so long attributed to him. (In the Louvre, at the École des Beaux Arts, at Chantilly, etc.) We will accept their verdict, and only take into consideration the Five Genii at Play of the Louvre, and the Head of an Angel in the Uffizi, declared to be ultra-authentic by Morelli1 and by Gronau.2 Even here it must be admitted that the execution is cramped and poor, the types either unhealthy or undecided, (after the manner of certain compositions in the Raphael Sketch Book in the Accademia of Venice); in short, the drawings are the very antithesis of Leonardo's.

To aver that the Sketch Book is not by Verrocchio's hand can add but little to his reputation.

The drawings are not sensibly worse than those which Morelli and Gronau ascribe to him.

Let us now compare the earliest efforts of Leonardo with these archaic works. A curious pen and ink landscape, with the inscription: "Di di sca Maria della Neve, a di 2 d'aghosto 1473" (the day of S. Mary of

the Snow, August 2, 1473), dates from 1473, when Leonardo was twenty-one. It represents a plain between mountains, two, those which bound it to right and left of the foreground, rising almost perpendicularly. On the one to the left stands a town surrounded by ramparts flanked with towers.3 All around are trees with

1 Die Galerien zu München und Dresden, pp. 350-351. (English translation by Miss Ffoulkes, 1893, p. 271.)

2 Jahrbuch der k. Pr. Kunstsammlungen, 1896, i.

3 One of the erudite writers who has rendered such valuable service in the interpretation of Leonardo's literary works claims to have discovered in this landscape a view of the Rigi, on which, indeed, there is a convent dedicated to S. Mary of the

smooth trunks and parallel branches, something like pines: the type, as we know, so dear to the Primitives. The composition has none of the clumsiness of Verrocchio's; the most insignificant details acquire an incomparable delicacy and smoothness under that cunning hand. Nevertheless, the landscape (evidently a study from nature) is wanting in decision and in intention; there is something vague about it, as in the vast majority of the productions of the genius which lent itself with such difficulty to any precise and categorical scheme of expression.

The drawing of 1473 furnishes us with another valuable landmark: Leonardo had already adopted his peculiar system of writing from right to left, after the manner of the Orientals.

Besides these dates, which are fixed by figures, there are others which may be determined by peculiarities of style. Though bearing no chronological inscription by Leonardo's hand, the two studies I am about to mention belong none the less to a well-defined period of his career; if, hitherto, they have not attracted the attention of the historians of the master, the question once raised, no one will deny that they must have been executed at the beginning of his term of apprenticeship, and in Verrocchio's studio.

The first, now at Weimar, shows us the head of a youth, in every point the counterpart of Verrocchio's David (1476), but less harsh, more rounded, the mouth less compressed, the cheek-bones and the throat less angular-in a word, the type bears the Leonardesque imprint in every particular. For the rest, we note the same curled locks as in the statue, save that the clusters, which are more abundant, fall lower on the forehead; the same long eyes. We have here, probably, a model treated at one time by the master, at another by the pupil; where one is dry and restless, the other is all

Snows. But de Geymüller has objected, and with reason, that these mountains have not the Alpine character; that the heights of the foreground are much lower than the Rigi; finally, that the latter has never had a city bearing the smallest resemblance to the one in Leonardo's drawing upon one of its slopes. Moreover, there is nothing to show that, at this period, Leonardo had crossed the Alps. In Baron Liphart's opinion, this drawing represents a view of the Apennines, near Lucca. (Müller-Walde, Leonardo da Vinci, p. 64.)

suavity. Here, if I am not mistaken, is the point where that striving after beauty begins which, after a certain moment, makes itself felt in Verrocchio's chief works: his Incredulity of S. Thomas, wherein the saint, with his serene and benign countenance, is worthy to sit among the Apostles of the Last Supper in Santa Maria delle Grazie, the Angels of the Forteguerra tomb, and the Lady with the Bouquet of the Uffizi Gallery, that meagre bust which is nevertheless so distinguished and fascinating in expression.

Another study of Three dancing Girls and a sketch of a head (Accademia at Venice), offers the same points of resemblance, and the same differences. Here we see again the crumpled draperies so dear to Verrocchio, his abruptness of movement, his stiffness of foreshortening, notably in the dancer in the background holding a scarf over her head like a child with a skipping-rope. At the same time there is much of the grace peculiar to Leonardo; one of these dishevelled Bacchantes, in classic costume, is remarkable for her smile, her deep-eyed gaze, the curve of her arm, the rhythm of her gesture. The technique—the drawing is executed in pen-and-ink -recalls the hand of Verrocchio, but it has a freedom and charm unknown to that artist. A curious drawing among those ascribed to Verrocchio in the Louvre (His de la Salle collection, No. 118), contains a few words written backwards, in which M. Charles Ravaisson-Mollien does not hesitate to recognise Leonardo's writing. Though the Madonna of this sheet is of a somewhat mean and archaic type, not without analogies to that of the Umbrian school, the slight sketch of the youth (S. John the Baptist?) has a grace and freedom that suggest Leonardo.

1 Great was the impression produced by this group when it was installed, on June 21, 1483, in one of the tabernacles of Or San Michele. A contemporary, Landucci, declares that never before had so beautiful a head of Christ been seen: "la più bella testa del Salvatore ch' ancora si sia fatta." (Diario fiorentino dal 1450 al 1516; Florence, 1883, p. 45.)

2 This figure may be compared with the Angels in the Thiers collection at the Louvre, those of the Forteguerra monument, and those of the ciborium of the church at Monteluce, which Venturi attributes to a pupil of Verrocchio, Francesco di Simone Ferrucci of Fiesole (Archivio storico dell' Arte, 1892, p. 376).

3 Mémoires de la Société nationale des Antiquaires de France, 1885, p. 132-145.

It was impossible that Verrocchio should not have employed the most brilliant of his followers in his works. Here again, the pupil revealed his crushing superiority.

The Baptism of Christ, in the Accademia of Florence, gives us certain valuable indications as to the collaboration of the two artists. Vasar tells us, that after having seen the kneeling angel, painted by Leonardo at the side of the Christ, Verrocchio, in despair, threw down his brushes and gave up painting.

OF CHRIST."

(Accademia, Florence.)

A careful study of the picture confirms the probability of this story. Nothing could be more unsatisfactory, more meagre than the two chief figures, Christ and S. John; without distinction of form, or poetry of expression, they are simply laborious studies of some aged and unlovely model, some wretched mechanic whom Verrocchio got to pose for him. (Charles Perkins justly criticises. the hardness of the lines, the stiffness of the style, the ab

sence of all sentiment.) Look, on the other hand, at the consummate youthful grace of the angel tradition assigns to Leonardo! How the lion reveals himself in the first stroke of his paw, and with what excellent reason did Verrocchio confess himself vanquished! It is not impossible that the background was also the work of the young beginner; it is a fantastic landscape, not unlike that of the Mona Lisa. The brown scale of colour, too, resembles that which Leonardo adopted, notably in the Saint Jerome, of the Vatican Gallery, in the Adoration of the Magi of the Uffizi (which, however, is only a cartoon), in the Virgin of the Rocks, and in the Mona Lisa.

To sum up, I will say that Leonardo never dreamt, and for