Leonardo da Vinci | Page 8

erection of Michelangelo's statue of "David," which
had recently been completed.

BATTLE OF ANGHIARI
In the following May he was commissioned by the Signoria to decorate
one of the walls of the Council Hall of the Palazzo Vecchio. The
subject he selected was the "Battle of Anghiari." Although he
completed the cartoon, the only part of the composition which he
eventually executed in colour was an incident in the foreground which
dealt with the "Battle of the Standard." One of the many supposed
copies of a study of this mural painting now hangs on the south-east
staircase in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It depicts the Florentines
under Cardinal Ludovico Mezzarota Scarampo fighting against the
Milanese under Niccolò Piccinino, the General of Filippo Maria
Visconti, on June 29, 1440.

AGAIN IN MILAN
Leonardo was back in Milan in May 1506 in the service of the French
King, for whom he executed, apparently with the help of assistants,
"the Madonna, the Infant Christ, and Saint Anne" (Plate VIII.). The
composition of this oil-painting seems to have been built up on the
second cartoon, which he had made some eight years earlier, and which
was apparently taken to France in 1516 and ultimately lost.

IN ROME
From 1513-1515 he was in Rome, where Giovanni de' Medici had been
elected Pope under the title of Leo X. He did not, however, work for

the Pope, although he resided in the Vatican, his time being occupied in
studying acoustics, anatomy, optics, geology, minerals, engineering,
and geometry!

IN FRANCE
At last in 1516, three years before his death, Leonardo left his native
land for France, where he received from Francis I. a princely income.
His powers, however, had already begun to fail, and he produced very
little in the country of his adoption. It is, nevertheless, only in the
Louvre that his achievements as a painter can to-day be adequately
studied.
[Illustration: PLATE VIII.-MADONNA, INFANT CHRIST, AND ST.
ANNE
In the Louvre. No. 1508. 5 ft. 7 in. h. by 4 ft. 3 in. w. (1.70 x 1.29)
Painted between 1509 and 1516 with the help of assistants.]
On October 10, 1516, when he was resident at the Manor House of
Cloux near Amboise in Touraine with Francesco Melzi, his friend and
assistant, he showed three of his pictures to the Cardinal of Aragon, but
his right hand was now paralysed, and he could "no longer colour with
that sweetness with which he was wont, although still able to make
drawings and to teach others."
It was no doubt in these closing years of his life that he drew the
"Portrait of Himself" in red chalk, now at Turin, which is probably the
only authentic portrait of him in existence.

HIS DEATH
On April 23, 1519--Easter Eve--exactly forty-five years before the birth
of Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci made his will, and on May 2 of the
same year he passed away.
Vasari informs us that Leonardo, "having become old, lay sick for
many months, and finding himself near death and being sustained in the
arms of his servants and friends, devoutly received the Holy Sacrament.
He was then seized with a paroxysm, the forerunner of death, when
King Francis I., who was accustomed frequently and affectionately to
visit him, rose and supported his head to give him such assistance and
to do him such favour as he could in the hope of alleviating his

sufferings. The spirit of Leonardo, which was most divine, conscious
that he could attain to no greater honour, departed in the arms of the
monarch, being at that time in the seventy-fifth year of his age." The
not over-veracious chronicler, however, is here drawing largely upon
his imagination. Leonardo was only sixty-seven years of age, and the
King was in all probability on that date at St. Germain-en Laye!
Thus died "Mr. Lionard de Vincy, the noble Milanese, painter, engineer,
and architect to the King, State Mechanician" and "former Professor of
Painting to the Duke of Milan."
"May God Almighty grant him His eternal peace," wrote his friend and
assistant Francesco Melzi. "Every one laments the loss of a man whose
like Nature cannot produce a second time."

HIS ART
Leonardo, whose birth antedates that of Michelangelo and Raphael by
twenty three and thirty-one years respectively, was thus in the forefront
of the Florentine Renaissance, his life coinciding almost exactly with
the best period of Tuscan painting.
Leonardo was the first to investigate scientifically and to apply to art
the laws of light and shade, though the preliminary investigations of
Piero della Francesca deserve to be recorded.
He observed with strict accuracy the subtleties of chiaroscuro--light and
shade apart from colour; but, as one critic has pointed out, his gift of
chiaroscuro cost the colour-life of many