Duke Francesco Sforza died in 1466, but it was not till 1472 that his successor, Galeazzo Maria, conceived the project of giving the founder of the House of Sforza a monument worthy of him, a tomb which, like that of the Scaligeri at Verona, should be surmounted by an equestrian statue of the deceased hero. For ten long years artist after artist was consulted, plan after plan submitted and rejected. On the refusal or the retirement from the contest of the brothers Mantegazza, the gifted sculptors of the Certosa at Pavia, Galeazzo Maria applied to the famous Florentine sculptor and painter, Antonio del Pollajuolo. After his death. in 1498 "they found the design and the model which he had made for the equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza, ordered by Lodovico il Moro. This model is represented in two different styles in his drawings now in my collection: the one showing Duke Francesco with Verona under his feet, the other, the same Duke in full

EQUESTRIAN BAS-RELIEF BY LEONARDO DA PRATO (1511).
(Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice.)

armour riding over an armed man. I could never discover why this design was not carried out" (Vasari). It is this second conception which Morelli recognised in a drawing in the Print Room at Munich, whereas Louis Courajod declared it to be the sketch for Leonardo's statue. Not, adds the learned Director of the Louvre, that there is anything against the supposition that Pollajuolo

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may have seen and drawn Leonardo's model. Richter, again, suggests that this design-a horse rearing above a prostrate man -was obligatory for all the competitors. For my part, I must say, that if the drawing at Munich represents Leonardo's work, it is a singularly clumsy and ineffective rendering. Nothing could be more wooden and lifeless than the hind-quarters of the horse, and the forelegs, which are very evidently ankylosed, are equally faulty in treatment. The head and neck alone have a certain amount of spirit. As to the rider, his seat is awkward and undignified in the extreme, and the ensemble is wholly wanting in those monumental, rhythmic, one might almost say melodious lines, which were SO obviously Leonardo's main preoccupation in the drawings at Windsor.1

The study of the horse was a passion with Leonardo ; numberless drawings show him seeking to fix the noble beast's physiognomy, and analyse its movements.2

In the Adoration of the Magi, he forgets the ostensible subject, and fills up the whole of the middle distance with horses in every conceivable variety of spirited attitude. In the subsequent Battle of Anghiari he returned to his favourite theme, and created the most

1 Müller-Walde is of opinion that Pollajuolo's drawing was made in 1489-immediately after the letter to Lorenzo the Magnificent, complaining of Leonardo's incompetence (Jahrbuch der kg. Kunstsammlungen, 1897, p. 125). But one must beware of these all too convenient inferences. Things rarely happen just as we imagine-realities prove more shifting, less logical. M. de Fabriczy believes the drawing in question to refer to an equestrian statue which Pollajuolo offered to erect to Gentile Virginio Orsini in 1494 (Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, 1892, p. 250). M. de Geymüller goes still further he does not consider the Munich drawing to be worthy even of Pollajuolo (Les derniers Travaux sur Léonard de Vinci, p. 42).

A picture by Bacchiacca in the Uffizi (reproduced in my Histoire de l'Art pendant la Renaissance, vol. iii. p. 697) shows striking analogies with the Munich drawing, except that the horse's head, instead of being in profile as in the drawing, is turned toward the spectator, a detail which gives a singular look of animation to the composition. Bacchiacca's horse, too, rears firmly up on its hind legs, instead of seeming to sink under its burden, and the rider is not bare-headed, but wears a cap. This rearing horse-a reminiscence of the Colossi of Monte Cavallo is a very favourite motive in sixteenth century art: we meet with it in Raphael's St. George of the Louvre, in his Meeting between S. Leo and Attila, and The Victory of Constantine: also in Ducerceau's chimney pieces at Ecouen, etc.

2 In his first attempt, Leonardo seems to have given his horses squat, disjointed forms--witness the studies of horses and cats in the Library at Windsor. This, too, is his type in a drawing of the Deluge (Richter, vol. i. pl. xxxiv). But what movement, what fire, what passion he puts into his heroic steeds later on!

stirring cavalry combat that art has handed down to us. The fire, the vehemence of the master defy description whenever he throws himself into the delineation of this grand creature, the noblest of man's conquests in the animal world. In every line one recognises the enthusiastic horseman delighting to urge his mount to its utmost speed, or to make it bound and rear. The rebellion of the wonderful living machine only excited and intoxicated him. To him we owe the prototype of the war-horse, of the epic charger, as it has come down to us through Raphael, Salvator Rosa, Rubens, and Le Brun. Even Velasquez shows its influence. The advent of the English horse, wiry and long-barreled, put an end to an ideal type essentially suited to historical painting.

Obedient to his habits as a man of science, Leonardo, before taking the trowel in hand, set himself to collect all available information on the horse in general, and equestrian statues in particular. Although he was thoroughly at home in every branch of the noble art of horsemanship, he seems to have attacked the subject “ab ovo,” and weeks, months, even years passed, in experiments on the anatomy and locomotion of horses. Nor was he less interested in the study of equestrian statues-the bibliography of the subject, so to speak-the principal models which he consulted being the horses on the Monte Cavallo and the mounted statue of Marcus Aurelius at Rome, the four horses at Venice1 and, finally, Donatello's equestrian statue of Gattamelata at Padua. Verrocchio's work in connection with the Colleone statue for Venice could have afforded him but little assistance, for though it was begun in 1479, four years before the statue of Francesco Sforza, it was still unfinished in 1488, the year of Verrocchio's death.2

Nevertheless, all that we know concerning Leonardo's habit of mind justifies us in affirming that his study of pre-existing models did not go very deep. He who had declared that "to copy another artist

1 A horse in the style of those at Venice, which may also be compared with a drawing attributed to Verrocchio in the Louvre, was engraved by Zoan Andrea (see Ottley, p. 566). -Three horses' heads in Leonardo's style were also engraved by him (Bartsch, 24, pl. v. p. 106).

2 Richter claims to discover a reminiscence of Verrocchio's work in a drawing at Windsor (pl. lxxiv.)-See also Courajod, p. 32.

instead of copying nature" was to make one's self "not the son, but the grandson of nature," in other words, the echo of an echo, would not be likely to examine the works of his predecessors with a very attentive eye; in point of fact, no artist was ever less of an imitator than Leonardo. It was from living models-those fiery steeds which none knew better than he how to manage-and from them alone, that he drew his inspiration (Richter, vol. ii. pl. lxxiii.). We cannot but

feel that even when he did study the statue of Marcus Aurelius1 or of Gattamelata (Richter, pl. lxxii., no. 3), he did so only from a conscientious feeling, without conviction and without enthusiasm. His copies of these works are vague and uncertain to a degree. And this being so, we are not surprised to find him ignoring more archaic creations, such as Niccolo dell' Arca's equestrian bas-relief at Bologna.

There is a point, however, at whichperhaps unconsciously to

himself he comes under the influence of the antique. The heads of his horses, with their dilated nostrils, recall the classic type, rather than the calmer and more prosaic breed of Tuscany and Lombardy.

Leonardo hesitated long even over the general outline of the monument. The drawings at Windsor 2 show how hard he found it to decide

1 He makes a note in his memoranda of Messire Galeazzo's great jennet and Messire Galeazzo's Sicilian horse (Richter, vol. ii. p. 14). 2 Richter (vol. ii. p. lxv., lxvi.)