Leonardo; and yet, like certain vulgar natures, it enjoys rude health where the man of genius languishes and dies. The Last Supper is a ruin; the Crucifixion has preserved all its original brilliance of colour.1 I am far from denying that on the whole, his sojourn in Lombardy exercised a profound effect upon Leonardo's style; but, in the change, nature counted for much, art for little, if for anything at all. Compared with the Tuscan landscape, that of Upper Italy, and particularly that

of the province of Milan, is as exuberant as the other is proud and graceful; the country is clothed with an abundant vegetation, and intersected by innumerable water-courses; mulberries with shining leaves replace the dull grayness of the olive; the air is soft; the scenery of the lakes delicious; in short, our impressions are those of a

1 De Geymüller is inclined to believe that Bramante furnished Montorfano with the sketch for the view of Jerusalem in the background of the Crucifixion (Les projets primitifs pour la basilique de Saint-Pierre de Rome, p. 48).

more temperate zone, and of a kinder sky. As the climate is, so are the inhabitants to the Florentine type, thin, meagre, and poor, the duchy of Milan opposes amplitude, grace, suavity, purer lines, and a more delicate complexion, creamy rather than sallow; refined or voluptuous lips, large and melting eyes, full round chins, and slender, undulating figures. This type, which has been christened Leonardesque, because Leonardo

recorded its perfection, is still to be met in all its beauty about the Lago Maggiore and the Lake of Como.

The intellectual differences between the Milanese and the Florentines did not weigh less heavily in the balance. At Milan, Leonardo found a public unaccustomed to criticise

and prone to enthusiasm qualities most precious to a man of imagination, to an artist with whom freshness of impression and independence of form meant so much.

Subjected to the demands of the Florentine studios, Art, on the banks of the Arno, had fallen into affectation or extravagance (on this subject see p. 20). The one idea of the Tuscans was to astonish by subtlety of contrivance or boldness of design: beauty pure and simple seemed to them commonplace. Mannerism triumphed all along the line with Botticelli, with Filippino Lippi, with Pollajuolo. Each outvied the other in torturing his style, in showing himself more complex and more inventive than his neighbour. The artistic coteries

T

of Florence devoted themselves to artificial research, and were governed by conventional formulæ ; dexterity took the place of conviction, and everything was reduced to calculation, or to merely technical skill; in short, no one could be simple or natural, and so eloquence, in the best sense, was a lost quality.

At Milan, on the other hand, imaginations were still fertile and fresh; if there was less science, there was more sincerity. What life and youth breathe from the sculptures of the Pavian Certosa, in itself a world! A superior genius was bound, not only to animate and fertilise such germs, but to refresh his own spirit, in this new and invigorating atmosphere. In fact, the unresting mental activity peculiar to the Florentine, his conscious and deliberate effort, generated naturally a race of draughtsmen, while the soft languor, the native grace, the exquisite suavity inherent in the Milanese, as inevitably created colourists. There is a moment in the lives of certain predestined spirits when expatriation becomes a necessity. Raphael, had he remained in Umbria, would never have been more than a greater Perugino; Michelangelo, too, obtained his supreme impetus from Rome. As to Leonardo, it was by the resources of a considerable state, the brilliant festivals, the intercourse with intellectual and distinguished men, and, above all, by an atmosphere less bourgeois and democratic than that of Florence, that the sudden and unprecedented evolution of his genius was brought about. At Florence he would have become the first of painters; at Milan, he became that and something more; a great poet and a great thinker. From this point of view we have every right to say that he owed much to his new country.

In the literary circle of Milan, admittedly mediocre as it was, a playful freedom obtained quite unknown among the Florentine purists. As a typical product of the prevailing spirit, we may take the tournament, or encounter of wits, that took place between Bellincioni, Maccagni of Turin, and Gasparo Visconti, on the one hand, and Bramante on the other. One of the epigrams aimed at the architectpoet compares him to Cerberus, because of his biting humour.

Quis canis? Erigones? Minime! Cerberus ille
Tenareus, famæ nominibusque inocens.

Elsewhere his opponents, in reality his closest friends, attack him for his immoderate love of pears, or for his avarice: " Bramante," writes Visconti, "you are a man devoid of courtesy, you never cease importuning me for a pair of shoes, and all the time you are laying up a hoard of money for yourself. It seems to you a slight thing to force me to keep you. Why do you not get the Court to pay for you? You have a salary of five ducats a month [from the Duke]." To which Bramante replies by a sonnet in which he piteously describes the dilapidations of his wardrobe. He begs Visconti to bestow a crown

on him in charity, if he would not see him condemned to struggle naked with Boreas.

Vesconte, non te casche

Questo da core, ma fa ch'io n'habia un scudo
Tal ch'io non giostro più con Borrea ignudo.
E se poi per te sudo

El mio sudor verra dela tue pelle

Ma non scoter pero pero (sic) la sete a quelle.1

There was no pedantry, at any rate, in Lodovico's circle. Though his finances were often embarrassed, and his æsthetics selfish and subtle, he loved art, and placed the worship of the beautiful above all things.

Leonardo, as I shall presently show, did not disdain to take occasional part in the poetic jousts of this joyous company. The men of letters of Upper Italy soon adopted him as one of themselves; he was as proud of their glory as if he had been born in their midst. In his lifetime they vied with one another in lauding his masterpieces. After his death the historians, romance-writers and philosophers of his adopted country were his most ardent apologists. I may mention Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Como, Matteo Bandello, the author of the Novelle, and Lomazzo, the painter and writer, author of the Trattato della Pittura and of the Idea del Tempio della Pittura.

To sum up if, with the exception of Bramante, Milan possessed no artist capable of measuring himself with Leonardo, and, still less, any capable of influencing him, on the other hand, no surroundings could have been more propitious to his genius than those she offered. A splendour-loving and enlightened prince, an active, wealthy, and 1 Gazette des Beaux Arts, 1879, vol. ii. p. 514 et seq. Cf. Beltrami, Bramante poeta,

educated population, a phalanx of capable artists who asked for nothing better than to follow the lead of a master-mind from that Florence whence light has been shed for so long over Italy; finally, the vigorous and inspiring suggestions of a landscape at once exuberant and grandiose; can we imagine elements better fitted than these to stimulate the genius of Leonardo, and to kindle in his breast a love for the country he was now to make. his own?