studies so extensive, the mind of Leonardo does not appear to have
been so wholly occupied or absorbed in them as to incapacitate him
from attending at the same time to other objects also; and the Duke
therefore being desirous of ornamenting Milan with some specimens of
his skill as a painter, employed him to paint in the refectory of the
Dominican convent of Santa Maria delle Gratie, in that city, a picture,
the subject of which was to be the Last Supper. Of this picture it
is related, that Leonardo was so impressed with the dignity of the
subject, and so anxious to answer the high ideas he had formed of it in
his own mind, that his progress was very slow, and that he spent much
time in meditation and thought, during which the work was apparently
at a stand. The Prior of the convent, thinking it therefore neglected,
complained to the Duke; but Leonardo assuring the Duke that not less
than two hours were every day bestowed on it, he was satisfied.
Nevertheless the Prior, after a short time, finding the work very
little advanced, once more applied to the Duke, who in some degree of
anger, as thinking Leonardo had deceived him, reprimanded him in strong
terms for his delay. What Leonardo had scorned to urge to the Prior in
his defence, he now thought fit to plead in his excuse to the Duke, to
convince him that a painter did not labour solely with his hands, but
that his mind might be deeply studying his subject, when his hands were
unemployed, and he in appearance perfectly idle. In proof of this, he
told the Duke that nothing remained to the completion of the picture
but the heads of our Saviour and Judas; that as to the former, he had
not yet been able to find a fit model to express its divinity, and
found his invention inadequate of itself to represent it: that with
respect to that of Judas, he had been in vain for two years searching
among the most abandoned and profligate of the species for an head
which would convey an idea of his character; but that this difficulty
was now at length removed, since he had nothing to do but to introduce
the head of the Prior, whose ingratitude for the pains he was taking,
rendered him a fit archetype of the perfidy and ingratitude he wished
to express. Some persons have said[i32], that the head of Judas in the
picture was actually copied from that of the Prior; but Mariette denies
it, and says this reply was merely intended as a threat[i33].
A difference of opinion has also prevailed concerning the head
of our Saviour in this picture; for some have conceived it left
intentionally unfinished[i34], while others think there is a gradation
of resemblance, which increasing in beauty in St. John and our Saviour,
shews in the dignified countenance of the latter a spark of his divine
majesty. In the countenance of the Redeemer, say these last, and in
that of Judas, is excellently expressed the extreme idea of God made
man, and of the most perfidious of mortals. This is also pursued in the
characters nearest to each of them[i35].
Little judgment can now be formed of the original beauty of this
picture, which has been, and apparently with very good reason, highly
commended. Unfortunately, though it is said to have been in oil, the
wall on which it was painted not having been properly prepared, the
original colours have been so effectually defaced by the damp, as
to be no longer visible[i36]; and the fathers, for whose use it was
painted, thinking it entirely destroyed, and some years since wishing
to heighten and widen a door under it, leading out of their refectory,
have given a decided proof of their own want of taste, and how little
they were sensible of its value, by permitting the workmen to break
through the wall on which it was painted, and, by so doing, entirely
to destroy the lower part of the picture[i37]. The injury done by the
damp to the colouring has been, it is true, in some measure repaired by
Michael Angelo Bellotti, a painter of Milan, who viewing the picture
in 1726, made an offer to the Prior and convent to restore, by means
of a secret which he possessed, the original colours. His proposition
being accepted, and the experiment succeeding beyond their hopes, the
convent made him a present of five hundred pounds for his labour, and
he in return communicated to them the secret by which it had been
effected[i38].
Deprived, as they certainly are by these events, of the means of
judging accurately of the merit of the original, it is still some
consolation to the lovers of painting, that several copies of it made
by Leonardo's scholars, many of whom were very able artists, and at a
time when the picture had not been yet injured, are still in existence.
A list of these copies is given by P. M. Guglielmo della Valle, in his
edition of Vasari's Lives of the Painters, in Italian, vol. v. p. 34,
and from him it is here inserted in the note[i39]. Francis the First
was so charmed on viewing the original, that not being able to remove
it, he had a copy made, which is now, or was some years since, at St.
Germains, and several prints have been published from it; but the best
which has yet appeared (and very fine it is) is one not long since
engraven by Morghen, at Rome, impressions of which have found their way
into this country, and been sold, it is said, for ten or twelve guineas
each.
In the same refectory of the Dominicans at Milan is, or was, also
preserved a painting by Leonardo, representing Duke Lodovic, and
Beatrix his duchess, on their knees; done no doubt about this
time[i40]. And at or near this period, he also painted for the Duke the
Nativity, which was formerly, and may perhaps be still, in the Emperor
of Germany's collection[i41].
As Leonardo's principal aim, whenever he was left at liberty to pursue
the bent of his own inclination, seems to have been progressive
improvement in the art of painting, he appears to have sedulously
embraced all opportunities of increasing his information; and wisely
perceiving, that without a thorough acquaintance with anatomy, a
painter could effect but little, he was particularly desirous of
extending his knowledge in that branch. For that purpose he had
frequent conferences on the subject with Marc Antonio della Torre,
professor of anatomy at Pavia[i42], and not only was present at many
dissections performed by him, but made abundance of anatomical drawings
from Nature, many of which were afterwards collected into a volume by
his scholar Francisco Melzi[i43].
Such perseverance and assiduity as Leonardo's, united as they were
with such uncommon powers as his, had already formed many artists at
that time of distinguished reputation, but who afterwards became still
more famous, and might probably have rendered Milan the repository
of some of the most valuable specimens of painting, and raised it to
a rank little, if at all, inferior to that which Florence has since
held with the admirers of the polite arts, had it not happened that by
the disastrous termination of a contest between the Duke of Milan and
the French, all hopes of further improvement were entirely cut off;
and Milan, at one blow, lost all the advantages of which it was even
then in possession. For about this time the troubles in Italy began
to break in on Leonardo's quiet, and he found his patron, the Duke,
engaged in a war with the French for the possession of his dukedom;
which not only endangered the academy, but ultimately deprived him both
of his dominions and his liberty; as the Duke was, in 1500, completely
defeated, taken prisoner, and carried into France, where, in 1510, he
died a prisoner in the castle of Loches[i44].
By this event of the Duke's defeat, and the consequent ruin of the
Sforza family, all further progress in the canal of Martesana, of which
much still remained to be done[i45], was put a stop to; the academy
of architecture and painting was entirely broken up; the professors
were turned adrift, and the arts banished from Milan, which at one
time had promised to have been their refuge and principal feat[i46].
Italy in general was, it is true, a gainer by the dispersion of so many
able and deeply instructed artists as issued from this school, though
Milan suffered; for nothing could so much tend to the dissemination
of knowledge as the mixing such men among others who needed that
information in which these excelled. Among the number thus separated
from each other, we find painters, carvers, architects, founders,
and engravers in crystal and precious stones, and the names of the
following have been given, as the principal: Cesare da Sesto, Andrea
Salaino, Gio. Antonio Boltraffio, Bernardino Lovino, Bartolommeo della
Porta, Lorenzo Lotto[i47]. To these has been added Gio. Paolo Lomazzo;
but Della Valle, in a note in his edition of Vasari, vol. v. p. 34,
says this last was a disciple of Gio. Battista della Cerva, and not of
Leonardo. Du Fresne mentions besides the above, Francis Melzi, Mark
Uggioni Gobbo, an extraordinary painter and carver; Annibal Fontana,
a worker in marble and precious stones; and Bernazzano, an excellent
painter of landscapes; but omits Della Porta, and Lorenzo Lotto.
In 1499, the year before Duke Lodovic's defeat, Leonardo being at
Milan, was employed by the principal inhabitants to contrive an
automaton for the entertainment of Lewis XII. King of France, who was
expected shortly to make a public entry into that city. This Leonardo
did, and it consisted of a machine representing a lion, whose inside
was so well constructed of clockwork, that it marched out to meet the
King, made a stand when it came before him, reared up on its hinder
legs, and opening its breast, presented an escutcheon with fleurs de
lis quartered on it[i48]. Lomazzo has said that this machine was made
for the entry of Francis the First; but he is mistaken, that prince
having never been at Milan till the year 1515[i49], at which time
Leonardo was at Rome.
Compelled by the disorders of Lombardy, the misfortunes of his patron,
and the ruin of the Sforza family, to quit Milan, Leonardo betook
himself to Florence, and his inducements to this resolution seem to
have been the residence there of the Medici family, the great patrons
of arts, and the good taste of its principal inhabitants[i50], rather
than its vicinity to the place of his birth; for which, under the
circumstances that attended that event, it is not probable he could
entertain much, if any predilection. The first work which he here
undertook was a design for an altar-piece for the chapel of the college
of the Annunciati. Its subject was, our Saviour, with his mother, St.
Ann, and St. John; but though this drawing is said to have rendered
Leonardo very popular among his countrymen, to so great a degree, that
numbers of people went to see it, it does not appear that any picture
was painted from it, nor that the undertaking ever proceeded farther
than a sketch of a design, or rather, perhaps, a finished drawing. When
Leonardo some years afterwards went into France[i51], Francis the First
was desirous of having a picture from this drawing, and at his desire
he then put it into colours; but whether even this last was a regular
picture, or, which is more probable, only a coloured drawing, we are
not informed.
The picture, however, on which he bestowed the most time and labour,
and which therefore seems intended by him as the completest specimen of
his skill, at least in the branch of portrait-painting, was that which
he did of Mona Lisa, better known by the appellation of la Gioconda, a
Florentine lady, the wife of Francisco del Giocondo. It was painted for
her husband, afterwards purchased by Francis the First, and was till
lately to be seen in the King of France's cabinet. Leonardo bestowed
four entire years upon it, and after all is said to have left it
unfinished[i52].
This has been so repeatedly said of the works of this painter, that we
are here induced to inquire into the evidence of the fact. An artist
who feels by experience, as every one must, how far short of the ideas
of perfection he has formed in his own mind, his best performances
always fall, will naturally be led to consider these as but very
faint expressions of his own conceptions. Leonardo's disposition to
think nothing effected while any thing remained to be done, and a
mind like his, continually suggesting successive improvements, might
therefore, and most probably did produce in him an opinion that his own
most laboured pieces were far from being finished to that extent of
beauty which he wished to give them; and these sentiments of them he
might in all likelihood be frequently heard to declare. Comparing his
productions, however, with those of other masters, they will be found,
notwithstanding this assertion to the contrary, as eminent in this
particular also, as for the more valuable qualities of composition,
drawing, character, expression, and colouring.
About the same time with this of la Gioconda, he painted the portraits
of a nobleman of Mantua, and of la Ginevra, a daughter of Americus
Benci[i53], much celebrated for her beauty; and is said to have
finished a picture of Flora some years since remaining at Paris[i54];
but this last Mariette discovered to be the work of Melzio, from the
circumstance of finding, on a close inspection, the name of this last
master written on it[i55].
In the year 1503, he was elected by the Florentines to paint their
council-chamber. The subject he chose for this, was the battle against
Attila[i56]; and he had already made some progress in his work,
when, to his great mortification, he found his colours peel from the
wall[i57].
With Leonardo was joined in this undertaking, Michael Angelo, who
painted another side of the room, and who, then a young man of not
more than twenty-nine, had risen to such reputation, as not to fear a
competition with Leonardo, a man of near sixty[i58]. The productions of
two such able masters placed in the same room, begun at the same time,
and proceeding gradually step by step together, afforded, no doubt,
occasion and opportunity to the admirers and critics in painting to
compare and contrast with each other their respective excellencies and
defects. Had these persons contented themselves simply with comparing
and appreciating the merits of these masters according to justice and
truth, it might perhaps have been advantageous to both, as directing
their attention to the correction of errors; but as each artist had his
admirers, each had also his enemies; the partisans of the one thinking
they did not sufficiently value the merit of their favourite if they
allowed any to his antagonist, or did not, on the contrary, endeavour
to crush by detraction the too formidable reputation of his adversary.
From this conduct was produced what might easily have been foreseen;
they first became jealous rivals, and at length open and inveterate
enemies[i59].
Leonardo's reputation, which had been for many years gradually
increasing, was now so firmly established, that he appears to have been
looked up to as being, what he really was, the reviver and restorer of
the art of painting; and to such an height had the curiosity to view
his works been excited, that Raphael, who was at that time young, and
studying, thought it worth his while to make a journey to Florence in
the month of October 1504[i60], on purpose to see them. Nor was his
labour lost, or his time thrown away in so doing; for on first seeing
the works of Leonardo's pencil, he was induced to abandon the dry and
hard manner of his master Perugino's colouring, and to adopt in its
stead the style of Leonardo[i61], to which circumstance is owing no
small portion of that esteem in the art, to which Raphael afterwards
very justly arrived.
His father having died in 1504[i62], he in consequence of that event
became engaged with his half-brothers, the legitimate sons of Pietro
da Vinci, in a law-suit for the recovery of a share of his father's
property, which in a letter from Florence to the Governor of Milan,
the date of which does not appear, he speaks of having almost brought
to a conclusion[i63]. At Florence he continued from 1503 to 1507[i64],
and in the course of that time painted, among other pictures of less
note, a Virgin and Child, once in the hands of the Botti family; and
a Baptist's head, formerly in those of Camillo Albizzi[i65]; but in
1508, and the succeeding year, he was at Milan, where he received a
pension which had been granted him by Lewis XII.[i66]; and in the
month of September 1513, he, in company with his scholar Francesco
Melzi, quitted Milan[i67], and set out for Rome (which till that
time he had never visited), encouraged perhaps to this resolution by
the circumstance that his friend Cardinal John de Medicis, who was
afterwards known by the assumed name of Leo X. had a few months before
been advanced to the papacy[i68]. His known partiality to the arts, and
the friendship which had subsisted between him and Leonardo, held out
to the latter a well-founded expectation of employment for his pencil
at Rome, and we find in this expectation he was not deceived; as, soon
after his arrival, the Pope actually signified his intention of setting
him to work. Upon this Leonardo began distilling oils for his colours,
and preparing varnishes, which the Pope hearing, said pertly and
ignorantly enough, that he could expect nothing from a man who thought
of finishing his works before he had begun them[i69]. Had the Pope
known, as he seems not to have done, that oil was the vehicle in which
the colours were to have been worked, or been witness either to the
almost annihilation of the colours in Leonardo's famous picture of the
Last Supper, owing to the damp of the wall, or to the peeling of the
colours from the wall in the council-chamber at Florence, he probably
would have spared this ill-natured reflection. If it applied at all,
it could only be to a very small part of the pursuit in which Leonardo
was occupied, namely, preparing varnish; and if age were necessary
to give the varnish strength, or it were the better for keeping, the
answer was in an equal degree both silly and impertinent; and it is no
wonder it should disgust such a mind as Leonardo's, or produce, as we
find it did, such a breach between the Pope and him, that the intended
pictures, whatever they might have been, were never begun.
Disgusted with his treatment at Rome, where the former antipathy
between him and Michael Angelo was again revived by the partisans of
each, he the next year quitted it; and accepting an invitation which
had been made him by Francis the First, he proceeded into France[i70].
At the time of this journey he is said to have been seventy years
old[i71], which cannot be correct, as he did not live to attain that
age in the whole. Probably the singularity of his appearance (for in
his latter years he permitted his beard to grow long), together with
the effect which his intense application to study had produced in his
constitution, might have given rise to an opinion that he was older
than he really was; and indeed it seems pretty clear, that when he
arrived in France he was nearly worn out in body, if not in mind,
by the anxiety and application with which he had pursued his former
studies and investigations.
Although the King's motive to this invitation, which seems to have been
a wish to profit by the pencil of Leonardo, was completely disappointed
by his ill state of health, which the fatigues of his journey and the
change of the climate produced, so that on his arrival in France no
hopes could be entertained by the King of enriching his collection
with any pictures by Leonardo; yet the French people in general, and
the King in particular, are expressly said to have been as favourable
to him as those of Rome had been injurious, and he was received by the
King in the most affectionate manner. It was however unfortunately too
soon evident that these symptoms of decay were only the forerunners of
a more fatal distemper under which for several months he languished,
but which by degrees was increasing upon him. Of this he was sensible,
and therefore in the beginning of the year 1518, he determined to make
his will, to which he afterwards added one or more codicils. By these
he first describes himself as Leonardo da Vinci, painter to the King,
at present residing at the place called Cloux, near Amboise, and then
desires to be buried in the church of St. Florentine at Amboise, and
that his body should be accompanied from the said place of Cloux to
the said church, by the college of the said church, and the chaplains
of St. Dennis of Amboise, and the friars minor of the said place; and
that before his body is carried to the said church, it should remain
three days in the chamber in which he should die, or in some other; he
further orders that three great masses and thirty lesser masses of St.
Gregory, should be celebrated there, and a like service be performed
in the church of St. Dennis, and in that of the said friars minor.
He gives and bequeaths to Franco di Melzio, a gentleman of Milan, in
return for his services, all and every the books which he the testator
has at present, and other instruments and drawings respecting his art:
To Baptista de Villanis, his servant, the moiety of the garden which
he has without the walls of Milan; and the other moiety of the said
garden to Salay his servant. He gives to the said Francesco Meltio the
arrears of his pension, and the sum of money owing to him at present,
and at the time of his death, by the treasurer M. Johan Sapin; and to
the same person all and singular his clothes and vestments. He orders
and wills, that the sum of four hundred crowns of the sum which he has
in the hands of the chamberlain of Santa Maria Nuova, at Florence,
should be given to his brethren residing at Florence, with the profit
and emolument thereon. And lastly, he appoints the said Gia. Francesco
de Meltio, whole and sole executor[i72].
This Will bears date, and appears to have been executed on the 23d of
April 1518. He however survived the making of it more than a year;
and on the 23d of April 1519[i73], the day twelvemonth on which it
had been originally made, he, though it does not appear for what
reason, re-executed it; and the next day added a codicil, by which he
gave to his servant, Gio. Battista de Villanis, the right which had
been granted him in return for his labours on the canal of Martesana,
of exacting a certain portion of all the wood transported on the
Ticino[i74].
All this interval of time between the making and re-execution of his
will, and indeed the whole period from his arrival in France, he seems
to have been struggling under an incurable illness. The King frequently
during its continuance honoured him with visits; and it has been said,
that in one of these Leonardo exerting himself beyond his strength,
to shew his sense of this prince's condescension, was seized with
a fainting fit, and that the King stooping forward to support him,
Leonardo expired in his arms, on the 2d of May 1519[i75]. Venturi has
taken some pains to disprove this fact, by shewing[i76], that though in
the interval between the years 1516 and 1519, the French court passed
eleven months at different times at Amboise; yet on the 1st of May
1519, it was certainly not here, but at St. Germains. History, however,
when incorrect, is more frequently a mixture of true and false, than
a total fabrication of falsehood; and it is therefore not impossible,
or improbable, that the King might shew such an act of kindness in
some of his visits when he was resident at Amboise, and that Leonardo
might recover from that fit, and not die till some time after; at which
latter time the Court and the King might be absent at St. Germains.
This is surely a more rational supposition than to imagine such a fact
could have been invented without any foundation for it whatever.
It is impossible within the limits that can here be allowed, to do any
thing like justice to the merits of this extraordinary man: all that
can in this place be effected is to give the principal facts respecting
him; and this is all, therefore, that has been attempted. A sufficient
account, however, at least for the present purpose, it is presumed has
been given above of the Author, and the productions of his pencil, and
it now remains therefore only to speak of those of his pen.
With what view the Author engaged in this arduous course of study,
how eager he was in the pursuit of knowledge, how anxious to avail
himself of the best means of obtaining complete information on every
subject to which he applied, and how careful to minute down whatever he
procured that could be useful, have been already shewn in the course
of the foregoing narrative; but in order to prevent the necessity of
interrupting there the succession of events, it has been reserved for
this place to describe the contents and extent of his collections, and
to give a brief idea of the branches to which they relate.