Giantedesco da Pietramala at Siena, of a mixture of wood, hay, hemp, clay and mortar? An early writer enables us to satisfy our curiosity on this question by informing us that the "typus" (model) was "cretaceus," that is, of chalk or plaster.1

This was the end of the first act of the drama; the second opened with the necessary preparations for the casting of the statue.2 Strictly speaking, the sculptor might now have considered his part of the business completed; what remained to be done was chiefly mechanical. But the division of labour was not very clearly defined in the fifteenth century, and Leonardo was obliged to devote much time and patience to experiments in the founder's art. The construction of the furnaces and the moulds, the composition of the bronze, the manner

STUDIES OF HORSES.

of heating, the finishing of the cast, the polishing, the chasing all this had to be carefully considered.

The financial embarrassments of the court of Milan contributed quite as much as Leonardo's procrastinating tendencies to the delay in the completion of the "Cavallo." In a letter to Lodovico il Moro

1 De Cardinalatu, i. p. 50.-Cf. Müller-Walde, Jahrbuch der kg. Kunstsammlungen, 1897, p. 105-107.

2 In his work De Divina Proportione (dedicated to Lodovico il Moro, February 9, 1498), Leonardo's friend Pacioli, tells us that the colossus was to measure twelve braccie (about twenty-six feet in height), and to weigh, when cast in bronze, about 200,000 lbs., while that designed by the brothers Mantegazza would not have weighed more than 6,000.

unfortunately without a date-the artist writes, "I say nothing of the horse (the equestrian statue) because I know the state of affairs-" (literally, the times the difficulties of the present situation).

Leonardo himself was the first to feel a doubt as to the completion of the monument. In a letter to the wardens of a church at Piacenza, who, it seems, had asked his advice as to the choice of a bronze founder, he declares that he alone would be competent to carry out the work they propose, but that

he is overburdened with orders. The artist's words are too characteristic not to be given textually : Believe me, there is no man capable of it but Leonardo of Florence, who is engaged upon the bronze horse of the Duke Francesco ; and he is out of the question, for he has enough work for all the rest of his days, and I doubt, seeing how great that work is, if he will ever finish it."1

An anonymous bio

grapher confirms Vasari's

statement that Leonardo intended casting the statue in one piece, 2 but this statement is confuted by one of Leonardo's own manuscripts, in which he discusses the possibilities of casting 100,000 lbs. of metal, and determines that five furnaces would have to be used, reckoning 2,000 (20,000) or at the most 3,000 (30,000) lbs. to each furnace.3 This, of course, settles the question.

1 Richter, vol. ii. p. 15,400.-Uzielli, 2nd ed. vol. i. p. 179.-Müller-Walde, Jahrbuch der kg. Pr. Kunstsammlungen 1897, p. 94 et seq.

2 Milanesi-Documenti inedite, p. 11. Vasari says that on this point Leonardo consulted his skilled compatriot, Giuliano da San Gallo, when the latter visited Milan. 3 Beltrami, Il Codice di Leonardo da Vinci nella Biblioteca del Principe Trivulzio, fol. 47.

X

Leonardo's masterpiece came to a miserable end. Sabba di Castiglione's story of the statue being knocked to pieces by the Gascon crossbowmen of Louis XII. has perhaps been taken too literally. 1

That this ruthless destruction did not occur during Louis's first occupation of Milan in 1499, is evident from the fact that in 1501 the Duke of Ferrara was anxious to obtain possession of the model executed by Leonardo.2 Still, we have no reason to doubt that foreign soldiers had a hand in this deplorable piece of vandalism, though there is probably much justice in M. Bonnaffe's presumption that "a statue of perishable material, of such dimensions and in such an attitude, exposed to all the vicissitudes of the weather, soon perishes when it once begins to deteriorate." Already much damaged in 1501, Leonardo's monument was inevitably doomed. Some drunken soldiers, perhaps, made a target of the half ruined colossus, and so completed its destruction; whether they were French, German, Spanish, Swiss or native Italians, is wholly immaterial.

The "Cavallo" has perished utterly; not even a drawing remains to give us an idea of what this work of genius must have been. It is my opinion, however, that we must seek elsewhere for traces of it. Is it likely that the bronze-casters, who were so busily employed during the early Renaissance in reproducing works of art, antique or contemporary, would have overlooked this marvel? They reproduced the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius again and again! Padua and Verona, the head-centres of the bronze-workers, even Venice, were not so far from Milan but that followers of Donatello, such as Vellano and Riccio, or of Verrocchio, such as Leopardi and the Lombardi, might have known the equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza "de visu," or from terra-cotta copies. We know, indeed, that a small model of

1 "So much is certain," says this writer in his Memoirs (published 1546), "that through the ignorance and carelessness of certain persons who neither recognise nor appreciate talent in any way, this work has been given over ignominiously to ruin. And I would remind you,” he adds, “—not without sorrow and indignation-that this noble and ingenious masterpiece served the Gascon archers for a target." Vasari confirms this account by stating that the model remained intact till King Louis entered Milan with the French, who totally destroyed it.

2 See the Correspondence published by the Marquis Campori: Gazette des Beaux Arts, 1866, vol. i. p. 43. According to M. Boito, the archers destroyed the figure of the rider, but not the horse. (Leonardo, Michelangelo, Andrea Palladio, p. 99, Milan,

1883.)

Leonardo's "Cavallo" was brought into France by Rustici, and subsequently formed part of the collection of Leone Leoni.1 Unfortunately every trace of it has vanished. Vasari speaks of a small wax model said to have been quite perfect, but, even in his day, this was no longer in existence.

In the Berlin Museum there is a bronze statuette of a horse (no. 224) which Messrs. Bode and v. Tschudi believe to be derived from Leonardo's masterpiece, basing their opinion chiefly on the vivacious treatment of the head, and the vigorous structure of the hind-quarters, on which all the weight is thrown. In Mme. Edouard Andre's collection too, there is a gilt-bronze statuette of a horse, bold, pliant, vivacious, and inspired as only the "Cavallo" of Leonardo can have been. The supreme quality of this little work of art, which Mme. André discovered in Venice, was evident to her critical eye, and she has not hesitated to give it Leonardo's glorious name. The infinite suppleness and freedom which Leonardo alone was capable of conferring on his creations, his skill in so arranging his sculptures that they looked equally beautiful from any point of view, his profound knowledge of proportion, are all present to a supreme degree in this bronze, which may be unhesitatingly ranked among the master's works.

Was Leonardo's horse represented as walking or galloping? This is a problem over which torrents of ink have flowed. Louis Courajod calls in the testimony of Paolo Giovio to prove that it was prancing ("vehementer incitatus et anhelans"), but may he not attach too strict a meaning to this? To my mind, the most forcible and, at the same time harmonious, composition is that with the rearing horse, in one sketch with uplifted head, in another with the head bent over the breast, It is by the aid of these two sketches that I prefer to evoke the image of Leonardo's masterpiece.

Some years after the destruction of the famous equestrian statue,

1 "Un cavallo di relievo di plastica, fatto di sua mano, che ha il cavallier Leone Aretino statouario" (Trattato della Pittura, ed. of 1584, p. 177). See Courajod, Alexandre Lenoir, vol. ii. p. 95.-Plon, Leone Leoni, pp. 56, 63, 188. This author is inclined to think that this was the very model of which Leoni superintended the casting in Paris, 1549.

Michelangelo, meeting Leonardo in the streets of Florence, taunted him bitterly before a group of friends with having abandoned his work unfinished: Thou who madest the model of a horse to cast it in bronze, and finding thyself unable to do so, wast forced with shame to give up the attempt."

Had Michelangelo known of the trials that awaited him in connection with his own work for the tomb of Pope Julius II., he would perhaps have been less severe upon an undertaking to which his rival might have applied his own phrase, calling it the tragedy of his life.

None the less, it is deeply to be deplored that Leonardo was not more energetic in his efforts to rescue the magnificent work which formed his chief title to renown as a sculptor. He must have had a strong strain of fatalism in him him to witness the destruction of the masterpiece which had occupied the best years of his manhood without one word of

regret. His note books overflow with records of every impression, even the most fleeting, but we may search in vain for a syllable concerning the demolition of his equestrian statue.

In it, not only the city of Milan, but all humanity lost a masterpiece, the beauty of which no description and no sketch can convey—a masterpiece worthy to be ranked with the Last Supper of Santa Maria delle Grazie.

Marshal Trivulzio, the rival of Lodovico il Moro, was also exceedingly desirous of having a memorial statue executed by Leonardo. It was thought, at one time, that the negotiations relative to the subject took place during Leonardo's residence in France, where he met the Marshal who, like himself, ended his days in that country.