tones (except on the right), but the carnations are redder and of a more commonplace tonality than the other Leonardos in the same collection. I cannot help thinking that the hand of Marco d'Oggiono is to be recognised in the execution. As for the landscape, which is enlivened by the introduction of a bear and a pair of stags, it is vaguer and less precise than is usual with Leonardo. It contains his favourite sugar-loaf mountains; but the arrangement of the trees, as M. Emile Michel pointed out to me, is more frankly picturesque. In the foreground we see one of those bunches of colum S. GEORGE KILLING THE DRAGON. (Windsor Library.) bine with which Leonardo was so fond of besprinkling his manuscripts, side by side with hellebore, anemones, and strawberry plants. The history of the Bacchus cannot be traced beyond the seventeenth century. According to Cassiano del Pozzo it was in the Palace at Fontainebleau in 1625. It does not require much insight to understand that, from the time of Leonardo's second stay in Milan, the French Court exerted all sorts of pressure to induce him to take up his residence in France. The master refused, however; and the Cardinal d'Amboise, who was then working at the Château de Gaillon, was obliged to make shift with one of his disciples, Andrea Solario. STUDY OF A PANTHER. (Windsor Library.) We hear, indeed, of a letter addressed to Leonardo in 1509 with this superscription, "Monsieur Lyonnard, peintre du Roy pour Am 1 boyse." My learned col league and friend, M. Charles Ravaisson-Mollien, is also inclined to believe that the artist sojourned in France between the spring of VOL. 11. 1 Amoretti, p. 105-106. B B 1507 and the autumn of 1510.1 But Signor Uzielli has successfully refuted this hypothesis.2 ་ His lawsuit with his family obliged Leonardo to return to Florence in 1507. On this occasion Louis XII. gave him a testimonial of the warmest description. Very dear and close friends," he wrote to the Florentines, "we have been informed that our dear and much-beloved Leonardo da Vinci, your painter and military engineer, has a difference and plea at law pending at Florence, between his brothers and himself, on account of certain inheritances. Seeing that he cannot attend duly to the pursuit of the said law-plea while employed near and about our person, also that we desire warmly that a happy end should be put to the said litigation with as much expedition as may be consistent with justice, we have thought well to write to you and pray that in this matter you will see that true justice is done with as little delay as possible. You will do us a great pleasure you will act as we desire. Very dear and close friends, may our Lord have you in His keeping. Written at Milan, the xxvi. day of July (1507), (signed) Loys.-ROBERTET." Addressed on the back to if ་ Our very dear and close friends, allies, and confederates, the perpetual Gonfaloniere and the Signory of Florence." 3 Less than three weeks after the date of the King's letter, on the 15th of August, 1507, Charles d'Amboise addressed another to the Signory, urging them to hasten the artist's return: "Most exalted Lords Master Leonardo da Vinci, painter to his Most Christian Majesty, is on his way to you. As he is engaged on a picture for his Majesty, we have, much against our wills, given him the leave he demanded, in order that he might put an end to certain difficulties which have arisen between himself and his brothers in the matter of a heritage left to him by an uncle. In order that he may return promptly. to finish the work he has begun, we beg your Excellencies to lend him all the help and protection that may be just, so that his case and his general affairs may be settled with all possible expedition. In doing this your Excellencies will give pleasure to his Most Christian Majesty 1 Les Écrits, p. 55–57. Les Manuscrits, vol. iv., p. 3. 2 Leonardo da Vinci e le Alpi, p. 3-4. 3 Delccluze, Saggio intorno a Leonardo da Vinci, p. 128. |