio gives us more minute information respecting the
technical details of the process, who expresses his opinion
of the picture in the following words: “In the Town-hall
of Florence there is Leonardo's painting of the Battle and
Conquest of the Pisans, a splendid work, although an un-
successful one, owing to the plaster of the wall, which
would not take the colours that had been mixed with oil. .
Grieved at his unexpected failure, he allowed the work to .
remain unfinished.” Wasari’s account also tallies with
this report. Perhaps the artist believed that he had
once again discovered the method in vogue among the
ancients, of painting on wax, in which, as we know, the
process of burning-in was necessary. He must already
have entirely abandoned the whole work in 1506, for in
the summer of that year we find him at Milan, deeply
engaged with other matters.
On the 18th of August the French Governor of that
time writes from Florence to the Signory, requesting
leave of absence for Leonardo, and Jafredus Kardi on
the day following despatches a letter to the same effect.
In reply to the latter, Pietro Soderini, the Florentine
Gonfaloniere, on the 9th of October penned the following
bitter lines: “Leonardo has not treated the Republic in
the way in which he ought to have done. He has allowed
a considerable sum of money to be paid to him, yet has
made but a small beginning of his great work; indeed,
he has acted like a traitor.”” Wasari tells us that the
Gonfaloniere's anger was mainly due to the fact that,
relying upon his success, the artist had required money
to be advanced to him from the state treasury. When
with the aid of friends Leonardo was able to raise the
* Gaye, Carteggio inedito degli artisti.
80 - LEONARDO,
sum in question, he wished to hand it over to Soderini,
who, however, had sufficient sense to refuse it. The
entire failure of his technical method can only have
become thoroughly evident in the course of the next few
years.
Albertini's Memoriale, dated 1510, specifies among other
things to be seen in the new large Council Chamber, “The
horsemen (cavalli) of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo's
drawings.” In a carpenter's bill of the year 1513 we find
the charge, “8 liv. 12. for putting boarding (43 ells in
breadth) over the figures painted by Leonardo da Vinci in
the great hall to prevent their getting damaged.” This is
the last news which we possess of the picture. Respect-
ing its destruction we unfortunately know more than of its
completion. Lucensi's engraving of the year 1558 was made
only from a copy of the original, while, later on, Gerard
Edelinck engraved his plate from a copy done by Rubens
of the picture drawn with all the licence usual to that
master, who finally blotted out the Florentine style behind
his own. His copy shows, in fact, a pure Flemish taste,
and nothing more ; moreover these two engravings do not
entirely correspond to Vasari’s description of the original
painting. He says: “Leonardo da Vinci represents the
History of Niccolò Piccenino, captain-general of the
Duke Filippo of Milan, in which he depicted a troop of
horsemen fighting round a standard, and struggling for
the possession thereof. Among other peculiarities of this
scene, it is to be remarked that not only are rage, disdain,
and the desire for revenge apparent in the men, but in
the horses also ; two of these animals, with their fore-legs
intertwined, are attacking each other with their teeth, no
less fiercely than do the cavaliers who are fighting for the
THE BATTLE OF ANGHIARI. 81
standard. One of the combatants has seized the object of
their strife with both hands, and is urging his horse to its
speed, while he, lending the whole weight of his person to
the effort, clings with his utmost strength to the shaft of
the banner, and strives to tear it by main force from the
hands of four others, who are all labouring to defend
it with uplifted swords, which each brandishes in the
attempt to divide the shaft with one of his hands while
he grasps the cause of contention with the other. An old
soldier, with a red cap on his head, who has also seized the
standard with one hand, and raised a curved scimitar in
the other, is uttering cries of rage and fiercely dealing a
blow by which he is endeavouring to cut off the hands
of two of his opponents, who, grinding their teeth, are
struggling in an attitude of fixed determination to defend
their banner. On the earth, among the feet of the horses,
are two other figures fore-shortened, who are obstinately
fighting in that position; one has been hurled to the ground
while the other has thrown himself upon him, and raising
his arm to its utmost height, is bringing down his dagger
with all his force to the throat of the enemy; the latter
meanwhile, struggling mightily with arms and feet, is
defending himself from the impending death. It would
The scarcely possible adequately to describe the skill shown
by Leonardo in this work, or to do justice to the beauty
of design with which he has depicted the warlike
habiliments of the soldiers, with their helmets, crests and
other ornaments, infinitely varied as they are ; or the
wonderful mastery he exhibits in the forms and move-
ments of the horses; these animals were indeed more
admirably treated by Leonardo than by any other master.
The muscular development, the animation of their move-
C;
82 LEONARDO.
ments, and their exquisite beauty are rendered with the
utmost fidelity.”
It is clear that Wasari has only sought to describe single
parts of the whole work. Nevertheless, his description has
led one to think that Leonardo's composition was confined
to this single scene. This view, however, meets with
contradiction at the hands of the anonymous biographer,
who informs us that, after the death of the master in the
hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, “the greater portion of
the cartoon was still in existence, to which belongs also
the drawing of the equestrian group, which was completed
and remained in the palace.”
In the present day we do not possess many genuine
designs by Leonardo for this picture, although there are
numerous sketches by him of horses and riders in various
positions, all full of dash and spirit. He was personally
such a great lover of horses that, as Wasari somewhere
says, “He used to retain his servants and horses, even
when he had nothing to live upon.” Ludovico Dolci
speaks of the masterly way in which he was able to
depict horses.* M. Thiers possessed a sketch for this
picture, in which the horsemen are shown as skeletons.
There are also some little sketches in the print-room of
the British Museum, of mounted combatants in various
attitudes; they may refer to parts of the painting which
are not reproduced in the above-mentioned engravings.
There are also in the Royal Library at Windsor two very
interesting sketches of horsemen fighting, apparently
preparatory studies for the described picture.
Benvenuto Cellini tells us in his autobiography:
“Michelangelo's cartoon was hung in the palace of the
* “Stupendissimo in far cavalli.” See Aretino, Venice, 1557.
THE BATTLE OF ANGHIAIRI. 83
Medici, while Leonardo's was placed in the hall of the
Popes, where, as long as they were exhibited, they
formed a school in which the world might learn.” We have
yet to explain that it was really Leonardo who constituted
himself the founder of the modern conceptions with regard
to the presentment of battle-pieces. Apparently he was
of opinion that it is mainly necessary to portray not
only the murderous conflict of infuriated human beings,
but also the details of picturesque landscape scenery.
Perhaps, when in Northern Italy, Leonardo may have
been present at more than one battle-field. In the
Windsor collection there is a drawing of a great battle,
in which elephants are introduced among the cavalry.
Possibly this is meant to represent one of Hannibal's
victories over the Romans in Northern Italy. The plain
of the landscape forms the chief feature of this sketch,
the figures being drawn almost in miniature, so that it
needs close scrutiny to distinguish them at all.
One of the few complete chapters in the “Trattato della.
Pittura’ contains the rules laid down by Leonardo for his
pupils as to the composition of battle-pieces—rules which,
of course, the master himself had observed when painting
the Battle of Anghiari. His are principles which may yet
serve us in the present day; while, owing to the vivid
clearness and force of its style, no less than to its poetic
tendencies, his written description of the conflict may
rank very high among similar efforts in Italian literature.
When reading it we should not forget that much contained
therein, the battle and bloodshed and human anguish
with which we moderns are familiar, was for the men of
that day an absolute rupture with all tradition, an inno-
vation of no common kind :
G 2
84 LEONARDO,
“First, let the air exhibit a confused mixture of smoke,
arising from the discharge of artillery and musketry, and
the dust raised by the horses of the combatants; and
observe, that dust being of an earthy nature, is heavy,
but yet, by reason of its minute particles, it is easily
impelled upwards, and mixes with the air; nevertheless,
it naturally falls downwards again, the most subtle parts
of it alone gaining any considerable degree of elevation,
and at its utmost height it is so thin and transparent, as
to appear nearly of the colour of the air. The Smoke,
thus mixing with the dusty air, forms a kind of dark
cloud, at the top of which it is distinguished from the
dust by a bluish cast, the dust retaining more of its
natural colour. On that part from which the light
proceeds, this mixture of air, Smoke, and dust, will appear
much brighter than on the opposite sides. The more the
combatants are involved in this turbulent mist, the less
distinctly they will be seen, and the more confused will
they be in their lights and shades. Let the faces of the
musketeers, their bodies, and every object near them, be
tinged with a reddish hue, even the air or cloud of dust;
in short, all that surrounds them. This red tinge you
will diminish in proportion to their distance from the
primary cause. The group of figures, which appear at a
distance between the spectator and the light, will form
a dark mass upon a light ground; and their legs will be
more undetermined and lost as they appeared nearer to
the ground, because there the dust is heavier and thicker.
“If you mean to represent some straggling horses run-
ning out of the main body, introduce also some small clouds
of dust, as far distant from each other as the legs of the
horse, and these little clouds will become fainter, more
THE BATTLE OF ANG|HIARI. 85
scanty, and diffused, in proportion to their distance from
the horse. That nearest to his feet will consequently be
the most determined, smallest, and the thickest of all.
“Let the air be full of arrows, in all directions, some
ascending, some falling down, and some darting straight
forwards. The bullets of the musketry, though not seen,
will be marked in their course by a train of smoke, which
breaks through the general confusion. The figures in the
foreground should have their hair covered with dust, as
also their eyebrows, and all parts liable to receive it.
“The victorious party will be running forwards, their
hair and other light parts flying in the wind, their eye-
brows lowered, and the motions of every member properly
contrasted; for instance, in moving the right foot for-
wards, the left arm must be brought forward also. If
you make any of them fallen down, mark the place of
his fall on the slippery, gore-stained dust, and where the
ground is less impregnated with blood, let the print of
men's feet and of horses that have passed that way be
marked. Det there be some horses dragging the bodies of
their riders, and leaving behind them a furrow made by
the body thus trailed along.
“The countenances of the vanquished will appear pale
and dejected. Their eyebrows raised, and much wrinkled
about the forehead and cheeks. The tips of their noses
somewhat divided from the nostrils by arched wrinkles
terminating at the corner of the eyes, those wrinkles
being occasioned by the opening and raising of the
nostrils; the upper lips turned up, discovering the teeth.
Their mouths wide open, and expressive of violent lamen-
tation. One may be seen fallen wounded on the ground,
endeavouring with one hand to support his body, and
86 LEONARDO.
covering his eyes with the other, the palm of which is
turned towards the enemy. Others running away, and
with open mouths seeming to cry aloud. Between the
legs of the combatants let the ground be strewed with all
sorts of arms, as broken shields, spears, swords, and the like.
Many dead bodies should be introduced, some entirely
covered with dust, others in part only; let the blood
which seems to issue immediately from the wound appear
of its natural colour and running in a winding course,
till, mixing with the dust, it forms a reddish kind of mud.
Some should be in the agonies of death ; their teeth shut,
their eyes wildly staring, their fists clenched, and their
legs in a distorted position. Some may appear disarmed
and beaten down by the enemy, still fighting with their
fists and teeth, and endeavouring to take a passionate,
though unvailing revenge. There may be also a straggling
horse without a rider, running in wild disorder; his mane
flying in the wind, beating down with his feet all before
him, and doing a deal of damage. A wounded soldier
may also be seen falling to the ground, and attempting
to cover himself with his shield, while an enemy bending
over him endeavours to give him the finishing stroke.
Several dead bodies should be heaped together under a
dead horse. Some of the conquerors, as having ceased
fighting, may be wiping their faces from the dirt collected
on them by the mixture of dust with the water from their
eyes.
“The corps de réserve will be seen advancing gaily, but
cautiously, their eyebrows directed forwards, shading
their eyes with their hands to observe the motions of the
enemy, amidst clouds of dust and smoke, and seeming
attentive to the orders of their chief. You may also make
DEATH OF LEONARDO's PARENTS. 87
their commander holding up his staff, pushing forwards,
and pointing towards the place where they are wanted.
A river may likewise be introduced, with horses fording
it, dashing the water about between their legs, and in the
air, covering all the adjacent ground with water and foam.
Not a spot is to be left without some mark of blood and
carnage.” “ -
In the year 1504, when at work at the cartoon of the
IBattle of Anghiari, Leonardo da Vinci lost his father, a fact
which he records himself in the British Museum manu-
script: “On the afternoon of Wednesday, the 9th of July,
1504, at three o’clock, died my father, Ser Piero da Vinci,
notary to the palace of the Podesta. He was eighty
years old, and left behind him ten male and two female
children.” He here states his father to have been three
years older than he actually was. The same event is alluded
to in a similar note in the “Codice Atlantico” at Milan.
In one of his manuscripts in the South Kensington
Museum there is an account headed, “Expenses for the
funeral of Caterina.”f This was the name of his un-
fortunate mother, and Leonardo was without doubt the
only one of her relations who paid her the last tribute of
respect. It is impossible to determine the date of her
decease. From the several items of the bill, for instance,
from sums paid to four priests and nine other clergymen,
we have evidence that the funeral was conducted with
Amuch ceremony. Caterina appears to have died in a
Whospital, where Leonardo used to visit her. In the same
mote-book in South Kensington we read: “Next to Caterina
* ‘A Treatise on Painting, by Leonardo da Vinci, translated by
J. F. Rigaud, R.A., Lond. 1877, pp. 57–60.
† See Appendix, Note 7.
38 IEONARDO.
in the hospital lies the young Giovanna, a person of
fantastic features.” “ These two brief notes are the only
information which we have respecting his relation to
his mother; they are of very great interest to us, and
place the artist's personal character in a most favourable
light.
It was about the year 1504 that the portrait of Mona Lisa
was completed, at present in the Louvre Gallery. In this.
painting, rather than in any other production of his, we
can the easiest discern the master's style. He was at work
upon the picture during four whole years. Mona Lisa, the
daughter of Antonio Maria di Noldo Gherardini, was a
Neapolitan, and third wife of Zanobi del Giocondo (1460–
1512), whence it comes that she is also called “la Gio-
conda.” She was married to him in the year 1495. Francis
the First paid, a few years later, four thousand gold florins
for the portrait, an enormous sum in those days. The
picture represents a life-size figure seated in an arm-chair,
turning towards the left, with hands crossed in the lap.
Only the upper part of the body is visible; the costume is
simple in the extreme, with no attempt at adornment. A
far-stretching landscape forms the background, painted
with the utmost delicacy. The admiration which this por-
trait has always created is owing not merely to the beauty
of the sitter, nor to the charm of the sumptuous costume and
magnificent colouring. Herein its chief excellences do not
lie; they are primarily those of conception and expression.
“There is so pleasing an expression,” says Vasari, “and a
Smile so sweet, that while looking at it one thinks it rather
divine than human, and it has ever been esteemed a
wonderful work, since life itself could exhibit no other
* “Giovannina, viso fantastico, sta asca chaterina allospedale.”
in
º
|
|
|
- |
|
|
º
º
º
º
º
-
illuſiºn
º -
MONA LISA. –“LA BELLE JOCONDE.”
IN THE Louvre, PARIs.
THE GIOCONIDA. 89
appearance.” And while the same writer proceeds to show
how thoroughly each feature seems accurately to correspond
with nature, Lomazzo, with more discrimination, says that
whoever has seen the picture, must admit the Supremacy
of art to nature, “art having a far higher and more
subtle method of fettering the interest of the thoughtful.”*
As in most of Leonardo's pictures, the shadows have
unfortunately become much darkened by the influence of
time, and are now even of a somewhat heavy tone, whilst
it becomes evident, from Vasari’s minute descriptions.
when compared with the original, that the colouring was
originally quite clear and transparent.
When in Florence he also painted the portrait of
Ginevra, the wife of Amerigo Benci, a picture which has
unfortunately not been preserved.
In the year 1509, Leonardo da Vinci's friend Luca
Paciolo published his work, ‘De divina Proportione,’
which he dedicated to the gonfaloniere Soderini. It was
illustrated by sixty geometrical figures done, as the preface
informs us, by “that notable master of perspective, and
musician, he who excels in every art, Leonardo da Vinci, of
Florence.” Leonardo seems to have had some share in the
compilation of this work. Terhaps it was also he who de-
signed the beautiful initial letters which adorn its pages.
Among the painter's best friends in Florence was
Giovanni Francesco Rustici (1474–1554, about), a young
nobleman of the town, of whose life Vasari gives a
detailed account, as in leisure times he also exercised
the fine arts, especially delighting in painting horses.
What little remains to us of his work is therefore
of extraordinary interest, Leonardo having apparently
* G. P. Lomazzo, ‘Idea del Tempio della Pittura, Milano, 1591.
90 LEONARDO.
acted as his helper and instructor. Above the north door
of the baptistry of Florence there is a life-size bronze
group by him of John the Baptist preaching, who stands
between two listening Pharisees. One of the figures, that
of an energetic-looking old man with bald head, is with
good reason believed to show that Leonardo had not a
little to do with Rustici's work. Vasari tells us that
when Rustici was making the clay model for this work, he
would have no one about him but Leonardo da Vinci, who
actually did not quit his side until the design had been
entirely completed. The style in which the figure just
mentioned is executed is particularly that of Leonardo.
Among the Florentine artists who even earlier than this
had been influenced by Da Vinci, we must specially
mention Fra Bartolommeo, who, having completed his
term of pupilage with Cosimo Roselli, devoted himself
zealously to the study of the master's works.” Jacopo
Carrucci da Pontormo (1494–1557) is another painter who
was among the pupils who visited Leonardo's studio.f
The sculptor Baccio Bandinelli (1493–1560) was employed
by him as a worker in relief.i. For a certain period Ridolfo
del Ghirlandajo was a successful imitator of Leonardo's
style.S. The anonymous biographer tells us that when
Leonardo was at work upon his battle-piece in the Palazzo
Vecchio, Ferrando the Spaniard was his pupil, together
with Raffaello d’Antonio di Biagio and Riccio da Santa
Croce, the latter a painter of whom nothing beyond his
* Vasari, ed. Lemonier, vol. vii. p. 150.
f Vasari, vol. xi. p. 30.
: Vasari, vol. x. p. 295.
§ He painted the picture of the Annunciation, No. 1288 in the
Uffizi at Florence. It has been erroneously ascribed to Leonardo.
HIS FLORENTINE PUPILS. 91
name is known.” In one of Leonardo's manuscripts the
remark occurs, “1505, on Tuesday evening, the 14th of
April, Lorenzo came to stay with me. He told me that his
age was seventeen.” That this was Lorenzo Lotto is
hardly a safe assumption; there is absolutely no grounds
for such a belief. In the British Museum manuscript we
find a German mentioned as being also a pupil or assistant
of Leonardo's, but we know nothing of him beyond just
this. Leonardo writes: “Early on Saturday morning, the
3rd of August, 1504, the German Jacopo came to my house
to stay. We have settled that I am to pay him one
Carlino a day.” Elsewhere on the MS. there are entries
in the same handwriting of the names of other pupils,
which figure in one of the artist's household accounts.
We must not omit to quote these hitherto unpublished
memoranda just as Leonardo set them down: they speak
to us of the domestic life of the master and his pupils.
“August 14th, twopence to Tommaso ; on the 18th of
the same month, fourpence to Salai; on the 8th of
September, sixpence to Il Fattore . . . on the Sunday, the
16th of September, I gave fourpence to Tommaso . . .”
Respecting this Tommaso we have no information at all.
Il Fattore is the sobriquet of Giovanni Francesco Penni,
who was born at Florence in 1486, and who is known to
have been one of Raphael's earliest pupils.
In the summer of 1506 Leonardo received permission
from the Signory of Florence to visit Milan. When after
this he from time to time returned to Florence, his stay
there was always a brief one; that he did this was mainly
owing to matters of a purely domestic and personal nature,
which have no bearing whatever upon the history of art.
* “Archivio storico Italiano, serie terza, tomo xvi., pp. 219–30.
CHAPTER WI.
IN FRENCH SERVICE—VISIT TO ROME–IN THE SERVICE OF
FRANCIS I.--THE MADON NAS IN THE LOUVRE AND AT
CHARLTON PARK RESIDENCE AT CLOUX — LEONARDO's
DEATH.
EONARDO, soon after his return to Milan, lived
with his friend Melzi, and in the summer of 1506.
he entered the service of the French government. This
we gather from the following excerpts taken from a letter
addressed by Charles d'Amboise, the French governor of
Milan, to the Signory of Florence. “We shall still need
Messer Leonardo's help in the completion of a work.
* * * * We therefore beg for an extension of the
leave granted to the aforesaid Leonardo, in order that he
may stay somewhat longer in Milan.” His relations with
Louis the Twelfth very soon recommenced. This weinfer
from a letter of Francesco Pandolfini’s, the Florentine
ambassador at the French court.* It is dated Blois,
January 22, 1507. “Finding myself this morning in the
presence of the most Christian King, his Majesty called
me and said: “Your lords must render me a service: Write
* Gaye, ‘Carteggio, vol. ii. p. 59.
LOUIS THE TWELFTH. 93
to them that I desire to make use of their painter, Master
Leonardo, who is now at Milan, and that I wish him
to do certain things for me. Do this in such a way
that their lordships enjoin him to serve me promptly,
and tell him not to depart from Milan before my arrival.
He is a good master, and I desire certain things by his
hand. Write to Florence at once, and in such a way
as to obtain the desired result, and send me the letter.”
All this,” adds Pandolfini, “came from a little painting
by his hand that has recently been brought here, and
which is judged to be a very excellent work. In the
course of conversation I asked his Majesty what works
he desired from him, and he answered, “Certain small
pictures of Our Lady and others, according as the idea
occurs to me: perhaps I shall get him to paint my
portrait.’” We may assume that Pandolfini here alludes
to the picture of the Madonna with the Spindle, painted
by Leonardo for Robertet, the king's chancellor.
King Louis seems to have taken a very deep interest
in the artist. This is how he speaks of him in his letter
to the Signory of Florence, dated from Milan, on July 26,
1507: “Dearest and most noble friends, We have been
informed that Leonardo da Vinci, our dearly and well-
beloved painter and court engineer, has a lawsuit still
pending at Florence between himself and his brothers
respecting an inheritance, &c.—Louis, by the grace of
God, King of France, Duke of Milan, and Lord of
Genoa.”” It gives one no very encouraging insight
into the existing state of Florentine legislation to know
that Leonardo, although conscious of the justice of his
cause, found it necessary also to beg Ippolito d’Este,
* G. Uzielli, “Ricerche, Firenze, 1872, p. 184.
94 LEONARDO.
the Cardinal of Ferrara, to bring his influence to bear
upon the Signory, at whose hands “he might not only
obtain justice but also a verdict in his favour.” *
After twice visiting Florence during the year 1507
in October we find him again at Milan. From the short
note in one of his manuscripts, “Bought at Milan on
the 12th of October, 1508,” we can see that he was in
that city in the autumn of that year, where, to judge
from a similar cursory remark which occurs elsewhere, he
also spent part of the following spring.” Just then Milan
was the scene of great festivities and rejoicings in honour
of Louis the Twelfth's recent victories over the Wenetians
at Agnadello, and in these Leonardo probably took part.
But in one of the British Museum manuscripts we read
as follows: “Begun in Florence, in the house of Piero
di Barto Martelli, on the 22nd of March, 1508 (= 1509).”
At the beginning of the year 1511 he addressed the fol-
lowing letter to Charles d'Amboise, the French governor
at Milan: “Working as I have done for his most
Christian Majesty the King, it would greatly please
me to know whether I am to continue to receive my
salary or not. To the many letters which I have sent
your Excellency respecting this, I have never yet received
an answer. I now send Salai, who will inform you that
the lawsuit with my brothers is nearly at an end. I hope
to arrive there this Easter, and I shall bring with me
two pictures of the Madonna, of different sizes. These
are for his most Christian Majesty, or for any one else
on whom your Excellency may see fit to bestow them.
On my return I should be very glad to know where I
am to take up my residence, as I would no longer wish
* “Naviglio di San Cristoforo di Milano fatto adi 3 di Marzo, 1509.”
THE TWO MADONNA-PICTURES. 95
to be a burden to your Excellency.” In 1508 and 1509
he was still in receipt of a royal stipend, as he himself
tells us in the “Codex Atlanticus.’”
Leonardo writes a similar letter to the inspector of
waterworks, saying that he intended to return at Easter
and that he would bring two pictures of the Madonna
which he had begun, and at which he had worked a good
deal in his spare time, so that they were in a state of
forward completion. There is no evidence to show that
both or even one of these paintings became the property
of Louis the Twelfth. Nor can we identify them with the
two undoubtedly genuine Madonnas by Leonardo in the
Louvre, of which we shall have presently to speak. If
the French Marshal ever got Leonardo's letter, he at any
rate was then in no position to interest himself about works,
of art. Since the October of 1510 he had been at war with
Pope Julius the Second, before the walls of Bologna.
He died at Correggio in the following February, wholly
crushed beneath the signal failure of his strategy. In
the December of 1511, Leonardo was again at Milan.
There is evidence of this in the Windsor manuscripts,
where are two drawings representing large conflagra-
tions; and to these a special note is appended, which
expressly states that the Swiss had lit these fires when
in Milan.t
In the December of the following year Maximilian
Sforza, Lodovico's son, made his entry into Milan,
although the French troops still occupied the citadel.
* Fol. 189: “Richordo de dinari che io ho auoto dal re per mia pro-
uisione dalluglo 1508, insino aprile prossimo 1509, prima scudi 100,.
poi 200, poi 70 e poi 50 epoi 20 epoi 200 franchi a 48 per luno.”
# See Appendix, Note 8.
•96 - LEONARDO,
He had been enthroned by representatives of the “Holy
Ileague”; the duchy, however, was comparatively a small
..one now, and the youthful Sforza was only able to govern
it for the space of three years.
In 1513, a Florentine of the house of Medici had been
elected pope at Rome under the title of Leo the Tenth.
He was Lorenzo Il Magnifico's son, Giovanni Medici, who
at that time was only thirty-seven years old. Both
Raphael and Michelangelo had by then become famous,
owing to their labours in the Vatican; whereas the years
had gone by and Leonardo da Vinci, a veteran of sixty,
had as yet only once set foot in Rome, the rallying-point
of all artists of note, the very Athens of the Renaissance.
Vasari relates that, on the occasion of the exaltation of
Pope Leo the Tenth to the chair of St. Peter, the Duke
Giuliano de' Medici took Leonardo with him as his com-
panion to Rome. Giuliano was Leo's youngest brother,
being his junior by some three years, a man gentle
and melancholy in disposition. It was the Pope's in-
tention to give him an important dukedom in Central
Italy. In the February of 1515 he was betrothed to the
Princess Filiberta, sister of King Francis I.’s mother,
Louisa. The reason given by Vasari for Leonardo's visit
to Rome is not the true One. His statement is contradicted
|by a note in one of the master's own manuscripts. “I left
Milan on the 24th of September (1514), for Rome, accom-
panied by Giovanni,” Francesco Melzi, Salai, Lorenzo, and
Il Fanfoia.” This apparently points to a formal migra-
tion of the artists resident in Milan, who at that time must
have found life in that city and in Lombardy well-nigh
unendurable. All existing accounts seem to agree as
* Giovanni Antonio Beltraffio (?).
VISIT TO ROME. 97
to the terribly disordered and unsettled state of affairs
which prevailed there upon the collapse of the French
monarchy. On the 27th of September, Leonardo was at
Sant’Angelo, on the Po, where he had sufficient to occupy
him. Elsewhere in his manuscripts weread the following
passage, certainly written at Rome: “At daybreak on
the 9th of January, 1515, Giuliano de' Medici il Magnifico
left Rome for Florence, where his marriage was to take
place, and on the same day the King of France died.”
Two benefactors lost to him in one day—this is doubt-
less the poignant meaning contained in this curt sen-
tence. The aged monarch died, by the way, on the 1st
of January, yet the news may not have reached Rome
until the 9th. Although the Pope did not hesitate to
give every honour to art and to artists, Leonardo was
yet not sufficiently fortunate in his professional engage-
ments to allow of his making Rome the theatre of his best
achievements in the domain of art. On the other hand,
the splendid talents he displayed in the science of physics
and of chemistry, aroused the interest of the Pope, who
himself took an interest in alchemy. Wasari narrates in
detail how “Leonardo da Vinci, having composed a kind
of paste from wax, made of this, while it was still in
its half-liquid state, certain figures of animals, entirely
hollow and exceedingly slight in texture, which he then
filled with air. When he blew into these figures he
could make them fly through the air, but when the air
within them had escaped from them they fell to the earth.
On another occasion he attached tâ a live lizard, wings,
made from the skins of other lizards, flayed for the
purpose. Into these wings he put quicksilver, so that
when the animal walked, the wings moved also, with a
H
98 LEONARDO.
tremulous motion. He then made eyes, horns, and a beard
for the creature, which he tamed and kept in a cage; he
would then show it to the friends who came to visit him;
and all who saw it ran away terrified.” According to
Vasari; this was but one of the many equally extraordinary
experiments in which he delighted. He also occupied him-
self a great deal with mirrors and optical instruments
of all kinds, besides inventing new sorts of oils for
painting, and varnishes to preserve works when executed.
The Pope is said to have given him a commission for a
picture, but when he was told, probably by some envious
busybody, that the artist, instead of making a design, was
engaged in preparing a solution of distilled oils and
herbs as a varnish for it, he exclaimed: “This man,
alas! will assuredly do nothing at all, since his thoughts
are of the end before he has even made a beginning.”
Nothing is more likely than that intrigues were the reason
that the artist received no commission for larger and
more important works. We only know of two small
pictures which he is supposed to have painted when at
Rome, at the request of Messer Baldassare Turini, of
Pescia, the Pope's datary. The first of these is a little
child, “ of marvellous grace and beauty,” and the other a
Madonna and Child, which, even when Wasari saw it, was
already in a “greatly deteriorated” state.
There is a picture still in good preservation which has
been falsely supposed to be from Leonardo's brush. It is
a fresco in the lunette of a corridor in the convent of
S. Onofrio near the Vatican, representing a Madonna
and Child in the act of blessing a donor. This may have
been done by Beltraffio, who probably went with Leonardo
to Rome. In December 1515 the painter was again in
POPE LEO X.—LORD SUFFOLK's MADONNA. 99
Milan. It is supposed that the reason of his return was
due to some disagreement with Michelangelo, the two
artists having at that time been in competition for the ele-
vation of the façade of San Lorenzo in Florence. This was
the last time that Leonardo was to see Milan, which for him
had been, as it were, a second home. Soon afterwards he
entered upon his duties in the employ of the French king.
Perhaps it was during this last visit to Milan that some of
his panel pictures were painted, which fortunately for us
are uninjured by time. Lomazzo tells us that in his
days there was “a panel-picture in the Capella della Con-
cezione in Milan, done by Leonardo da Vinci, in which
St. John the Baptist is shown kneeling with folded hands
before the Saviour, whereby is expressed childlike awe and
obedience, while the Madonna in wonder [allegra specu-
lazione] regards him, her countenance full of mingled joy
and expectancy. While with face of radiant beauty the
seraph seems wrapt in the contemplation of that boundless
bliss which shall go forth to mankind as the outcome of
the mystery on which he now looks, the features of the
Infant Christ are distinctly stamped with an expression
of Godlike wisdom. The Virgin kneels, holding St. John
with her right hand, while she stretches the left forward,
which is thus seen foreshortened. The angel holds the
Holy Infant by the left hand, who, sitting upright, gazes
earnestly at St. John while bestowing blessing upon him.”
Of this picture also Lutuada makes mention in his ‘Des-
crizione di Milano.'t It was purchased at Milan, in 1796,
by Gavin Hamilton, who afterwards sold it to Lord Suffolk,
* “Trattato dell’Arte della Pittura,’ p. 171.
f Vol. iv. pp. 245–246.
100 LEONARDO.
in whose collection at Charlton Park the work is at present
to be seen. A replica of it, differing somewhat in the
details of the landscape and in the drawing of the angel,
is now in the Louvre, doubtless an original of the master's,
although its history is less known. The painting in the
Louvre, known from the landscape background as La
Vierge aua Rochers, is first ‘mentioned as among the
works of art belonging to Francis the First. Designs for
it are to be found at Turin and at Windsor, in which the
angel is shown with outstretched hand, a detail which
only occurs in the picture at Paris.
The second authentic Madonna by Leonardo in the
Ilouvre is La Sainte Anne : the Virgin is seated in her
mother's lap, and bending downwards to the Holy Child,
who is fondling a lamb. The composition of the work is
wholly different from the cartoon in the Royal Academy;
the drawing shows greater freedom, although in colouring
it has not the vivid transparency of the Vierge aua, Rochers.
For whereas in this picture each flower in the fore-
ground is given with such exquisite truth that to classify
it botanically is an easy matter, in the Sainte Anne but
few details are indicated, and altogether the work is
evidently in an unfinished state. A whole set of studies
for this painting is to be seen in the Windsor collection,
also sketches for the head and drapery of St. Anne, besides
several studies for the figures of the Virgin and the Holy
Infant. The only allusions to this picture in the litera-
ture of the sixteenth century occur in a sonnet by Giro-
lamo Casio de Medici, entitled “Per S. Anna che dipinge
L. Vinci, che tenea la Maria in brazzo, che non volea il
figlio scendessi sopra un agnello, and in Giovio's biography
of the artist. The historian writes thus: “A panel-picture
WITH THE ROCKS.
E MADONNA
TH
Paris.
VRE,
In the Lou
THE MADONNAS IN THE LOUWRE. 101
of the Infant Christ at play, with his mother the Virgin,
and his grandmother Anna, was purchased by Francis the
First, who caused it to be hung in his sacrario.” Giovio
thinks so highly of the work that he classes it with the Last
Supper and the Battle of Anghiari, the only other pictures
La Saintº an NE.
which he mentions. However, there is no existing record
ofit among the inventories of the French monarch. From
France, together with the cartoon in the Royal Academy,
it may have found its way back to Italy, for in 1629
it was purchased in Lombardy by Cardinal Richelieu.
Of greater importance, however, than its mere history,
102 LEONARDO.
is the question as to when the painting was first
produced. Some have thought that it was executed in
France during the closing years of the painter's life.
But the fact remains that the original was frequently
copied by Milanese artists, mostly contemporaries of
Leonardo. The carefully executed and accurate copies in
the galleries at Munich, Florence, Milan, as also Luini’s
reproduction in his Madonna now at Lugano are sufficient
proof of how early the picture had gained a high recogni-
tion, notwithstanding the silence of Vasari and Lomazzo.
It remains doubtful if either or both of these pictures now
at Paris are identical with those which the artist mentions
in his last letter to the Maréchal de Chaumont.
There is another genuine work by Leonardo, the
Figure of John the Baptist, now in the Louvre, mentioned
as having been in the collection of King Francis. St.
John's figure is half life-sized, with head looking to
the left. In his right hand is a cross made of reeds, to
which he points with the left. Although doubtless an
original, the picture in its present state has no great
charm for us. Owing to time, the colouring has be-
come unpleasantly dark in tone, and in some places the
work shows signs of having been painted over; yet the
face is modelled with a delicacy and refinement thoroughly
worthy of the great artist. Pupils have repeatedly copied
the picture, making use of separate motives therefrom
for similar productions; seldom, however, with success.
Nevertheless the greater part of these has been indis-
criminately classed among the genuine works of the
master.
No sooner had the young King Francis the First suc-
ceeded to the throne of France than, at the request of the
RESIDENCE IN FRANCE. 103
Venetian Republic, he entered upon a war with the Papal
confederacy. His victory at Marignano on the 5th October
1515 forced Maximilian Sforza, who held the fortress of
Milan, to capitulate, and throw himself upon the mercy
of the king. Leonardo had probably met the latter before
that time at Pavia, whom he accompanied to Bologna, where
his Majesty entered into negotiations with Pope Leo, from
the 8th of December until the 15th, returning to France
through Milan. With the beginning of the year 1516
Leonardo is said to have received a yearly stipend from
the king of seven hundred scudi. Francesco Melzi was
among those who accompanied the veteran master, who
also took his servants Maturina and Battista de Vilanis
with him. The Château Cloux, near Amboise, was the
residence chosen for “Monsieur Lyonard.” During the
few years that he lived there he was in a feeble state of
health, and consequently could make but few contribu-
tions to art.
Wasari relates that the king gave him a commission for
a picture to be executed from the cartoon of St. Anne,
at present in the Royal Academy. This has given rise
to the false belief that the Louvre picture was painted
in France, although Vasari distinctly says that it was
by words only and not by deeds that the artist then
sought to pacify the monarch. We are indebted to
Lomazzo for information respecting two pictures which
were undoubtedly produced during Leonardo's stay in
France; a Leda and a Pomona, both of which have un-
fortunately perished. Of the first of these, he gives a
fuller description: “Leda is shown completely undraped,
the swan resting upon her knees, while her downcast
eyes testify to her shame. The picture is among those
104 LEONARDO,
which were never wholly finished.” “ In the Print
Room of the British Museum there is a genuine pen-and-
ink sketch by Leonardo, of a nude Leda and the Swan, a
study, perhaps, for the lost picture. Of the Pomona we
only know that she was represented “with laughing face,
wearing a triple veil.” + Without Wertumnus a Pomona
cannot well be conceived. Among the rare works of
Francesco Melzi, there is an excellent representation of this
mythical scene in the painting in the Berlin Gallery
(No. 222), the figures in which are life-size. The head
of Pomona is painted with especial charm, and in the
other parts of the picture Leonardo's influence is clearly
discernible.
On the 23rd of April, 1519, Leonardo made his will.
In it he commends his soul to “Nostro Signore Messer
Domine Dio, alla gloriosa Virgine Maria, a monsignore
Sancto Michele, e a tutti li beati Angeli sancti e Sancte del
Paradiso.” In accordance with his wish, he was interred
in the Church of San Florentino, in Amboise. He also
gave directions for the performance of masses to be said
after his death, which occurred on the 2nd of May in the
same year, in the sixty-seventh year of his age.
As regards the touching story so often represented
by modern artists, of the visit of King Francis to the
painter's death-bed, who expires in the arms of his patron, .
although it passed for true in the time of Francesco
d'Ollanda Ś and Wasari, we may now safely reject it as a
* “Trattato dell’Arte della Pittura, p. 164. ‘Idea del Tempio della
Pittura,’ chap. ii.
f ‘Idea, p. 132.
† Ovid, ‘Metamorph.” lib. xiv. vers. 623, seq.
§ See Appendix, Note 9.
EIIS DEATH, 105
myth. For when Leonardo's death took place at Cloux,
Francis the First, with his Court, was far distant at
St. Germain en Laye, and we have the evidence of the
personal diaries of the king to prove that at the time of
the event he had not quitted that place. In Oltrecchi's
Groteschi there is a verse which refers to the painter's
decease; his account of the king's behaviour may well be
considered the true one. “Sore wept king Francis when
he heard from Melzi that Da Vinci was dead, who,
when living in Milan, painted the Last Supper, a picture
which excels every other.” On the 1st of June, Melzi,
writing from Amboise, informed Giuliano da Vinci of his
brother's death. We can see from the grief expressed in
his letter, how close had been the friendship between the
master and himself. “He was to me the best of fathers,
and it is impossible for me to express the grief that his
death has caused me. Until the day when my body is
laid under the ground, I shall experience perpetual sorrow,
and not without reason, for he daily shewed me the most
devoted and warmest affection. His loss is a grief to
every one, for it is not in the power of nature to reproduce
another such a man.”
The anonymous biographer tells us of the disposition of
Leonardo's property in the following words: “To Melzi
he left his papers, to Salai and his servant, Battista de
Wilani, his garden near Milan, and to his brothers the sum
of four hundred ducats deposited at Santa Maria Nuova
in Florence.”
Diligent researches have of late years been made by M.
Arsène Houssaye, respecting the painter's place of burial,
yet they have led to no satisfactory result. At the time
of Leonardo, France was far behind Italy in culture and
106 LEONARDO.
in the fine arts. Leonardo's life in France must have
been little short of exile, surrounded by people who could
neither understand nor appreciate him ; and thus both
he and his grave fell rapidly into oblivion. Nor if
we examine the work produced in the French school of
painting can we feel surprise that it should have remained
utterly uninfluenced by the spirit of the great Florentine.
At that time it could have but little in common with
a genius such as his.
In the archives of the Royal Chapel at Amboise,
Leonardo's burial is thus recorded : “Fut inhumé dans
le cloistre de cette église Mº Lionard de Vincy, mosble
millanais, 1* peintre et ingénieur et architecte du Roy,
meschasnischien d’estat et anchien directeur de peinture
du duc de Milan. Ce fut faict le dovc" jour d'aoust,
1519.” +
* H. Herluison, “Actes d'Etat civil d’Artistes français, Orléans,
1873, p. 453.
CHAPTER VII.
LEONARDO's PERSONAL APPEARANCE—HIS PRINCIPLES IN ART-
CARICATURES —THE ‘TRATTATO DELLA PITTURA’— HIS
MANUSCRIPTS — ACHIEVEMENTS IN SCIENCE—LEONARDO's
LIBRARY-THE PHILOSOPHER AND THE POET.
HE only authentic portrait of Leonardo da Vinci
which we possess, is a drawing done in red chalk
by the master himself. It is now in the Royal Academy
at Turin.” The forehead is broad and smooth, and with
long flowing white hair and beard, the nose strongly
marked, the mouth delicately pencilled, yet full of deter-
mination, with penetrating eyes hidden beneath straight
bushy brows. The picture was doubtless executed
during the last years of the artist's life, and when we
compare the features in their decided outline with
other presumably genuine portraits and sketches, the
difference between them is so striking, as to admit of
only one conclusion. There is not a single portrait
extant of the painter when a young man, not even a
spurious one. Yet all his contemporaries have expressed
their great admiration of his singular personal beauty.
* See Frontispiece.
108 LEONARDO.
The anonymous biographer says: “His figure was
beautifully proportioned, and he had a noble and en-
gaging presence. He usually wore a rose-coloured coat
reaching to the knee, and long hose, as was the fashion
at that time. His carefully combed hair fell in
luxuriant curls as far as his waist.” In Giovio's bio-
graphy we read: “He was of an extremely kind and
generous disposition, of most striking appearance, with
fine features. He was possessed of much taste, and had
also a special talent for entertaining, which he notably
displayed in the conduct of theatrical performances. He
also sang well to the lute, and was specially welcomed as
a companion of princes.”
Among the greatest masters of the Florentine Renais-
sance, stands Leonardo da Vinci, side by side with
Michelangelo and Raphael. As the earliest, so too was
he the real initiator of the highest phase of the
Renaissance. In the public eye he may not take equal
rank with these artists, owing to the cruelty of fortune,
which has robbed us of just his best and most beautiful
work. To confront him with these painters, however,
is to do him a manifest injustice; to institute a parallel
between their works and his is no less unfair. Leonardo
da Vinci certainly stands alone in the history of art, as
One who both conceived and realized ideals which were
wholly independent from the antique. In all his
numerous papers and writings, he never quotes the
antique as a means of instruction for the artist. Singu-
larly enough he only once mentions the “Graeci et
Romani,” and then merely as masters of the treatment |
of flowing drapery. Leonardo was the first who ventured
to base all art instruction exclusively and entirely
CHARACTERISTICS OF HIS ART. 109
upon the study of nature, and it is not too much to
say that in his genius the aims of his numerous pre-
decessors culminate, making art no longer dependent
upon tradition, but more upon the immediate study of
Nature herself. Unlike those ideals which contemporary
artists chose to set before them, he imparts to the figures
in his canvas a grace and a sensibility at once strange
and unaccountable. None of his paintings awe one in
the sense that do the powerful creations of Michelangelo,
which as it were enthral the soul. The charm of
Leonardo's pictures is reserved for those only, who
by deeper examination are enabled wholly to discern and
appreciate those subtle and hidden meanings with which
his works are charged. Leonardo da Vinci's name has
been and ever will be a popular one ; the art of
Leonardo can never be that: it is too lofty, too sublime.
From the few genuine works by him which we still
possess, it is impossible to form an adequate conception
of his many-sided genius, nor, in the countless pro-
ductions of his scholars, shall we find an even partial
recompense.
He gives us an accurate idea of his artistic principles
and intentions in his drawings and manuscripts; but of
these very little has ever been reproduced. The writings
of the painter Lomazzo are in many ways a contribution
to our knowledge of Leonardo's art. Among them are
found the following passages on the master's method of
painting. “Leonardo's colouring is subordinate to a grand
style of drawing, of which he is an absolute master,
and his representation of the human form, whether
of child or of full-grown man, are alike distinguished
by noble inspiration [nobil furia]. In the technical
|
110 LEONARDO,
ſ management of his pictures he carefully intensifies and
renders transparent the light and shade by successive
1 glazings, “con veli sopra weli.” In the treatment of light,
he appears ever anxious to avoid making it too vivid,
employing it sparingly here and there, at the same time
putting in his shadows in the very deepest tones of
colour. By these means he arrives at a balance of light
and shade.”f The Portuguese artist Francesco d’Ollanda,
who for about nine years had studied in Italy, is of a
like opinion. In his treatise on painting, written in
1549, he says, “Leonardo da Vinci was the first who
boldly painted shadow.” f Lomazzo further remarks
that Leonardo used to say that “the success of a paint-
ing depends not only on the observance of the laws of
perspective and foreshortening, but also on the effects
of light and shade.” $
Lomazzo twice refers to the many grotesque heads
which he was in the habit of drawing. “Leonardo took
special delight in drawing likenesses of clumsy and de-
formed old people, with a smile upon their face. Aurelio
Lovino had a sketch-book of the master's, containing about
fifty such studies.”| Persons who were on intimate terms
with the artist were wont to tell Lomazzo how Leonardo
once intended to make a picture of a company of laughing
peasants. “He did not intend to reproduce it on canvas; it
was simply a drawing, for which he chose certain persons
whose faces seemed to him to be the most suitable. When
* “Idea del Tempio della Pittura,’ ch. xiii.
f ‘Idea,’ ch. xv.
* See A. Raczynski, “Les Arts en Portugal, Paris, 1846, p. 54.
§ ‘Idea, ch. xvi.
| “Trattato dell’Arte della Pittura, p. 360,
GROTESQUE FIGURES. 111
by the help of friends he was able to meet with these, he
invited them all to supper, and sitting down at the table
he commenced relating the maddest and most ridiculous
stories in the world, so that they all nearly split themselves
with laughing. While doing this, he carefully noted
their several peculiarities of mien and gesture, all which
he kept in his memory. When the peasants were gone,
he repaired to his studio and made a drawing of them
all, so exactly like, that whoever saw it, found it just
as ludicrous as were his side-splitting stories.” It was
also told to Lomazzo that Leonardo was fond of attend-
ing executions, in order to study the facial contor-
tions of criminals when in their death-throes, and to
watch the contraction of their eyebrows and the wrinkles
in their foreheads.” Leonardo's sketches of grotesque
figures have been copied times out of number; this
shows that at one time they were very popular. Yet
they are not caricatures as we understand the word; for
in them there is no intention to ridicule the character
of well-known persons or of certain classes of people.
Leonardo apparently drew these sketches of bizarre heads
for quite another reason; they were to help him in his own
studies. His interest in these quaint disfigurements was
chiefly anatomical; and as an artist who sought to grasp
and define the beautiful in its sublimest point, he thought
it no less necessary to gain a knowledge of the anatomy
of the hideous. The human forms, such as he shows
them, have indeed such refinement, such exquisite
spirituality, that there is but little needed in order
to produce an exactly contrary effect ; in short, it is
but the proverbial step between the sublime and the
* “Trattato dell’Arte della Pittura, p. 164.
vº
112 LEONARDO,
ſ
ridiculous. And we may well believe that where the
artist was always employed in depicting figures of such
perfect purity and holiness, he must have felt the need
of some reaction, some change which would take him
completely into another world.
No artist perhaps has ever studied anatomy so deeply
as did Leonardo. Hitherto it has been thought that
all these researches were only of interest to him
in their purely scientific character, as they are not
included in the current editions of his “Trattato
della Pittura.” Yet on an examination of the manu-
scripts which have reference to these questions, we shall
arrive at quite another conclusion.* All that he says
on the subject of osteology and the movement of muscles
possesses no less value for the student of medicine than
for the student of art. The accuracy of his anatomical
drawings have perhaps never been equalled. To each
of these drawings are marginal notes appended of an
explanatory nature, as for instance, on the one of the
muscles of the foot we read: “Those muscles of the calf
below the knee which are only employed in raising the
foot are marked m, n ; and those muscles which are used
in moving the foot sideways are marked u.” These are
questions of great importance also for artists in the
present day. The following rough notes, written upon
the back of some sketch showing various skulls in
sections, will prove to us how narrowly Leonardo studied
facial anatomy; they also testify to his thorough know-
ledge of the general grounds and principles of physiog-
nomy. “What muscle is that which causes one eye to move
* Most of the MSS. in question are in the Royal Collection at
Windsor.
HEAD OF A CHILD.
From a Drawing in the Louvre. By Leonardo.
ANATOMICAL STUDIES. 113
in such a manner that the other is obliged to move also 2
What muscle causes the eyelids to close or to open or
to droop?” &c. The heading “Anatomia" is an ever-
recurring one. Researches respecting this subject form
one portion of a work, the special title of which has
hitherto remained unknown; happily for us, however,
it has been preserved among the Windsor manuscripts.
In it we read, “on April 2nd, 1489, [I began] the book
entitled “Of the Human Figure.” Elsewhere occurs the
interesting remark, “O that it may please God to let me
also expound the psychology and the habits of man in
such fashion as I am describing his body.” ”
According to Luca Paciolo,t in the year 1498,
Leonardo had “already completed his valuable work on
painting and on the movements of the human body.”
The “Trattato della Pittura” has survived in two
editions; one is in an abridged form of only three hundred
and sixty-five chapters; the other, a detailed one, is .
comprised in nine hundred and twelve chapters. Our
knowledge of the latter is owing to Manzi's discovery in
1817 of a transcript of the original in the Vatican
library. The earliest edition of the book in its abbre-
viated form was issued in France; but not until one
hundred and thirty years after the author's death. § The
drawings for this were supplied by Nicolas Poussin.
Benvenuto Cellini, Annibale Carracci and Guido Reni
were the first artists not of the Milan School who were
* See Appendix, Note 10.
# In a letter to the Duke Lodovico, dated February 9, 1498.
f Guglielmo Manzi, ‘Trattato della Pittura di Lionardo da Vinci,”
Rome, 1817. This edition is very scarce.
§ “Trattato della Pittura di Lionardo da Vinci. In Parigi, appresso
Giacomo Langlois, MDCLI.’ -
I
114 * LEONARDO.
acquainted with the great master's writings, and which
met with their warmest praise. Nor is there any doubt
that the “Trattato della Pittura’ is also a means of
very useful instruction for the artists of to-day. In
1853 the well-known French painters Ingres, Delacroix,
Flandrin, Jouffroy and Meissonier expressed the follow-
ing opinion as to the method of teaching drawing in the
French Lycées. “The first thing to be done is to fall back
upon the authority of the old masters, whose doctrines
as to the theory and practice of art, and the way in
which it should be taught, have held good up to the
present time. Specially is this so in the case of
Leonardo da Vinci.” Of the opening chapter on Per-
spective, headed “What the young Artist in Painting
ought in the first place to learn,” it may not be thought
irrelevant to remark that this same chapter exercised so
profound an influence upon Alma Tadema when still
a young student in Holland,t that he at once adopted
the principles advocated therein; and to these he has
hitherto consistently kept. Indeed, the effect produced
by this artist's pictures is in a great measure due to
his adherence to the maxims so firmly laid down by
Leonardo.
According to the Vatican manuscript, the ‘Trattato’
is divided into eight books, being each headed as under:
1. The Nature of Painting, Poetry, Music, and Sculp-
ture.
2. Precepts for the Painter.
3. Of Positions and Movements of the Human Figure.
* See p. 116.
t There exists an old Dutch translation of Leonardo’s ‘Trattato,”
published at Amsterdam in 1582.
THE ‘TRATTATO DELLA PITTURA.’ 115
. Of Drapery.
Light and Shade and Perspective.
. Of Trees and Foliage.
. Of Clouds.
. Of the Horizon.
The highly interesting contents of the first book, which
has not yet been translated from the original, treat of
questions of a more general nature, Leonardo seeks here
to explain the advantages of the art of painting in
comparison to the “sister arts.”
Among others, Leonardo makes the following thoughtful
remarks:* “To paint with words is the province of poesy,
and in this she differs from painting; but in the present-
ment of events painting bears the palm; there is the same
difference between them as between deeds and words;
with deeds, the eye has to do, with words, the ear: the
difference is the same as that which exists between the
relative and objective faculties. For this reason I place
painting higher than poesy. The claims of the former
have, alas ! for long past met with no due recognition,
owing to those painters who lacked the eloquence to
uphold them. Painting has no need of words; her
appeal to humanity is a direct one, only to be realised
in an objective manner; whereas poesy finds in language
a resource whereby she can equally sound her own
praises.”
Leonardo places the Sense of sight in the foremost rank,
because it receives its impressions direct, the cause and
place of action being apparent. Thus sculpture and
painting, having the nearest approach to reality, should,
:
* They are omitted in Manzi’s edition of the Vatican MS. See
Jordan, “Das Malerbuch Leonardo da Vinci's, Leipzig, 1873, p. 61.
I 2
116 LEONARDO,
as he argues, take higher rank among the fine arts than
does music, which appeals to a lower sense, the effect being
only a transient one, although, in essence, she may be
acknowledged as the “younger sister of painting,” whose
harmonious proportions are no less hers. Below music
stands poesy, being a mere verbal reflex of the words and
deeds of man, with power only to speak of the actual, the
real.
For having set sculpture lower in the scale than paint-
ing, Leonardo gives the following reasons, the outcome of
his experiences in both these branches of art.
Firstly, the inferiority of sculpture is owing to its
utter dependence upon the effects to be gained from light,
we being only able to judge justly of it when placed in a
certain position; whereas painting has in itself both light
and shade. \
Secondly, with the materials at its command, sculpture
is similarly unable to give a faithful likeness of those
natural objects which it seeks to produce; painting, again,
is enabled to do this by means of colour. We may note
here, in passing, that Leonardo was no friend of poly-
chromatic decoration.*
Thirdly, although sculpture claims to having greater
durability, this seeming advantage, at most a material
one, painting can acquire at will, by making use of
substances equally imperishable, such as stone, copper,
and the like,
Fourthly, the impossibility to change or alter a work
* Somewhere in the ‘Trattato’ Leonardo praises the works of Della
Robbia (Luca della Robbia died in 1482), but we must not forget that
the early works of the terra-cotta sculpture are enamelled only in white
and blue, the white serving for the figures, the blue for the background,
THE *TRATTATO.” 117
when once finished, a common vaunt with sculptors, is
in reality no advantage at all, but the reverse; painting,
again, affords endless means towards reaching the highest
perfection. 3.
Leonardo's original manuscript of the ‘Trattato’ has
unfortunately not yet been discovered, although we shall
find the materials of it in the other numerous writings
of the master. We quote some of the more important
chapters of the abridged edition of the “Trattato.” It
begins:*
What the goung Student in Painting ought in the first place
to learn.
“The young student should, in the first place, acquire
a knowledge of perspective, to enable him to give to every
object its proper dimensions; after which, it is requisite
that he be under the care of an able master, to accustom
him by degrees to a good style of drawing the parts. Next,
he must study Nature, in order to confirm and fix in his
mind the reason of those precepts which he has learnt.
He must also bestow some time in viewing the works of
various old masters, to form his eye and judgment, in
order that he may be able to put into practice all that he
has been taught.”
The following are among the most interesting of those
* See ‘A Treatise on Painting’ by L. da Vinci, translated from the
Italian by John Francis Rigaud, R.A., London, 1877 (George Bell &
Sons). A MS. of the ‘Trattato’ which is preserved in the Penelli
Library bears the title “Discorso sopra il disegno di Leonardo Vinci.
—Parte seconda.” The genuineness of the copies of the first part dis-
covered and published by Manzi is thus confirmed. The Vatican Codex
dates only from the middle of the seventeenth century, but we may
hope that a better and more complete text will yet be discovered.
118 LEONARDO.
chapters which treat of questions of a more general
nature.
Rule for a young Student in Painting.
“The organ of sight is one of the quickest, and takes in
at a single glance an infinite variety of forms, notwith-
standing which, it cannot perfectly comprehend more than
one object at a time. . . . A young man, who has a natural
inclination to the study of this art, I would advise to act
thus: in order to acquire a true notion of the form of
things, he must begin by studying the parts which
compose them, and not pass to a second, till he has well
stored his memory, and sufficiently practised in the first;
otherwise he loses his time, and will most certainly
protract his studies; and let him remember to acquire
accuracy before he attempts quickness.”
How to discover a young Man's Disposition for Painting.
“Many are very desirous of learning to draw, and are
very good at it, who are, notwithstanding, void of a proper
disposition for it. This may be known by their want of
perseverance, like boys who draw everything in a hurry,
never finishing or shadowing.”
That a Painter should take pleasure in the Opinions of
everybody.
“A painter ought not certainly to refuse listening to the
opinions of any one, for we know that, although a man be
not a painter, he may have just notions of the forms of
men. Now, if we know that men are able to judge of the
works of Nature, should we not think them more able to
detect our errors ?”
THE ‘TRATTATO.’ 119
Of the Gracefulness of its Members.
“The members are to be suited to the body in graceful
motions, expressive of the meaning which the figure is
intended to convey. If it had to give the idea of genteel
and agreeable carriage, the members must be slender and
well turned, but not lean, the muscles very slightly
marked, indicating in a soft manner such as must neces-
sarily appear; the arms particularly pliant, and no
member in a straight line with any other adjoining
member.”
Precepts in Painting.
“Perspective is to painting what the bridle is to a
horse, and the rudder to a ship.”
Of those who apply themselves to the Practice, without having
learnt the theory of the Art.
“Those who become enamoured of the art, without
having previously applied to the diligent study of the
scientific part of it, may be compared to mariners who put
to sea in a ship without rudder or compass, and therefore
cannot be certain of arriving at the wished-for port.
Practice must always be founded on good theory: to this,
perspective is the guide and entrance, without which
nothing can be well done.”
Of those Painters who draw at home from one Light, and
afterwards adapt their studies to another situation in the
Country.
“It is a great error in some painters who draw a figure
from Nature at home, by any particular light, and after-
wards make use of that drawing in a picture representing
120 Leonando.
an open country, which receives the general light of the
sky, where the surrounding air gives light on all sides.
This painter would put dark shadows where Nature would
either produce none, or, if any, so very faint, as to be
almost imperceptible; and he would throw reflected lights
where it is impossible there should be any.”
The brilliancy of a Landscape.
“The vivacity and brightness of colour in a landscape
will never bear any comparison with a landscape in Nature
when illumined by the sun, unless the picture be placed
so as to recieve the same light from the sun itself.”
Painters are not to imitate one another.
“A painter ought never to imitate the manner of any
other; because in that case he cannot be called the child
of Nature, but the grandchild. It is always best to have
recourse to Nature, which is replete with just abundance
of objects, than to the productions of other masters, who
learnt everything from her.”
Of no other old master do we possess so many manu-
scripts as of Leonardo da Vinci. In the library of the
Institut de T’aris, there are fourteen volumes, lettered
A to M, which were brought from Italy by the French
army under Napoleon. The most famous of all, the
“Codex Atlanticus,’ is still in Milan; the only one of
which the contents have been partially published. There
are other codices in Milan belonging to different private
people. *
The manuscripts of Leonardo in England are, we may
say, as numerous and as important as all the rest pre-
served in continental collections. Most of them are at
MANUSCRIPTS AND HANDWRITING. 121
Windsor, others in the British Museum, in the South
Kensington Museum, in Lord Ashburnham's collection,
and at Holkham. Besides containing materials for the
“Trattato della Pittura, they treat of various subjects con-
nected with exact science. The manuscript in the British
Museum chiefly treats of questions of a scientific nature.
Although the preface which the artist puts at the com-
mencement of the Codex, has reference only to this par-
ticular essay, in its main characteristics it may be taken
to apply to other manuscripts as well. There we read:
“Begun at Florence, in the house of Piero di Barto
Martelli, on the 22nd March, 1505; and this can only be
a collection without order, extracted from many papers
which I have copied, hoping hereafter to arrange them in
their proper order, according to the subjects of which
they treat. I expect that before concluding this task I
shall have to repeat the same thing more than once,
wherefore, reader, do not blame me, seeing that the things
are many, and I cannot keep them in my memory, and
say, ‘This I will not write because already I have written
it.” Were I anxious to avoid falling into such an error, it
would be necessary for me when about to copy anything,
for fear of repetition, to read over all previous matter;
particularly considering that long intervals exist between
my times of writing.”
There is only one reason why so very little is known of
his manuscripts: it is the difficulty of deciphering the
handwriting. But the reproach that he intentionally kept
secret the rich treasures of his studies and discoveries by
his peculiar manner of writing from right to left, is
certainly an unjust one. The question has already been
solved by his friend, Luca Paciolo, in whose Trattato ‘De
122 LEONARDOs
Divina Proportione’ the following passages occur: “The
geometrical drawings (for this publication) have been
made by Leonardo's ineffable left hand (ineffabile sinistra
mano), well-schooled in every mathematical exercise.
One may write from the left on the reversed plan, so
that it becomes impossible to read, unless one uses a
mirror, or if one holds the reversed side of the paper
against the light, as is my custom. This is the way in
which Leonardo da Vinci, the light of the art of painting
(lume della pittura) writes, who is left handed, (quale
è mancino), as I have said several times.”
After Leonardo's death, all his manuscripts were brought
back by Francesco Melzi to Milan. His anatomical
studies, however, were not among these, for as the
anonymous biographer states, they were then in the
convent of S. Maria Novella in Florence. That their
great value was well known to the men of that time is
evident from the following letter from Albert Bandidio,
the Ferrarese ambassador at Milan to the Duke Alfonso I.
at Ferrara. It is dated Milan, March 6th, 1523:
“Melzi, Leonardo da Vinci's pupil, and executor, is
possessed of many of his secrets, besides a great number
of his memoranda and notes. I have also been told that
he paints very well himself. He is a handsome young
fellow, with no little skill in conversation. I have
several times asked him to come over to Ferrara. . . . I
believe that he has got the little manuscripts of Leon-
ardo's on anatomy, besides other charming things.”
As long as Melzi was alive, his master's papers were
in safe keeping. Of their subsequent fate Lomazzo has
told us, when writing about Leonardo's contributions to
literature, some fifty years later.
“I have seen at Francesco Melzi's the drawings done by
CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCIENCE. 123
Leonardo's own hand, in which he explains the anatomy
of the human figure and that of the horse. He has also
made diagrams of all the different proportions of the
human body. There are essays by him on perspective,
on light, directions for the construction of figures
larger than life-size, and many other writings, specially
relating to mathematical questions. Further, there is a
method for the easy removal of heavy weights, &c. Of
all these things, however, nothing has been printed.
The greater portion of his manuscripts is in the hands of
Pompei Leoni, sculptor to his Catholic Majesty the King
of Spain, who got them from Francesco Melzi's son.
Others are in the possession of Dr. Guido Mazenta.” “
After many vicissitudes, most of these manuscripts found
their way into the Ambrosian library at Milan, where
they remained from 1637 until the time of the French
Revolution.
It is now no easy task to determine the value of
Leonardo's contributions to the science of mathematics.
For, in the first place, our knowledge of what he did
in this respect is far from being adequate; and secondly,
we lack the evidence as to the extent of the knowledge
possessed by his contemporaries on this particular sub-
ject; so that we cannot tell precisely in what measure
he surpassed them. Nevertheless it must be confessed
that in more than one field he made discoveries for
which those coming after have gained the credit. He
was the first to restore those laws relating to the use
of the lever, which had been lost since the time
of Archimedes, while all those connected with statics
and hydrostatics, discovered by Stevinus some century
later, were thoroughly understood by Leonardo. According
* “Del Tempio della Pittura, p. 17.
124 LEONARDO,
to Lombardini,” we must look upon Da Vinci as the
originator of the science of hydraulics; he was convinced
of the molecular structure of water, and as Cialdi f
relates, he had already gained a knowledge of the laws
which govern the movements of waves, going so far as to
apply these principles to the theory of optics and of
acoustics. It was not Cesare Cesarini nor Cardanus,
as has been thought, but Leonardo who discovered the
camera obscura. He first trod the paths of botany and of
physiology, having been a very diligent student of the
structure and arrangement of foliage. He is supposed
to have been one of the first of European scholars who
employed the signs of plus and minus; $ it is not certain,
however, whether these may not have had their origin
in Arabia. Before Commandin and Autolycus, he calcu-
lated the method of finding the centre of gravity of
pyramids, while, in more than one geometrical discovery
he was in advance of Tartaglia.| Among his manuscripts
there are a number of designs for the construction of
machines, many of which are still in use. His saw, for
instance, is now employed in the marble-quarries of
Carrara ; and Grothe assures us that his rope-making
machine is even better than the ones now in use."
* “I)ell’Origine e del Progresso della Scienza idraulica.” Milano,
1872.
+ “Politechnico, Milano, 1873, No. 3.
ſt “Nuovo Giornale botanico, 1869. “Gazette des Beaux-Arts,’ 1877,
pp. 344–354.
§ I confess, in reading Leonardo's manuscripts, never to have met
with the sign + in the meaning of plus; he uses this figure when
writing the number 4.
| Libri, ‘Histoire des Sciences mathématiques en Italie, 2° edition,
vol. ii. pp. 10–58, 205–230.
* * Leonardo da Vincials Ingenieur und Philosoph, Berlin, 1874.
BIS LIBRARY. 125
He was also engaged with plans for the construction
of a canal in the valley of the Po, and long after his
death the course of the Arno was made to follow the
same lines as those which he had originally planned.
In France he was occupied with similar problems, even
until shortly before his death. According to Sandrart,”
he busied himself with the construction of tunnels, and
he also submitted plans to the Florentine government for
raising the Baptistery of S. Giovanni some feet higher.
Besides hand-power, Leonardo employed both water
and steam as motive forces. In the “Codex Atlanticus’
at Milan there is a sketch by him of a steam-cannon, and
also a note in which he expresses his firm conviction
that with the help of steam, a boat could also be set
in motion. In the same manuscript we find even draw-
ings of breechloading cannonst In addition to all this
he yet found time for studying the great authors of
the middle ages and of antiquity. This we can see from
the following list of books, forming probably his own
library, found among his manuscripts, of which we give
an extract :
Plinio. (Published in 1476.)
‘Bibia.’ (‘The Bible, Venetian edition, 1471.)
‘De re militari,’
Piero Crescentio. (‘De Agricultura.”)
Donato. (Published in 1499.)
Justino. (Published in 1477.)
Giová di Mädivilla. (John Maundeville’s “Travels, Italian edition.
1495.)
* De onesta volutta.”
* Sandrart, “Academia. Tedesca’: “Ut de valle in vallem iter esset.”
f I am indebted to Captain A. J. Leeson, who has kindly drawn my
attention to this. 1.
126 JEONARI)O,
Magnanello.
“Cronica Desidero.” (Paulus Diaconus 2)
“Pistole d’Ovidio.” (Italian translation, 1489.)
‘Pistole del Filelfo.” (Italian translation, 1484.)
“Spero.” (A cosmography.)
“Facetie di Pogio.” (Poggio Bracciolini of Arezzo.)
‘De Chiromatia.' (By Hartlieb 2)
“Formulario di pistole.”
* Fiore di Virtù.”
“Wite di Filosioſi.” (Diogenes Laertes.)
* Lapidario.”
“Della côservatiè della sanita.” (Arnaldo de Villanova.)
Ciecho d’Asseoli. (A poem on astronomy.)
Alberto Magnio.
* Rettoricha nova.”
Cibaldone.” (A treatise on, hygiene.)
Isopo. (AEsop's Fables.)
“Salmi.” (Psalms.)
* De Immortalità d’ Anima.” (Marsilio Ficini.)
Burchiello. (Sonnets.)
Driadeo. (Poems.)
In another place, he mentions the following books,
which he had borrowed:
From Messer Octaviano Palaviano, the Vitruvius.
From Bestucci Masliaro, “ de Calculatione.”
From Fra Bernadigio, Alberto (Magno), ‘de Coelo et Mundo.”
From Alessandro Benedetto, the book on Anatomy.
From Nicolò della Croce, the Dante.
In one of his manuscripts at the South Kensington
Museum he quotes the writings of Hippokrates. Elsewhere
we find a quotation from Augustine’s ‘De Civitate Dei.’
Geoffroy Tory wrote of Leonardo in 1524: “Leonardo
da Vinci was not only both an excellent painter and a
veritable Archimedes; he was also a very great philo-
sopher.” -
ſt
PHILOSOPHICAL MAXIMS. 127
The following extracts from his writings may serve
us in forming a general conception of his philosophical
and moral principles.
“Against injustice, long-suffering is as a garment
against the cold. For as, where the cold increases, thou
should'st double the number of thy wraps, so with the
growth of injustice should'st thou enlarge thy forbear-
ance, as by so doing it shall not harm thee.”
“Spirit is voiceless, for where there is force there is
body and where there is body there is occupation of
space . . . . Where no movement is, there can be no
voice; no percussion of air without some instrument, and
no instrument without substance. Spirit can have
neither voice, nor form, nor force. Where are no nerves .
or bones the spirit, as we imagine it, can exercise no
motive power.”
A pungent epigram, this: “Pharisees, that is to say,
friars.” In the ‘Trattato della Pittura, he styles a battle
a “bestial frenzy.”” &
Of existence he writes: “When I thought I was
learning to live, I was but learning to die.” “Long is
that life that is well spent.”.
“Just as a day well spent gives joyful sleep, so does
life well employed give joyful death.”
“Deem me not vile because I am not poor. Poor is
the man who over much desires.” f “Experience never
deceives, only man's judgment plays him false.”f
* “Pazzia bestialissima.”
f “Deh! non m'aver a vil ch'io non son povero,
Povero è quel che assai cose desidera.”
† “La experientia non falla mai, ma sol fallano i nostri giuditi.”
128 LEONARDO,
Lomazzo has bequeathed to us a sonnet, the author of
which, he says, was Leonardo. It is pleasant to think
that these were the principles which guided the great
painter throughout the course of his most wonderful life.
In English we might read them thus:
“Who cannot do as he desires, must do
What lies within his power. Wain it is
To wish what cannot be; the wise man holds
That from such wishing he must free himself.
Our joy and grief consist alike in this:
In knowing what to will and what to do.
But only he whose judgment never strays
Beyond the threshold of the right learns this.
Nor is it always good to have one's wish :
What seemeth sweet full oft to bitter turns;
Fulfilled desire hath made mine eyes to weep.
Therefore, O reader of these lines, if thou
Would'st virtuous be, and held by others dear,
Will ever for the power to do a right.”
A PP E N DIX.
NOTE 1 (p. 29).-South Kensington Museum also possesses a most
interesting early reproduction in terra-cotta of the Last Supper. It is a
Florentine alto-relievo, enamelled in proper colours (No. 3986, width
5 ft. 4 in. ; height 1 ft. 10 in.), and has been ascribed to Andrea or
Giovanni della Robbia. It is not without some difficulty that one can
recognise in this composition Leonardo's Last Supper, because in the
relievo copy the composition is shown from the reversed side. The
pattern for this was probably an old Florentine engraving, of no great
artistic significance. Another engraving of it was produced in the
Paduan school, and both are excessively rare. Like the relief in South
Kensington Museum, they were probably executed soon after the
completion of the original fresco.
In addition to the two preparatory studies for the Last Supper
mentioned on page 30, I have yet to name a very interesting one at
present in the Academy of Venice, in which the master has written the
names of the apostles over their several heads. Like all the others,
however, this drawing differs considerably from the composition as
executed in the fresco.
NoTE 2 (p. 35).-On the same sheet in the Windsor collection, which
contains the sketch here given of the Sforza Monument, we find among
others the following interesting remarks:—
“Forma del Cavallo.
“Fail cavallo sopra ghambe diferro ferme estabili in bono fondamèto
poilo inferra effagli la chappa di sopra lasciando ben Seccare assuolo
Fº
130 APPENDIX,
equesta ingrosserai tre dita dipoi arma efferra secondo il bisogno
al modo di questo chava la forma e poi falla grosseza e poi rièpi la
forma amezza a mezza coquella integra poi cosua ferri cierchialaugnila
ellarichiadi dentro dove ad andare il bronzo.
“ Del fare la forma di pezzi.
“Segnia sopra il cavallo finito tutti li pezi della forma di che tu voi
vesstire tal cavallo e nello interrare li taglia in ogni interratura accioche
quanto fu finita la forma chettu lapossi chavare e poi ricomettere al pº
locho cholli sua scontri delli contrasegni,” etc. etc.
Space does not here allow me to offer an explanation of these im-
portant sentences, which are now for the first time made public. I thus
reserve what proofs I may have for a special essay, in which I shall
seek to show that these notes of Leonardo's, as also other memoranda
made by him in his manuscripts at Windsor, will lead to a different
conclusion to that arrived at by M. Courajod respecting the vexed
question of the Sforza Monument (Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1877,
No. 330-344; L'Art 1879, No. 251-254).
NoTE 3 (p. 37).–“Aprite gli occhi, da cotesta terra non trarrete se
non opere di vili e grossi magistri . . . credetelo a me, salvo Leonardo
fiorentino, che fa il cavallo del Duca Francesco di bronzo, che non me
bisogna fare stima perchè è che fare il tempo di sua vita, e dubito che
per essere si grande opera che non la finirà mai.”
NoTE 4 (p. 60).–“ Ricordo come nel sopra detto giorno io dedi assalaj
ducati 2 doro i quali disse volersene fare un paio di calzi rosati cosua
furnimenti che restai a dare duchati 9 postto che erami debitore amme
ducati 20 coe 18 prestai a Milano e 2 a vinegia.”
NoTE 5 (p. 61).–“ Sopra dellermo fia una meza palla la quale assigni-
fichatione dello nostro emispherio in forma di modo sopra il quale sia
uno paone cholla choda disstesa chi passi la groppa richamente ornato
et ogni ornamento che al cavallo sapartiene sia di pene di paone in
champo doro assignificazione della bellezza che risulta della gratia
che viene da quello che ben serve.
“ Nello schudo uno speechio grande assignificare che se uol fauori
si spechi nella sua virtu.
“Dalloposita parte fia similamente chollochata la forteza chola sua
APPENDIX. 131
chollona ifiano vestita di biancho che significa e tutti coronati-e la
prudentia con tre occhi-la sopraveste del cavallo sia da semplice oro
tessuto seminata disspessi ochi di pagomi ecquesto siano di pertutto.
“ Dallato sinistro fia una rota il cierchio della quale sia cholocata alla
coscia di dietro del chavallo per la cavita e al detto cierchio apparia
la prudentia vestita di rosso sedente in focosa chadriga e un ramicello
di laro ifian alsignificazione della speraza.
“Et in somma fu fatto alcuna chosa.”
NoTE 6 (p. 69) –“ Ricordo come addi 8 daprile 1503 io lionardo da
vinci prestai a Nani Miniatore ducati 4 doro innoro portogli salai e
dette in sua propria mano disse rendermili infra losspatio di 40
giorni.”
NoTE 7 (p. 87). fr.
“ Spese per la (mor) socteratura di caterina . . 27
Lib 2 di cera . . . . . . . . . . 18
Per lo catalecto. . . . . . . . . . 12
Portatura e postura di croce . . . . . . 4
Per la portatura del morto . . . . . 8
Per 4 preti e 4 cerici . . . . . . . . 20
Campana li spunge . . . . . . . . 2
Per li soeterratori . . . . . . . . . 16
Allātiano . . . . . . . . . . 8
Per la liciétia ali uficial) º 1
106
In medico . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Zuchero e cadele . . . . . . . . . 12
122”
NOTE 8 (p. 95) –“Adi 16 di dicembre dove fu appicato il fuocho.
“Adi 18 di dicembre 1511, a hore 15 fu fatto questo secondo incendio
da svizeri psto a Milano al luoco dicto.”
NoTE 9 (p. 104).–“ What shall I say of Leonardo da Vinci, whom
the King of France treated with such honour, that he appointed
noblemen clad in silk and brocade to wait upon him. So great was
the monarch's love for him, that in his sickness he visited him, and
R 2
132 APPENDIX.
supported him when he lay a-dying in his arms. Thus did this
famous painter breathe his last upon the breast of the King. Honours
such as there are not for Portuguese artists.”–Francesco d'Ollanda's
Work on the Old Masters, 1549. See A. Raczynski, “Les Arts en
Portugal, Paris, 1846, p. 60.
NOTE 10 (p. 113).-“I muscoli che movano soltanto il piede nello
alzare dinanzi sono f. m n nati nella gamba dal ginochio in gueguesti
chelli piegano inversola . . . di fori son li muscoli f. u.
“Quale nervo a chagione del moto dellochio affare chel moto del-
lunochio tiri laltro; del chiudere le ciglia; dello alzare le ciglia;
dello abbassare le ciglia; dello chiudere li ochi: dello aprire liochi, etc.
“Adi 2 daprile 1489 libro titolato di figura umana.
“Eccosi piacesse al nostro alto re che io potessi dimostrare la natura
dellj omini e loro costumi nel modo che io desscrivo la sua figura.”
CHRONOLOGY OF LEONARDO DA WINCI.
–º-
1452 Born at the Castle Winci, 4.
1470 (about). He enters the studio of Werrocchio, 7.
1472 Member of the Guild of Painters at Florence, 7.
1480 Commissioned to paint the Adoration of the Kings for San Donato
at Scopeto (now in the Uffizi at Florence), 9–10.
1482 (about). Settles down at Milan, 16
1489 He begins the ‘Treatise of the Human Figure, 113.
1490 April 23, he recommences the Equestrian Statue, and begins
the ‘Treatise on Light and Shadow,’ 31.
1493 The Model of the Sforza Monument exhibited at Milan, 37.
, March 6, the German Julio enters his studio, 50.
, March 24, Galeazzo enters his studio, 50.
1595 June 30, at Florence, Member of a Commission, 70.
1497 Lodovico Sforza urges Leonardo da Vinci to complete the Last
Supper, 18.
1498 The Last Supper completed, 19.
1499 April 25, Ludovico Sforza gives him a vineyard, 54.
1500 March 13, visits Venice, 57–58.
1501 April 4, at Florence, 63.
1502 Cesare Borgia’s Decree nominates Leonardo his engineer, 64.
,, July 30, at Urbino, 66.
,, August 1, at Pesaro, 67.
,, August 8, at Rimini, 67.
,, August 11, at Cesena, 67.
, September 6, at Cesenatico, 67.
1503 April 8, at Florence, 69.
134
1504
I505
1506
1507
1508
1511
29
1514
39
1515
1516
25
1519
CHRONOLOGY OF LEONARDO DA WINCI.
Jan. 20, member of a Commission at Florence, 74.
and 1505. Prepares the Picture for the Battle of Anghiari, 75.
August 3, Jacopo the German enters his studio, 91.
April 14, Lorenzo enters his studio, 91.
Leaves for Milan, 91.
Two journeys to Florence, 94.
Oct. 12, back to Milan, 94.
March 22, at Florence in the house of Piero di Barto Martelli,
94, 121.
In the Spring, at Florence, 94. *
In December, at Milan, 95.
Sept. 24, leaves Milan for Rome, 96.
Sept. 27, at S. Angelo on the Po, 96.
At Rome, 97.
In the Autumn, with Francis the First in Northern Italy, 103.
In France, at the Château Cloux, near Amboise, 103.
April 23, he makes his will, 104.
May 2, dies, 104.
August 12, buried in the Royal chapel at Amboise, 106.
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LIST OF LEONARDO DA WINCI’S PICTURES
AND SCULPTURES.
I. PICTURES.
First Period, 1490–1500.
Florence In the Academy of Fine Arts, The Baptism of our Lord (on
panel) by Werrocchio–finished by Leonardo, 6–7.
Florence . , Uffizi, Adoration of the Kings (on panel), 9–10.
Rome . . , Pinacoteca of the Vatican, St. Jerome (on panel), 10.
Milan. . , Refectory of Sta. Maria delle Grazie, Last Supper (wall-
painting), 17–26.
London . , Royal Academy, Virgin with Holy Infant, St. Anne, and
St. John, 72–3.
Second Period, 1500–1519.
Paris . In the Louvre, Portrait of Mona Lisa, 88–89.
Charlton Park Lord Suffolk’s Collection, Madonna, Infant Christ,
St. John and an Angel (on panel), 99–100.
Paris. In the Louvre, Vierge aux, Rochers (on panel), 100.
Paris . . , Louvre, St. Anne (on panel), 100–102.
Paris . . , St. John the Baptist, 102. ~e?
II. LOST PICTURES.
First Period, 1470–1499.
Adam and Eve in Paradise (water-colour), 7.
A Monster (on a Shield), 8.
136 LIST OF PICTURES.
The Medusa, 8.
The Madonna with the Bottle containing Flowers, 8.
Neptune (cartoon), 8–9.
Altar Piece for the Palazzo Publico, 9.
Birth of Christ, for the Emperor Maximilian, 16.
Portrait of Lucrezia Crivelli, 43.
Madonna (the portrait of Cecilia Gallerani) and Infant Christ
43–44.
Annunciation of the Virgin, in the Church of St. Francesco at Milan,
44.
Second Period, 1500–1519.
Portrait of Isabella Gonzaga, 57–59.
The Madonna with the Spindle; for Robertet, 63–64.
The Battle of Anghiari, 75.
Portrait of Ginevra Benci, 89.
Two Madonna Pictures, destined for Charles d’Amboise, 94–95.
Portrait of a Child for Baldassare Turini, painted at Rome, 98.
Madonna and Child, for Baldassare Turini, painted at Rome, 98.
Leda, 103–104.
Pomona, 103–104.
III. LOST SCULPTURES.
Heads of Women and Children (in terra cotta and gypsum), 11.
Statue of Francesco Sforza, at Milan, 31–39.
Head of Christ (in terra-cotta), 45.
Bas-relief of a Horse, 45. ,
INDEX OF NAMES AND PLACES.
--4----
Page Page
Albertini, Memoriale . 80 | Francesco d'Ollanda. . . 104, 110
Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara. 122 | Francis I. . 39, 101, 102, 105
Amboise . . . . 103, 106
Amboise, Charles d’ 92, 94–95 || Galeazzo, Gian . . . . 13
Anonymous Biographer . . 4 || Gallerani, Cecilia . . . . 43
Ashburnham's, Lord, Collection 121 Ghirlandajo, Ridolfo . . . 90
Ginevra, wife of Benci . . 89
Bandello, Baccio . . . . 19
Bandinelli, Baccio. . . . 90
Bartolommeo, Fra . . . . 90
Beatrice d’Este . . . .
Beltraffio, Antonio del (pupil)
50, 96, 98
Borgia, Cesare . . . .64–66
British Museum, see London.
Catarina, Mother of Leonardo
da Vinci . . . . . .
Cellini, Benvenuto . . 82, 113
Cesare da Sesto . . . , 52
Cesena, journey to . . . . 67
Cesenatico, journey to . . 67
Charlton Park, Picture at 100
Chiusi, journey to . . . . 67
Cloux, Château 103
Credi, Lorenzo di . . . . . 5, 8
Crivelli, Lucrezia. . . . . 43, 59
Donatello . . . . . . 33
Edelinck, Gerard . . . . 80
Ercole of Ferrara . 37, 38
Fanfoia (pupil) . . . . 96
Ferrando the Spaniard (pupil) 90
Ferronière, La Belle . . . 59
Florence, Pictures at . . . 7, 9
Foligno, journey to . . . 67
Francesco di Giorgio . . . 40
Giotto, Leonardo da Vinci's
Sentence on . e is tº
Giovio, biographer . . 4
Giuliano da San Gallo . 70, 74
Gonzaga, Isabella . . 57–59, 62–63
Grimani, Antonio . . . 60
Gualtieri, Messer . . . . 44
Holkham . . . . . . 121
Ipolito d’Este .
Isabella Gonzaga .
. . 93, 94
57–59, 62–63
Jacopo the German (pupil) . 91
Julio the German (pupil) . 50
Kardi, Jafredus . . . . 79
Leo of Arezzo . . . . . 45
Ileo X., Pope . 96-98
Lippi, Filippino . 9, 73
Lisa, Mona . . 48, 58
Lomazzo tº & 51, 109
London, British Museum. 44, 46,
52, 54, 60–62, 69, 82, 91, 94, º
120
London, National Gallery 49, 50
London, Royal Academy 26,73, 101
London, South Kensington
Museum . 45, 50, 60–62, 69, 82,
91, 94, 104, 120
Lorenzo il Magnifico . . 1, 12, 96
138
Page
Lorenzo di Pavia . . . . 58
Louis XII. of France 27, 37, 39, 92
Lucensi, engraver. . . 80
Luini º 26, 49, 102
Martelli, Piero di Bartolo 94, 121
Masaccio, Leonardo's opinion of 3
Maturina . . . . . 103
Maximilian, Emperor. 16, 37, 55
Medici, Giuliano de' . . 96, 97
Medici, Lorenzo de . . 1, 12, 96
Melzi (pupil) .51, 96, 105, 122,
T 6) o
. La Lº
Michelangelo 12, 61, 74, 75, 96, 108
Milan, Ambrosian Library
Turin, Royal Library.
INDEX OF NAMES AND PLACES.
Page
Raffaello d'Antonio di Biagio 90
Raphael . . . . . . 108
Riccio di Santa Croce (pupil) "
Rimini, Journey to . . .
Robertet a o 63, 64
Rome, Journey to . . 69, 96
Rome, Vatican Library . 113, 114
Rome, Vatican Pinacoteca . 10
Rouen, Cardinal of . . . 38
Royal Academy, see London.
Rubens . . . . . 26, 80
Rustici (pupil). .89-90
Salai . 50, 51, 60, 62, 94, 96, 105
Savonarola . . . . . 70
Sforza, Francesco . . . 31, 39
Sforza, Lodovico 12, 13, 18, 54-56
Sforza, Maximilian 95, 96, 103
Siena, Journey to . . . . 67
Soderini, Piero. . 79-80
South Kensington, see London.
Stange, Marchesino . .
. 100, 107
Turini, Baldassare . . 98
Urbino, Journey to . . . 66
Vasari, Life of Leonardo da
Vinci . . . . . 3, et passim
Venice, Academy . 46, 47
Venice, Journey to . . 57-64
Verrocchiol . . . . 5-7, 33, 62
Vilanis, Battista de . 103, 105
Vinci, Giuliano da . 105
Vinci, Piero Antonio da . . 4, 87
Weimar, Collection of the
Grand Duchess of . . .
Windsor, Royal Library . 10, 28,
30, 33, 46, 50, 62, 67, 68, 95,
100, 112, 120
Zoroastro of Peretola . . . 50
123, 125
Milan, Brera . . . . .
Milan Cathedral . . . . 41
Milan, San Francesco. . 44
Milan, S. Maria delle Grazie,
Refettorio . . . . 17, 21
Morghen, Raphael . 18, 26
Nanni, Miniature-Painter . 69
National Gallery, see London,
Nuvolaria, Petrus de . 62-63
Oggionno, Marco d' 25, 26, 50
Orvieto, visited by the artist. 67
Paciolo, Luca
Pandolfini . º
Paris, Institut de France. . 120
Paris, Louvre . 30, 45, 50, 59,
88-89, 100-102
Pavia, Journey to . . . . 40
Perugia, Journey to . . . 67
19, 50, 69-70, 89
Pesaro, Journey to. . . . 67
Pietrini (pupil) . . . . 26
Piombino, Journey to . . . 67
Pontormo . . . . . . 90
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