Intellectual and artistic revival in Lombardy--Lodovico and his
secretaries--Building of the new University of Pavia--Reforms and
extension of the University--The library of the Castello
remodelled--Poliziano and Merula--Lodovico founds new schools at
Milan--Equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza--Leonardo's paintings at
Milan--Lodovico as a patron of art and learning.
1492
The year 1492 was one of great enterprises. The intellectual and
artistic movement which Lodovico Sforza had inaugurated was now in full
vigour, and the fruits of his wise and enlightened rule began to appear
in every direction.
"Now that the wars were ended," writes Corio, "an era of peace and
prosperity began, and everything seemed on a firmer and more stable
foundation than it had ever been in times past. The court of our princes
was most splendid, full of new fashions, rich clothes, and endless
delights. Here Minerva and Venus vied with each other, while beautiful
youths and maidens came to learn in the school of Cupid, Minerva held
her gentle academy in Milan, and that illustrious prince, Lodovico
Sforza, brought men of rare excellence from the furthest ends of Europe
at his expense. Here the learning of Greece shone, together with the
prose and verse of the Latin race. Here the muses of poetry, and the
masters of sculpture reigned supreme; here came the most distinguished
painters from distant regions; here night and day were heard sounds of
such sweet singing, and such delicious harmonies of music, that they
seemed to descend from heaven itself."
Foremost among the "men of singular merit" whom Lodovico attracted to
his court and retained in his service, were his two secretaries,
Bartolommeo Calco and Jacopo Antiquario of Perugia. Both were men of
great learning and discernment, fired with the same passion for arts and
letters as their master, and as liberal as he was in assisting poorer
scholars. Calco was Lodovico's right hand and chief adviser in his great
schemes for beautifying cities and palaces. He delivered his orders to
the countless artists in his employment, arranged court festivities and
generally conducted the duke's correspondence. Jacopo Antiquario was
more purely a scholar, who protected other men of letters, and helped
them generously in time of need. His honest nature and kindly actions
made him singularly beloved, and a contemporary describes him as the
most learned of good men, and the best of learned men; while his
intimate friend, the great printer, Aldo Manuzio, has immortalized his
memory in the beautiful epistle in which he dedicates the Moralia of
Plutarch to this man, whose name, he prays, may go down to future ages
linked with his own. Both of these secretaries proved able assistants in
the great revival of art and learning which is Lodovico's lasting title
to fame. Chief among these was the reform and extension of the
University of Pavia. During the troubled times that followed Galeazzo
Sforza's death, this ancient University had sunk to a very low ebb. The
professors remained unpaid, and in many cases ceased to lecture, the
buildings were small and inconvenient and the students lawless and
riotous. Lodovico set himself with a stern hand to repress abuses on the
one side, while on the other he grudged neither time nor money in
promoting the cause of learning. A letter which he addressed to the
students from Vigevano in August, 1488, only a few weeks before the
dangerous illness which almost ended his life, deserves to be quoted, if
only as an example of the attention which he gave to every detail of
administration.
"Not a day passes," he writes, "but I hear of some fresh misconduct on
your part, some crime committed or some uproar excited in the city, by
you who are scholars of the University. Even last Holy Week your
behaviour towards certain gentlemen and citizens of Pavia was justly the
cause of scandal and complaint. Such things are not to be borne, nor do
I intend to bear them any longer. Schools are intended for learning, and
the object of all study and learning is that we may know how to live
well, and, by our good conduct and fair lives, gain honour and praise
both in the eyes of God and man. We do not see that the human and divine
laws, in which you are daily instructed, produce any good effect if you
can behave as you have done in this case towards peaceable citizens,
especially in these holy days when the fear of God should, above all,
control your ways and actions. If you thus neglect the laws of good
living, nothing but confusion can be the result. And know that, unless
you speedily return to better ways, and show more respect for our holy
religion, and more honourable treatment of our honest citizens, no love
of learning will induce me to countenance such misconduct. For to
repress crime, keep Italy in peace, and maintain the honour of our
illustrious lord duke, is the first and chief object of our endeavours."
Meanwhile, Lodovico neglected no means of improving the condition of
both professors and scholars of the University. In 1489, the magnificent
new Ateneo which he had planned was completed, and the different schools
of medicine, jurisprudence, fine arts and letters, were brought together
under the same roof. The most distinguished foreign scholars were
invited to occupy the different professional chairs, their salaries were
raised and their numbers increased. Giasone del Maino, who was professor
of law at Pavia for fifty-two years, and whose reputation as jurist
attracted students from all parts of the world, received the large
salary of 2250 florins at this time, while Giorgio Merula of Alessandria,
the historian, who for many years was professor of rhetoric at the
University, and received only 375 florins in 1486, had his salary
raised in 1492 to 1000 florins. Next to the law schools, that of
medicine was the most noted for its excellence at Pavia, and among its
distinguished professors were Alvise Marliani, who was said to rival
Aristotle in philosophy, Hippocrates in medicine, and Ptolemy in
astronomy, and who was court-physician in turn to Lodovico Sforza, to
his son Maximilian, and to the Emperor Charles V.; and Ambrogio of
Varese, who occupied the chair of astrology, and taught the science of
Almansor, as it was termed. This favourite servant of the Moro received
the title of Count and the castle and lands of Rosate from Gian Galeazzo
in 1493, "for his services," so ran the patent, "in saving my illustrious
uncle the Duke of Bari's life." Oriental study was another branch of
learning that Lodovico especially encouraged. Count Teseo de'Albonesi of
Pavia became noted as the first Chaldaic scholar of his age, and in 1490,
the Moro established a chair of Hebrew, and appointed the Jew Benedetto
Ispano to be the first professor, with express injunctions to study the
text of the Bible. This experiment, however, proved a failure, and so few
scholars attended his lectures that at the end of a year the chair was
abolished. At the same time, new colleges were opened, and scholarships
founded for poor students; and in 1496, Lodovico being then reigning Duke
of Milan, granted the professors of law, medicine, philosophy and fine
arts, an exemption from all taxation. Under his fostering care the
University flourished as it had never flourished before. Scholars from
all parts of Europe came to attend Giasone di Maino's lectures, the
number of professors reached ninety: that of students was said to be
three thousand. As the Milanese poet Lancinus Curtius sang in his Latin
rhymes, "The fair-skinned Germans with their long hair flowing on their
necks, the English and the knights from Gaul, the Iberian from the golden
sands of Tagus, all hasten thither from the far North. The rude Pannonian
lays aside his military cloak to join the eager throng who crowd into the
virgin temple and seek the Helicon of Phoebus under the carved dome of
wisdom, which bears Lodovico's name above the stars."
But the Moro patronage of learning was by no means limited to Pavia. He
did his utmost to revive the ancient University of Milan, which had long
fallen into decay, and founded new and flourishing schools in this city.
The best Pavian professors Merula and the Greek Demetrius Calcondila
amongst others, were invited to lecture to the Milanese students. Fra
Luca Pacioli of Borgo San Sepolcro, the famous mathematician, came to
teach them geometry and arithmetic, and Ferrari occupied the first chair
of history ever founded in Italy, while the priest Gaffuri became the
first public instructor in the new school of music. In short, as a
contemporary writes, there was not a science of any description that
could not be learnt at Milan in the days of Lodovico Sforza.
The endowment of research was another point in which Lodovico showed
himself to be in advance of his age. He granted liberal pensions to
Bernardino Corio and Tristano Calco, "the Milanese Livy," who continued
the history of the Visconti begun by the Alessandria professor and
addressed letters in his own hand to the private owners of valuable
manuscripts, requesting the loan of works that would assist these
writers of Lombard history, "in order that a perpetual memory of the
great deeds done by our ancestors may be preserved for future
generations." From his earliest years history had been one of Lodovico's
favourite studies, and an illuminated volume of extracts from Greek and
Roman history which he compiled under his tutor Filelfo's direction at
the age of fifteen may still be seen in the library of Turin. And in
riper years, amid all the pressure of State affairs and political
anxieties, he never let a day pass without having some passages from
ancient and modern history read aloud to him by his secretaries. So wise
and enlightened a prince well deserved the high praise bestowed upon him
by the Bolognese scholar, Filippo Beroaldo, and the great Florentine,
Angelo Poliziano, with whom Lodovico frequently exchanged letters, and
who in one of his effusions thus addresses his princely friend: "All the
world knows you to be a prince of brilliant genius and singular wisdom,
while above all others you cherish the noble arts and show your love for
these intellectual studies which we profess." The jealousy of his own
subjects was often roused by the favour with which Lodovico regarded
scholars of other nationalities, and on one occasion a fierce quarrel
arose between Merula and Poliziano, in which the Lombard historian
stooped to the vilest personalities. Another Pavian professor with whom
he had a controversy over certain commentaries of Martial, had, it
appears, ventured to hint that Merula did not really know Greek, an
insinuation which provoked the most violent display of anger on his
part, and when Poliziano endeavoured to appease both parties, the
affronted Lombard flew at him like a small terrier attacking some big
mastiff. All Lodovico's tact and courtesy were needed to allay the
storm, and when at length Merula died in 1494, the duke ordered the
immediate destruction of all the papers relating to this deplorable
controversy, of which all parties, he felt, had good reason to be
ashamed. The remodelling of the library of the Castello di Pavia was
another important work which was carried out in the year 1492, by
Tristano Calco the historian and kinsman of the chief secretary, under
the eye of Lodovico himself, while he and Beatrice spent the summer at
Pavia. All the rare and precious manuscripts which he had been at such
pains to collect in France and Italy and Germany, and the ancient books
contained in the library were catalogued and arranged for the use of
students. For Lodovico was not only bent on enriching the ducal library,
but was determined to make its treasures accessible to scholars of all
nationalities. He allowed contemporary historians, Corio, Merula, and
Tristan Calco himself, to borrow manuscripts freely, and, what was even
more admirable in those days of persecution, gave permission under his
own hand and seal to a Jewish scholar, named Salomone Ebreo, to live in
the Castello with his family, in order that he might translate Hebrew
manuscripts into Latin for the promotion of theological studies, and
also be enabled to study the text of the Hebrew Bible belonging to the
library.
It is melancholy to reflect on the sad fate of this priceless
collection, upon which Lodovico and his ancestors had expended so much
care and thought. In 1499, the bulk of the library of the Castello was
carried off to Blois by Louis XII. and its precious contents were
dispersed. Some were taken to Fontainebleau by Francis I. and afterwards
by Henry Quatre to Paris, where they are still the glory of the
Bibliothèque Nationale. Others again found their way into different
public and private collections, and may be seen at Madrid and St.
Petersburg, in London and Vienna, still bearing the inscription "De
Pavye au roi Louis XII.," which tells us that they once formed part of
the Sforza Library. An illuminated manuscript of Aulus Gellius, and
another of the "Triumphs" of Petrarch, encircled with miniatures and
bearing Lodovico's name, which originally belonged to the same
collection, are among the treasures of the Bibliothèque Nationale. Many
more no doubt have disappeared, lost in the general anarchy and
confusion which prevailed in the Milanese during the century after the
Moro's fall.
The newly discovered art of printing was also liberally encouraged by
Lodovico, one of whose _protégés_, Alessandro Minuziano, set up a
printing press in Milan before Aldo Manuzio had settled in Venice, and
in the course of the year 1494, published twenty-two books, including a
Latin dictionary by Dionigi Este and complete editions of Cicero and
Tacitus, Pliny and Suetonius, as well as the works of Filelfo and the
Sonnets and Triumphs of Petrarch. In 1496, a treatise on music by
Franchino Gaffuri was published, with a dedication to the duke, and was
followed by the appearance of several works on harmony.
The munificence of Lodovico stirred up others to follow his example. His
secretary Bartolommeo Calco founded free schools, where Greek and Latin
professors lectured free of charge to poor Milanese students; and two
other noblemen, Tommaso Grassi and Tommaso Piatti, endowed similar
institutions. The new passion for learning spread from Milan and Pavia
to other cities, and even Lombard villages had their public schools and
lecturers. Everywhere the same thirst for knowledge was felt and the
same respect for scholars was shown. For as Signor Lodovico wrote to his
friend Poliziano, at Florence, "Both natural inclination and the example
of our ancestors have inspired us with ardent love for learned men and
an eager desire to honour and reward them to the best of our power."
If the intellectual movement which took place during the twenty years of
Lodovico Moro's rule in Milan commanded general admiration; if learning
flourished there as it had never done before, the widespread revival of
art in Lombardy was a still more remarkable feature of the period. This
indeed was the province in which Lodovico's true genius was most
apparent, and in which his own fine taste, vast power of organization
and minute attention to detail, all made themselves felt and bore rich
fruit. "This," wrote Isabella d'Este--herself no mean judge of these
matters--from Lodovico's court, "is the school of the Master and of
those who know, the home of art and understanding."
Throughout the Milanese, architects and engineers, painters and
sculptors, with a host of minor craftsmen, were carrying out the vast
projects that emanated from this one man. The decoration of the capital
was naturally among the chief objects of his ambition.
"In the year 1492," writes the chronicler Cagnola, "this glorious and
magnanimous prince adorned the Castello di Porta Zobia with many fair
and marvellous buildings, enlarged the Piazza in front of the Castello,
and removed obstructions in the streets of the city, and caused them to
be painted and beautified with frescoes. And he did the same in the city
of Pavia, so that both these towns, that were formerly ugly and dirty,
are now most beautiful, which things are very laudable and excellent,
especially in the eyes of those who remember these cities as they were
of old, and who see them as they are to-day."
Chief among Lodovico's most honoured and trusted servants was Bramante
of Urbino, whose genius excited so marked an influence on the
development of Lombard architecture, and who was to the builders what
Leonardo became to the painters of Milan. "Signor Lodovico loved
Bramante greatly, and rewarded him richly," writes Fra Gaspare Bugati, a
Dominican friar of S. Maria delle Grazie, the Moro's favourite church,
which this great architect did so much to beautify. During this year,
Bramante, having finished the palace of Vigevano and completed the new
buildings at the royal villas of Abbiategrasso, Cuzzago and other
places, upon which he had been long engaged, began several important
works in Milan itself. The new cloister or Canonica attached to the
ancient basilica of S. Ambrogio, with its graceful columns and
dark-green marble capitals, and the apse of S. Maria delle Grazie, soon
to be crowned with that matchless cupola that remains among Bramante's
most perfect works, were both begun in 1492. A few years before, between
1485 and 1490, he had built the Baptistery of San Satiro, which another
of Lodovico's chosen artists, the great Como sculptor, Caradosso, was
now engaged in modelling the lovely terra-cotta frieze of children and
the medallions bearing, it is said, his own portrait and that of
Bramante. The noble church of S. Maria presso San Celso, which in
Burckhardt's opinion combines magnificence and simplicity better than
any building of the Renaissance, was the work of Bramante's assistant,
Dolcebuono, and owed its erection to the munificence of Lodovico, who
laid the first stone in 1491. Nor were churches and palaces the only
buildings upon which Lodovico lavished his gold and employed his most
distinguished masters. In those days, the hospitals of Rome, Florence,
Venice and Siena were the finest in Europe, and when Luther visited
Rome, he is said to have been more impressed by the size and splendour
of the hospitals, than by anything else in Italy. The great Moro,
determined not to allow Milan to remain behind his age in this respect,
employed Bramante to adorn the Gothic buildings of the Ospedale Maggiore
with the arched windows and stately porticoes that we still admire,
while he encircled the cloisters with marble shafts and terra-cotta
mouldings after his own heart. And in 1488, after his own recovery from
illness, and that terrible visitation of the plague which had carried
off fifty thousand inhabitants of Milan in six months, Lodovico founded
the vast Lazzaretto, which still deserves its proud title, and may well
be called a "glorious refuge for Christ's poor."
Meanwhile the works of the Duomo of Milan, that other great foundation
of the Visconti dukes, were being vigorously carried on. In 1481,
Lodovico had nominated his favourite Pavian master, Amadeo, the
architect of the Certosa, as Capomaestro in succession to Guiniforte
Solari; but the Councillors of the Fabric declined to accept his
suggestion, and sent to Strasburg for a German architect, John
Nexemperger of Graz, who held the office for some years, but effected
little, and was finally dismissed in 1486. After his departure, the
ruinous state of the central cupola requiring immediate attention,
Lodovico invited Luca Fancelli, the chief architect of the Gonzagas at
Mantua, to visit Milan, and by his advice Leonardo, Bramante, and other
leading masters were invited in 1487 to design models for a new cupola.
On this occasion Leonardo executed a model, which, however, does not
seem to have satisfied the Fabbricieri, and after applying in vain to
his ambassador in Rome and Florence for a master able and willing to
undertake the task, Lodovico returned to his first choice, and appointed
Amadeo and Dolcebuono, architects of the Duomo, with powers to alter and
perfect the models of the cupola submitted to them for inspection. In
order to strengthen their hands and satisfy himself, Lodovico invited
Luca Fancelli of Mantua and Francesco Martini of Siena to decide on the
respective merits of the models already prepared. Caradosso was sent to
conduct Martini from Siena, while Gaffuri, Professor of Music, escorted
Fancelli from Mantua by the duke's orders, and both masters were richly
rewarded for the pains and presented with silken vests and clothes for
their servants over and above the pay to which they were entitled.
On the 27th of June, 1490, a meeting was held in the Castello, at which
Lodovico presided, and after much deliberation the final execution of
the cupola was entrusted to Amadeo and Dolcebuono. Bramante himself was
not present on this occasion, but he approved highly of the model
selected, and praised its lightness and elegance.
As for Leonardo, he was absorbed in other studies, and had apparently
ceased to take any interest in the subject. After allowing his first
model to be spoilt, and receiving payment for a second which he never
began, he had, as already mentioned, accompanied the Sienese architect,
Martini, to Pavia, to give his opinion on the new Duomo in course of
erection. There he lingered, studying anatomy or discussing scientific
and philosophical questions with the University professors, until he was
recalled to Milan, to assist in the preparations for Beatrice's wedding
_fêtes_. Many and varied were the tasks on which Leonardo had been
employed since the day, some eight years before, when the Magnificent
Medici first sent him to his friend at Milan. In the letter which the
young master, proudly conscious of his powers, himself addressed to
Lodovico Sforza, offering him his services, he had, first of all,
retailed at length his different inventions "for the construction of
bridges, cannons, engines, and catapults of fair and useful shape
hitherto unknown, but of admirable efficiency in time of war," after
which he proceeded to give the following account of his artistic
capacities:--
"In time of peace I believe I can equal any man in constructing public
buildings and conducting water from one place to another. I can execute
sculpture, whether in marble, bronze, or terra-cotta, and in painting I
am the equal of any master, be he who he may. Again, I will undertake to
execute the bronze horse to the immortal glory and eternal honour of the
duke, your father, of blessed memory, and of the illustrious House of
Sforza. And if any of the things I have mentioned above should seem to
you impossible and impracticable, I will gladly make trial of them in
your park, or any other place that may please your Excellency, to whom I
commend myself in all humility."
The master had kept his word, and justified the confidence which from
the first Lodovico Sforza placed in him. According to Vasari and the
biographer of the Magliabecchiana, who wrote about 1540, Leonardo
originally attracted the Moro's notice by the surpassing charm with
which he played on a silver lyre of his own invention, and afterwards
fascinated him by his conversation. But from the moment of his arrival
at Milan the Florentine artist was employed by his new master to paint
portraits and frescoes, to construct canals, arrange masques and
pageants, or invent mechanical contrivances for use on the stage or in
the house. A thousand different studies in his sketch-books and
manuscripts bear witness to the strange variety of subjects upon which
his versatile genius was brought to bear. But the most important work
upon which Leonardo was engaged, and that which lay nearest to Lodovico
Sforza's heart, was the equestrian statue of Duke Francesco Sforza.
This, we learn from the master's own words, was the true reason that
brought him to Milan. In a letter to the Fabbricieri of the Duomo of
Piacenza, he describes himself as Leonardo the Florentine whom Signor
Lodovico brought to Milan to make the bronze horse, and says that he can
undertake no other task, for this will fill his whole life, if indeed it
is ever finished! Countless were the designs, endless the different
forms which the great master made for this model, which was, after all,
never to be cast in bronze, and was destined to perish by the hands of
French archers. At one time it seemed as if he could neither satisfy
himself nor yet his master. In July, 1489, Pietro Alamanni, one of
Lorenzo de' Medici's agents, wrote to ask his master if he could send
another artist capable of executing the work to the Milanese court.
"Signor Lodovico," he says, "wishes to raise a noble memorial to his
father, and has already charged Leonardo da Vinci to prepare a model for
a great bronze horse, with a figure of Duke Francesco in armour. But
since His Excellency is anxious to have something superlatively fine,
he desires me to write and beg you to send him another master, for
although he has given the work to Leonardo, he does not feel satisfied
that he is equal to the task."
Probably Lodovico's confidence had been shaken by Leonardo's endless
delays and hesitation, but a few months later the master was at work
again, this time it appears on a completely new model of the great
statue. On April, 1490, we find the following memorandum in Leonardo's
writing:--
"To-day I commenced this book, and began the horse again."
But soon another interruption came to interfere with the progress of the
great work. There was the visit to Pavia, and the decoration of the
ball-room in the Castello, and the wedding _fêtes_, and the tournaments
in which Messer Galeazzo sought his help. And in this year--1492--we
find Leonardo at Vigevano with the Moro in March, making designs for a
new staircase for the Sforzesca, and studying vine-culture, and later in
the summer drawing plans of a bath-room for Duchess Beatrice, and of a
pavilion with a round cupola for the duke's labyrinth in the gardens of
the Castello. It was in this same year, according to Amoretti, that he
finished the beautiful painting of the Holy Family, upon which he had
long been engaged. This may have been the picture ordered by Lodovico as
a gift for the art-loving King of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus, when his
niece Bianca Maria was betrothed to that monarch's son.
"Since we hear that His Majesty delights in pictures," wrote Lodovico to
Maffeo di Treviglio, the ambassador whom he was sending to Hungary in
1485, "and we have here a most excellent painter, with whose genius we
are well acquainted, and who, we are sure, has no equal, we have ordered
this master to paint a figure of Our Lady, as beautiful and perfect and
holy as he can imagine, without sparing pains or expense. He has already
set to work, and will undertake nothing else until this picture is
finished, and we are able to send it as a gift to his said Majesty."
The painter who had no equal could be none other than Leonardo; but it
would be interesting to know if this picture, originally destined for
Matthias Corvinus, was the Nativity eventually given by Lodovico in 1493
to Bianca Maria's future husband, the Emperor Maximilian. All traces of
this altar-piece, however, as well as of the Bacchus and other subjects
which Leonardo painted for the Moro, have vanished; and the only works
that remain to us of his Milanese period are the cartoon of the Virgin
and St. Anne now in the Royal Academy, and the "Vierge aux Rochers" in
the Louvre, which was originally painted between 1490 and 1494 for a
chapel in San Francesco of Milan, the church where the great Condottiere
Roberto di Sanseverino was piously buried by his sons, after his death
in the battle of Trent. The fame which Leonardo had attained, and the
high esteem in which he was held by the Moro, is proved by the verses of
contemporary poets, and especially by those of his fellow-countryman,
Bellincioni, the court-poet who died in 1492.
"To-day," he sings, "Milan is the new Athens! Here Lodovico holds his
Parnassus; here rare and excellent artists flock as bees to seek honey
from the flowers; here, chief among them all, is the new Apelles whom he
has brought from Florence." In the volume of Bellincioni's Sonnets,
published soon after his death by the priest Francesco Tanzio, the name
Magistro Leonardo da Vinci appears in a marginal note, and in another
sonnet inscribed to "Four illustrious men who have grown up under the
shadow of the Moro," the editor gives the respective names of these
famous individuals as "the painter Maestro Leonardo Florentino, the
goldsmith Caradosso, the learned Greek scholar Giorgio Merula, called
the sun of Alessandria, and Maestro Giannino, the Ferrarese
gun-founder."
"Rejoice, O Milano," sings the poet in these verses--"rejoice above all,
that within your walls you hold one who is foremost among excellent
artists, Da Vinci, whose drawing and colouring are alike unrivalled by
ancient or modern masters."
The fact that Lodovico was able to keep this great master at his court
during so long a period is the best proof we have of his knowledge of
men and love of art. These sixteen years were the most brilliant and
productive of Leonardo's life. Never again was he to enjoy a freedom
and independence so complete, never again was he to find a master as
generous, as stimulating to his powers of brain and hand as the great
Moro. It was not only that Signor Lodovico gave him the large salary of
2000 ducats--about £4000 of our money--"besides many other gifts and
rewards," as Leonardo himself told Cardinal de Gurk, but that he was
himself so fine a connoisseur and understanding a patron. More than
this, he knew how to deal with men of genius, and could make allowance
for their wayward fancies, and humour their caprices with infinite tact
and kindliness. And from the little that we glean of his intercourse
with Leonardo, he seems to have treated him rather as an equal than as a
subject, and more like a friend than a servant.
The glimpses that we catch of Leonardo's private life from the writings
of contemporaries, whether in Bandello's _novelle_, or in Bellincioni's
_rime_, all give the same pleasant impression, and show the ease and
liberty which he enjoyed at the court of Milan. And in his own
"Trattato" (Cap. 36) the painter describes himself as living in a fine
house, full of beautiful paintings and choice objects, surrounded by
musicians and poets. Here he sits at his work, handling a brush full of
lovely colour, never so happy as when he can paint listening to the
sound of sweet melodies. The spacious atelier is full of scholars and
apprentices employed in carrying out their master's ideas or making
chemical experiments, but careless of the noise of tools and hammers,
the fair-haired boy Angelo sings his golden song, and Serafino the
wondrous _improvisatore_ chants his own verses to the sound of the lyre.
Visitors come and go freely--Messer Jacopo of Ferrara, the architect who
was "dear to Leonardo as a brother," the courtly poet Gaspare Visconti,
and Vincenzo Calmeta, Duchess Beatrice's secretary, or, it may be, the
great Messer Galeaz himself, whose big jennet and Sicilian horse the
master has been drawing as models for the great equestrian statue
standing outside in the Corte Vecchia. There, among them all, the
painter bends over his canvas seeking to perfect the glazes and scumbles
of his pearly tints, or trying to realize some dream of a face that
haunts his fancy with its exquisite smile. He has, it is true, many
labours--"_a tanta faccenda!_" as he wrote to the councillors of
Piacenza--and at times he hardly knows which way to turn, but he is his
own master, free to work as he will, now at one, now at another. He has
no cares or anxiety. He can dress as he pleases, wear rich apparel if he
is so minded, or don the plain clothes and sober hues that he prefers.
He has gold enough and to spare; he can help a poorer friend and educate
a needy apprentice, or save his money for a rainy day; and, above all,
he has plenty of books and leisure to meditate on philosophical
treatises, or ponder over the scientific problems in which his soul
delights. He can find time to jot down his thoughts on many things, to
write his great treatise on painting, and to draw the wonderful
interlaced patterns inscribed with the strange words which have puzzled
so many generations of commentators. And he has friends, too, dear to
his heart--Messer Jacopo, and the wise Lorenzo da Pavia, that master of
organs whose hands were as deft in fashioning lyres and viols as in
drawing out sweet sounds, with whom he loved to commune of musical
instruments and eternal harmonies, and the boy Andrea Salai, with the
beautiful curling hair, whom he loved to dress up in green velvet
mantles, and shoes with rose-coloured ribbons and silver buckles.
"Such," he tells us, "was I, Leonardo the Florentine, at the court of
the most Illustrious Prince Signor Lodovic." And what the Moro was to
Leonardo that he showed himself to other artists and men of letters. In
the poet's words, he was the magnet who drew men of genius (_virtuosi_)
from all parts of the world to Milan. He might be an exacting and
critical master, he was certainly never satisfied with any work short of
the best--even Leonardo, we have seen, did not always find him easy to
please--but once he discovered a man who was excellent in any branch of
knowledge, he thought no cost too great to retain him at his court. And
so the foremost scholars and the finest artists, Giorgio Merula and
Lancinus Curtius, Caradosso and Cristoforo Romano, Bramante and
Leonardo, were all drawn to Milan in turn, and, having once entered the
Moro's service, remained there until the end.
"We know, O most illustrious Prince!" wrote Tanzio in his preface to
Bellincioni's Sonnets--"we know that you, the Chief of the Insubrians,
are no less a lover of your country than of your glorious father, in
whose honour you have reared that mighty and immortal work, the great
Colossus, which, like himself, remains without a rival. We see you
equally anxious to glorify both his memory and your own great city. We
see Milan, by your care, not only adorned with peace and wealth, with
noble churches and edifices, but with rare and admirable intellects, who
all turn to you in their hour of need, as the rivers flow into the vast
ocean."
Nor was it only in Milan and Pavia that this revival made itself felt.
The new impulse spread from city to city. The lovely Renaissance façade
of S. Maria dei Miracoli at Brescia was completed in 1487, and the great
Church of the Incoronata at Lodi, begun in 1488, was continued during
the next twenty years under the superintendence of Dolcebuono and
Amadeo. Bramante supplied designs for the new façade and portals that
were added to the cathedral of Como in 1491, and for the majestic church
of Abbiategrasso, close to this favourite country house of the Sforzas.
A number of other churches, both in Milan and the neighbourhood, were
designed by him or his scholars, and bear witness to the revolution
which he had effected in Lombard architecture. At Piacenza and Cremona,
at Saronno and Lugano, new churches and palaces arose, and the famous
Sanctuary of Varallo in the Val Sesia was founded in 1491 by that devout
personage, Messer Bernardino Caimo, on his return from a pilgrimage to
the Holy Land. The same passion for building and decoration prevailed
everywhere. On all sides poets and scholars celebrated Lodovico's name
as the Pericles of this new Athens, and joined in the chorus of praise
which inspired Pistoia's famous line--
"E un Dio in cielo e il Moro in terra."
"There is one God in heaven and the Moro upon earth."