I now retrace my steps to follow Leonardo's peregrinations through Italy, after the downfall of Il Moro.

Early in the year 1500 he was at Venice-as is proved by the letter from Lorenzo da Pavia, quoted above. The artist himself also mentions this journey, though incidentally, in a note published by Dr. Richter.1 From it we gather that one, at least, of his pupils, Andrea Salai, bore him company.

The period between 1501 and 1514 is certainly that which gave birth to the greater number of the pictures painted by Leonardo, then over fifty years of age. Having no more orders for monumental works (except for the Battle of Anghiari), he turned his attention to more modest productions. Happy necessity! to which we owe the Saint Anne, the Mona Lisa, the John the Baptist!

During this interval, Leonardo solved the secret of carrying on his engineering labours and his work as a painter conjointly, and moved perpetually hither and thither between Florence and the towns of Umbria and the Romagna.

The last period of Leonardo's career, the evening of that splendid life, opens with a regrettable determination, with what I will call a moral eclipse, a capitulation of his conscience: disheartened, the master entered the service of Cæsar Borgia, as his military engineer.

The fate which weighed on the Italy of the Renaissance ordained that her three greatest artists should serve her victims and her executioners in turn. Even as Leonardo was forced to wield his brush in honour of Lodovico il Moro and Louis XII., or to serve the Dictator of the Romagna-so Raphael, after having celebrated the glories of his rightful sovereign, the Duke of Urbino, was fain to make up his mind to work for that sovereign's despoiler, Lorenzo de' Medici. Even young Michelangelo himself, despite his haughty nature, could

1 Great Artists-Leonardo, p. 60. Dr. Richter connects several drawings with this journey. Amongst others, one, a sketch of a horseman, bears the inscription "Mess. Antonio Gri (mani), Veneziano, Chompagno d'Antonio Maria." This, according to the learned editor of Leonardo's MSS., was the famous Doge, defeated at Lepanto in 1499.

At this moment too, it may be, the artist made the two sketches (preserved at Windsor) of the equestrian statue of Colleone-a tribute of retrospective admiration to his old master, Verrocchio.

As to a certain Stefano Chigi, mentioned by Leonardo in connection with his stay at Venice, see a pamphlet by Sig. G. B. de Toni, "Frammenti Vinciani, ii. Una Frase allusiva a Stefano Chigi," Venice, 1897.

not escape the necessity of glorifying the Medici, the oppressors of his native land. The great point in connection with these involuntary sacrifices was to preserve some human respect, to avoid insulting the vanquished, after having extolled him to the skies. The stars of the golden age of the Renaissance, more careful of their own glory than many a modern artist, succeeded in reconciling the gratitude due to their former patrons with the consideration claimed by those of a later date.

In Leonardo's case, one would willingly discover, side by side with the thinker and the moralist, a generous heart, full of passionate interest in all the struggles that marked his period. But this would be a delusion. As M. Séailles has most truly pointed out,' he looked at political phenomena like a Spinoza: "sub specie æterni," from the eternal point of view. The evil wrought by others interests him less than the good he may do himself. Politics and social organisation, therefore, offered no attraction to the solitary speculator, accustomed to hover far above the level of the questions of the day. The multiplicity of the doubts which assailed him whenever he approached any particular problem, precluded him from being a man of action. It is only men of a narrow, or of a dishonest turn of mind, who have the gift of distinguishing, in complex matters, the one feature which makes most for their own advantage. But Leonardo, the very essence of scientific honesty and disinterestedness, believed he owed it as a duty to himself to exhaust every aspect of a phenomenon, instead of putting forward one side only, to the exclusion of all the rest. From this excess of indecision arose his contradictory behaviour, his weakness, and his compromises.

The foregoing statement was indispensable for the definition of the point of view from which we must judge a nature as rich as it was vacillating.

After his visit to Venice (March, 1500), Leonardo returned, like the prodigal son, to his native city. He took up his residence, for six months, in the house of his young disciple, the sculptor Giovanni Francesco Rustici. He had saved money during his stay at Milan; this is proved by the fact that he deposited 600 florins (somewhere about twelve hundred pounds) at the Hospice of "Santa Maria Nuova" in the month of January, 1500. On various occasions,

1 Leonardo da Vinci: L'Artiste et le Savant, p. 501.

between April 24, 1500, and May 20, 1506, he drew out 450 florins of this sum.1

Sixteen or seventeen years had elapsed since Leonardo had left his native country and during this interval both public and artistic prosperity had been sorely shaken. The wealthy bankers of former days were now replaced by bankrupt merchants. There was as much confusion in men's minds as in their financial affairs. In spite of the punishment inflicted on Savonarola, mysticism was still rife among the Florentines, and more particularly among the artists; this we know from the biographies of Botticelli, Lorenzo di Credo, Fra Bartolommeo, and the Della Robbia.

On April 14, 1500, the Government, in the transport of delight aroused by the capture of Lodovico il Moro, reared a beautiful crucifix before the entrance of the Palazzo Vecchio, as though to remind the city that she had chosen Christ to be her King. A few days later, the famous Madonna dell' Impruneta was carried in solemn procession through the streets.2

The most eminent of Da Vinci's artistic contemporaries, Verrocchio, Pollajuolo, Ghirlandajo, had passed away. Botticelli, aged and worn out, had, in a sense, outlived himself; Filippino Lippi, though in the prime of life, had not produced anything in advance of his earlier work. Others, such as Lorenzo di Credi and Piero di Cosimo (1462-1521) 3 were more than ready to enrol themselves under the banner of their fellow-citizen, who had returned from Milan after having founded a flourishing school there. The same may be said of Andrea del Sarto (1486-1531), who imitated his tender colour and the suavity of his types.

On the other hand, new men had come to the front. At their head was Michelangelo, already, and in spite of his youth (he was only twenty-five), accepted as the unquestioned leader of the Florentine school.

Perugino, who oscillated backward and forward perpetually between Perugia and Florence, had identified himself, for his part, with a style of art as remarkable for its mystic and devout expression as for the warmth and richness of its colour. Leonardo's former fellow1 Uzielli, Ricerche intorno a Leonardo da Vinci, 1st ed., vol. i., p. 164-165; 2nd ed., vol. i., p. 609-610.

2 See Landucci's Diario, del Badia edition, p. 208-209.

3 Leonardo mentions the name of Piero di Cosimo without comment of any sort. (Richter, vol. ii., p. 437-)

disciple was at that moment the most popular and admired painter in Italy, and perhaps in Europe. Princes, republics, religious communities, vied with each other for the possession of the works he produced so profusely. The cities of Umbria, of the Romagna, Orvieto, Pavia, Venice, all, in their turn, approached him with the most flattering requests.

The most brilliant of all Perugino's pupils, Raphael, had not, as yet, left Umbria. We shall

see that he had hardly settled at Florence before he revealed himself one of Leonardo's most ardent admirers.

As for Fra Bartolommeo, as soon as his Last Judgment, now preserved in the Museum of Santa Maria Nuova, was completed, overwhelmed by the tragic end of his master, Savonarola, he had laid aside his brush for a time, and was living in the deepest seclusion. Leonardo's return to Florence coincided with the return of the Frate to his artistic labours. The Dominican painter did not attempt to withstand the influence of so mighty a master.

Leonardo in the matter of chiaroscuro and colour.1

Another artist who should be mentioned as having come within the sphere of Leonardo's influence is Ridolfo Ghirlandajo (1483-1561), the son of Domenico.

Did

Leonardo had returned to Florence famous and admired. his country realise, at last, that in the case of a man of such genius, the current rate of production must be put aside; that perfection so great could only be attained by dint of infinite toil?

No man was ever less prone to improvisation; in those days of

1 Histoire de l'Art pendant la Renaissance, vol. ii., p. 672

facile production, Da Vinci represented the very extreme of probity and scrupulous care. He alone I am not afraid to say it roundlymight, by his sole example, have checked the already visible decline of the Florentine school. That respect for nature, and worship of form, which he professed, was the remedy-and the only efficacious one -for a degeneration of which all too many symptoms were apparent. The Gonfaloniere Pietro Soderini was anxious to do something for the sorely-tried artist.

For a moment there was a question or confiding the famous block of marble out of which Michelangelo ultimately sculptured the David, to Leonardo's chisel (Michelangelo was given this commission in accordance with deliberations held July 2 and August 16, 1501); but the expiration of Soderini's period of pe er-he was not appointed Gonfaloniere for life, till September 22, 1502 -paralysed the great official's well meant efforts.

Meanwhile, Leonardo painted his Saint Anne. In the month of April, 1501, he was working upon it eagerly, but he soon put it aside half finished, as he did with so many other pictures. In the following September, he was travelling about, in the character of military engineer to Cæsar Borgia.1

This was the first occasion, probably, on which Leonardo da Vinci was permitted to realise a long-cherished dream: that of giving practical evidence of his skill in the art of war.2 For long this had been his supreme ambition. Had he not boasted in his famous letter to Lodovico il Moro that he would put all that prince's enemies to flight with machines none would be able to withstand? What think you, reader, of this painter, poet, man of science, who aspired to play the part of a man of war? As a matter of curiosity, I may note the presence, in the enemy's camp, of another famous engineer, who was also a very talented architect, Francesco di Giorgio Martini, of Siena. Leonardo had certainly enjoyed opportunities of meeting this eminent master at

1 See Alvisi, Cesare Borgia, Duca di Romagna, p. 203. Imola, 1878.

2 Leonardo's performances as a military engineer have been studied by C. Promis. (Trattato di Architettura civile e militare di Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Turin, 1841; vol. iv., pp. 44-52, 203, etc.); by Angelucci, in his Documenti inediti per la Storia delle Armi da fuoco italiane, p. 92, Turin, 1869; and also by Herr Müller-Walde (Leonardo da Vinci, fasc. iii.),