Two centuries elapsed from Cimabue to Lionardo da Vinci. The most
distinguished artists in this interval were Giotto, who immediately
followed Cimabue, and Masaccio, who immediately preceded Lionardo; but,
although we can trace a gradual improvement from the infancy of Tuscan
art to the surprising works of Masaccio, in the Chiesa del Carmine, at
Florence, (works which afterwards Raffaelle himself did not disdain to
imitate,) the appearance of Lionardo may be justly considered the
commencement of a new æra. Vasari, who composed his lives of the
painters when the most excellent specimens of the art had been recently
produced, emphatically calls the style of Giorgione, Titian, Correggio,
and Raffaelle, “the modern manner,” as opposed to that of Mantegna,
Signorelli, and others, and still more to that of Lippi, Giovanni da
Fiesole, and the earlier masters. Of this “modern manner,” Lionardo da
Vinci was the inventor. His chiaro-scuro is to be traced in the magic
and force of Correggio and Giorgione; his delicate and accurate
delineation of character, and his sweetness of expression, reappear in
Raffaelle; while, in anatomical knowledge and energetic design, he is
the precursor of Michael Angelo; but we should look in vain for the
teacher from whom he derived these excellences. The original genius, of
which this affords so striking a proof, was apparent in every thing to
which he applied his mind; and not only every art, but almost every
science that was studied in his time, seems to have engaged his
attention. He was conversant in chemistry, geometry, anatomy, botany,
mechanics, astronomy, and optics; and there is scarcely a subject which
he touched in which he did not, in more or less important points,
anticipate the discoveries of later philosophers. With these astonishing
powers of mind, he possessed great personal beauty and a captivating
eloquence; the first musician of his time, and an accomplished
improvisatore, he excelled besides in all manly exercises, and was
possessed of uncommon strength. This extraordinary man was born at
Vinci, a small burgh, or castle, of Val d’Arno di Sotto, in the year
1452. He was the son of one Piero, a notary of the Signoria of Florence.
His father, who had at first intended to educate him for a mercantile
life, having noticed his wonderful capacity and his particular fondness
for drawing, placed him with Andrea Verocchio, originally a sculptor,
but who, with the versatility of his age, was occasionally a designer
and painter.
Vasari relates, that Verocchio being occupied on a picture of the
Baptism of Christ, Lionardo was permitted to paint an accessory figure
of an angel in the same work. Verocchio, perceiving that his own
performance was manifestly surpassed by that of his young scholar,
abandoned the art in despair, and never touched a pencil again. Although
Lionardo thus excelled his master while a boy, and soon enlarged the
boundaries of the art, it is justly observed by Lanzi that he retained
traces of the manner and even general tastes of Verocchio all his life.
Like his master, he studied geometry with ardour; he was fonder of
design than painting: in his choice of form, whether of face or limb, he
preferred the elegant to the full. From Verocchio too he derived his
fondness for drawing horses and composing battles, and from him imbibed
the wish to advance his art by doing a few things well, rather than to
multiply his works. Verocchio was an excellent sculptor; in proof of
which the S. Tommaso at Or San Michele, in Florence, and the equestrian
statue before S. Giovanni e Paolo, in Venice, may be adduced. Lionardo
modelled the three statues, cast in bronze by Il Rustici, for S.
Giovanni at Florence, and the colossal equestrian statue of the first
Francesco Sforza, (destroyed by the French before it was cast,) at
Milan. To his knowledge of sculpture must be also greatly attributed
that roundness and relief which he infused into many of his pictures,
and which had hitherto been wanting in the art. To this period of
Lionardo’s life belong the Medusa’s head, now in the Florence gallery;
the cartoon of Adam and Eve; a Madonna, once in the Borghese palace in
Rome, known by the accompaniment of a crystal vase of flowers; a triumph
of Neptune; and other works mentioned by Vasari. Some of the feebler
pictures ascribed to him in Rome and Florence may also belong to this
time. His genius for mechanics had already manifested itself: he
invented machines for sinking wells, and lifting and drawing weights;
proposed methods for boring mountains, cleansing ports, and digging
canals. His architectural schemes too were numerous and daring: with the
boldness of an Archimedes, he offered to lift the Baptistery, or church
of S. Giovanni, in the air, and build under it the basement and steps
which were wanting to complete the design. It does not appear that his
fellow-citizens availed themselves of these powers in any memorable
work; but his plan for rendering the Arno navigable seems to have been
adopted two centuries afterwards by Viviani.
Lionardo remained at Florence till about the age of thirty, after which
we find him at Milan, in the service of Lodovico Sforza, known by the
name of Lodovico il Moro. The artist’s residence at the court of this
prince, from 1482 to 1499,[2] may be considered the most active and the
most glorious period of his life. Lodovico il Moro, whatever may have
been his character as a potentate and as a man, certainly gave great
encouragement to literature and the arts, and the universal genius of
Lionardo was in all respects calculated for the restless enterprise of
the time. A letter is preserved, addressed by him to Lodovico Sforza, in
answer to that prince’s first invitation, (and it is sufficient to
disprove Vasari’s story, that the artist recommended himself by his
performance on the lute,) in which he gives a list of such of his
qualifications as might be serviceable to the Duke. After an account of
new inventions in mining operations and gunnery, with a description of
bridges, scaling ladders, and “infinite things for offence,” in the
tenth and last item, he professes competent knowledge of architecture
and hydrostatics, confident that he can “give equal satisfaction in time
of peace;” and adds, “I will also execute works of sculpture in marble,
bronze, or clay; in painting too I will do what is possible to be done,
as well as any other man, whoever he may be.” All his powers were put in
requisition by the Duke of Milan. The warlike habits of the sovereigns
of Italy at this time rendered the science and services of the engineer
particularly useful, and Lionardo was constantly inventing arms and
machinery for attack and defence. He was engaged in the architecture of
the cathedral; he superintended all the pageants and masques, then so
commonly conducted with splendour and taste in the Italian courts, and
in some of which his knowledge of mechanics produced almost magical
effects; he improved the neighbourhood of the Ticino by canals and
irrigation, and attempted to render the Adda navigable between Brivio
and Trezzo. The colossal equestrian statue before-mentioned occupied
him, at intervals, for many years; want of means alone, it seems,
prevented the Duke from commissioning him to cast it in bronze. The
model existed till the invasion of Milan by Louis XII., in 1499, when it
was broken to pieces by his Gascons.
Footnote 2:
The erroneous dates of Vasari have been corrected in this particular
by Amoretti.
As the founder of the Milanese Academy, the first, in all probability,
established in Italy, Lionardo composed his Treatise on Painting; which
Annibale Carracci declared would have saved him twenty years of study
had he known it in his youth. This work was first published in Paris, in
1651, by Raffaelle Dufresne, and was illustrated with engravings from
drawings by N. Poussin, with some additions by Errard. The drawings of
Poussin were in a MS. copy, which belonged to the Cavaliere del Pozzo.
To this last object were directed the studies of Lionardo in optics,
perspective, anatomy, libration, and proportion. In this active period
of his life also were composed the numerous MS. books, explained by
designs, which appear to have comprised specimens of the whole range of
his vast knowledge. Thirteen of these books became the property of the
Melzi family of Milan, on the death of Lionardo. The history and
vicissitudes of these interesting works cannot now be accurately traced.
The documents and observations of Dufresne, Mariette, and others, have
been collected by Rogers, in his “Imitations of Drawings by the Old
Masters.” Six or seven books, which cannot be accounted for after having
been collected by one Pompeo Leoni, are supposed to have become the
property of Philip II. of Spain. Some of the remaining volumes,
augmented by less voluminous MSS. of Lionardo, were presented to the
Ambrosian Library by Galeazzo Arconato. The inscription which records
this donation, in 1637, states, that Arconato had been offered 3000
pistoles of gold by a king of England, (probably Charles I., and not
James I., as Addison, Wright, and latterly Amoretti, suppose,) but which
he, Arconato, “regio animo,” had refused. Another volume was presented
to the Ambrosian Library by its founder, the Cardinal Borromeo; and
Amoretti states, that another, containing drawings relating to
hydrostatics, was sold “al Signor Smith, Inglese.” The whole of the MSS.
of Lionardo, preserved in the Ambrosian Library, were taken from Milan
to Paris, in 1796. A large folio volume of Lionardo’s Drawings,
collected by the above-mentioned Pompeo Leoni, is in this country, in
His Majesty’s collection. On its cover is inscribed, “Disegni di
Lionardo da Vinci, restaurati da Pompeo Leoni:” it contains 779
drawings, various in subject and execution; the most remarkable are,
perhaps, some accurate anatomical drawings. The whole are illustrated,
like the contents of his other books, by notes written with his left
hand, which can only be read through a glass. This volume was
discovered, at the bottom of a large chest, about sixty years ago, by
Mr. Dalton, the librarian of George III.; and in the same chest were
Holbein’s drawings of the principal personages of the court of Henry
VIII. It is supposed that they were placed there for security by Charles
I., who retained a sincere love for the arts even in his misfortunes.
Lionardo’s works in painting during his residence in Milan were by no
means numerous, owing to the quantity and variety of his occupations.
The portraits of Cecilia Gallerani and Lucrezia Crivelli, done in the
earlier part of this period, received unbounded praises from the poets
of the day. A picture of the Virgin and Child, St. John, and St.
Michael, now in the possession of the Sanvitali family of Parma, is
dated 1492. The portraits of Lodovico Sforza, his wife and family, were
painted on the wall of the refectory in the Convent delle Grazie, where
the Last Supper was afterwards painted. These portraits faded, owing to
the damp of the wall, soon after they were done. Other works, in the
same place, are mentioned by some writers as having been done on
canvass, but they all perished from the same cause. A colossal Madonna,
painted on a wall at the villa of Vaprio, belonging to the Melzi family,
still exists, but it was much injured during the last occupation of
Milan by the French. The paintings on the walls of the castle of Milan
were destroyed by invaders of the same nation, in 1499. Various
portraits, and a half figure of St. John, are preserved in the Ambrosian
Library.
In 1496, Lionardo began his greatest work, the Last Supper, in the
refectory of the Convent delle Grazie: it was painted on the wall in
oil, to which circumstance Lanzi, and others who have followed him,
attribute its premature decay. But had it been in fresco, it would
probably have suffered as much, since that part of Milan, where the
convent stands, has frequently been subject to inundations; and so late
as 1800, the floor, or rather ground, of the refectory, was several feet
under water for a considerable time. The walls have thus been never free
from damp: fifty years only after the picture was painted, Armenini
describes it as half decayed. Vasari found it indistinct and faded.
Later writers speak of it as a ruined work; and in 1652, the friars of
the convent showed how worthless it was considered, by cutting a door
through the wall, and thus destroyed the lower extremities of some of
the figures. In 1726, a painter, named Bellotti, was unfortunately
commissioned to restore it, and it appears that he almost covered the
work of Lionardo with his own. The dampness, however, soon reduced the
whole to its former faded state; and the next restorer, one Mazza, in
1770, actually scraped the wall (from which the original colour was
chipping) to have a smooth surface to paint on, and even passed a coat
of colour over the figures before he began his operations. Three heads
were saved from his retouchings; but it must be evident that very little
of the original work can be visible in any part. Bonaparte ordered that
the place should not be put to military uses; but his commands were not
attended to in his absence, and the refectory was long used as a stable.
The building however was finally repaired, and, as far as possible,
secured from damp. Fortunately numerous copies were made from this
painting soon after it was done, and one of the best, by Marco de
Oggiono, or Uggione, a scholar of Lionardo, is in this country, in the
Royal Academy, where is also preserved a cartoon of the Virgin and St.
Anne, by Da Vinci himself. Uggione’s copy, from which the print by Frey
was taken, is nearly the size of the original; it was, however, enlarged
from a smaller copy, so that it cannot be considered very accurate. The
head of the Christ is inferior even to the ruins of Lionardo’s work; and
it may here be observed, that when Vasari says this head was declared
unfinished by the painter, the imperfection is to be understood in the
same sense in which Virgil spoke of the incompleteness of the Æneid. Two
series of original studies for the heads in this picture are in this
country; the greater part of one series is in the possession of Messrs.
Woodburn. The print by Morghen was done from drawings taken from the
original painting.
After the fall of Lodovico il Moro, in 1500, Lionardo returned to
Florence, where he remained thirteen years, occasionally revisiting
Milan. Among his first works done in Florence, at this time, Vasari
names the above-mentioned cartoon of the Madonna and Child, St. Anne,
and the Infant St. John, and a portrait of Genevra Benci. At this period
too he produced the celebrated portrait of Mona, or Madonna Lisa, wife
of Francesco del Giocondo. This was the labour of four years, and this
too, Vasari says, was left at last imperfect. We may thus understand the
meaning of the expression, as applied to the head of the Christ in the
Last Supper. The portrait of Mona Lisa, now in the Louvre, is most
highly wrought, although it by no means agrees with the absurd encomiums
of Vasari, who almost leads his reader to believe that the hair of the
eyebrows and pores of the skin are perceptible, whereas the execution
resembles rather the broad softness of Correggio. His next work was the
celebrated cartoon, of which the composition known by the name of the
Battle of the Standard was a part only. The subject was the defeat of
Nicolo Piccinino, the general of Filippo Maria Visconti, by the
Florentines, near Anghiara, in Tuscany, in the year 1440. This was to
have been painted in the Council Hall, at Florence, in competition with
Michael Angelo, whose rival work was the celebrated composition known by
the name of the Cartoon of Pisa. Lionardo’s attempt to paint in oil on
the wall failed in this instance, even in the commencement, and the
picture was never done. The large cartoon disappeared, but a drawing for
a part of it was preserved, which was published in the Etruria Pittrice,
and the same group was engraved by Edelinch, from a copy, or rather free
imitation, by Rubens. To this period belong also his own portrait in the
Ducal Gallery, at Florence; the half figure of a nun, in the Nicolini
Palace; the Madonna, receiving a lily from the infant Christ; the
Vertumnus and Pomona, miscalled Vanity and Modesty, in the Sciarra
Palace at Rome; a holy family, now in Russia; the supposed portrait of
Joan of Naples, in the Doria Palace; and the Christ among the Doctors,
formerly in the Aldobrandini Palace at Rome. His numerous imitators
render, however, all decision as to the originality of some of these
works doubtful; and the last-mentioned picture, now in the National
Gallery, has been thought, by more than one writer, to have been, at
least in part, painted by his scholars. A portrait of the celebrated
Captain, Giangiacomo Triulzio, may have been painted in one of
Lionardo’s short visits to Milan. For a fuller list of his works,
Amoretti, and the authors he quotes, may be referred to.
In 1514, after the defeat of the French at Novara, Lionardo, being then
at Milan, left that city for Rome, passing through Florence. His stay in
Rome was short. Pope Leo X. seems to have been prejudiced against him by
the friends of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle, and was displeased at his
dilatory, or rather desultory habits. From the notes of Lionardo
himself, collected by Amoretti, it appears that, while in Rome, he
improved the machinery for the coinage; but the only certain painting of
his done at this time is a votive picture on the wall of a corridor in
the Convent of S. Onofrio.
Francis I., who succeeded Louis XII. in 1515, having reconquered the
Milanese, Lionardo again repaired to Milan, and once more superintended
a pageant, in this instance intended to celebrate the triumph of the
king after the victory of Marignano. Francis, having in vain attempted
to remove the painting of the Last Supper from Milan to Paris, desired,
at least, to have the painter near him. Lionardo accepted the
invitation, and afterwards accompanied his new patron to France. This
being little more than two years before the death of Lionardo, and as he
was occupied in planning canals in the department of the Cher et Loire,
he painted nothing, although the king repeatedly invited him to execute
his cartoon of the Virgin and St. Anne, which was afterwards painted by
Luini. His usual residence in France was at Cloux, a royal villa near
Amboise, in Touraine, where he died, May 2, 1519. The story of his
having expired in the arms of Francis I., which, as Bossi observes, does
more honour to the monarch than to the artist, appears to be without
foundation. Francesco Melzi, who wrote an account of Lionardo’s death
from Amboise soon after it happened, not only does not mention the
circumstance, but was the first, according to Lomazzo, to inform the
king himself of the artist’s decease; and Venturi has ascertained, that
on the day of Lionardo’s death the court was at St. Germain en Laye. He
was buried in the church of St. Florent, at Amboise, but no memorial
exists to mark the place; and it is supposed that his monument, together
with many others, was destroyed in the wars of the Hugonots.
The accounts given of Lionardo da Vinci by Vasari, Lomazzo, and the
older writers, were repeated by Dufresne, De Piles, Felibien, and
others. The more recent and accurate researches of Amoretti, prefixed to
Lionardo’s Trattato della Pittura, in the thirty-third volume of the
“Classici Italiani;” of Bossi, “Del Cenacolo di Lionardo da Vinci;” and
of Venturi, “Essai sur les Ouvrages Physico-Mathématiques de Léonard da
Vinci, avec des fragmens tirés de ses manuscrits apportés de l’Italie;”
may be consulted for further particulars respecting the life and works
of this great man.
[Illustration:
[Group from the Battle of the Standard.]
]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by W. T. Fry._