Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/294

 King delighted in the society of Da Vinci, and when his courtiers ventured to express their surprise that he should prefer his company to theirs, he rebuked them by saying, that "he could make as many lords as he chose, but that God alone could make a Lionardo da Vinci."

DEATH OF DA VINCI.

This great artist expired at Fontainbleau on the 2d day of May, 1519, aged sixty-seven years. His health had been gradually failing for several years, and Vasari relates, that Francis I. having honored him with a visit in his dying moments, Lionardo, deeply affected at this testimony of his regard, raised himself in the bed to express his thanks and gratitude, when falling back exhausted, the King caught him, and he expired in his arms.

DA VINCI'S LEARNING.

Lionardo da Vinci was one of the most learned, accomplished, and eminent men of the 15th century. Hallam says of him, "The discoveries which made Galileo and Kepler, Maestlin, Maurolicus, Castelli, and other names illustrious, the system of Copernicus, the very theories of recent geologists, are anticipated by Lionardo da Vinci, within the compass of a very few pages, not perhaps in the most precise language, or on the most conclusive reasoning, but so as to strike us with something like the awe of pre