Page:Biographical catalogue of the principal Italian painters.djvu/229

 198 VINCI. in all things, not excepting his dress ; and apparently very dilatoiy : most of his works occupied him a long time, and many of them were left mifinished at last. His laborions execution, and his anxiety about vehicles or media, made him a slow painter ; his works do not ap- pear to have been numerous at any time, and they are now necessarily scarce. His great work, the Last Supper, in the refectory of the Dominican Gon- yent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, at Milan, ftnished in 1497, had all but perished within half a century of its execution ; but a good copy of it by Marco d'Oggioue, made not many years after its completion, is fortunately pre- served in the Boyal Academy of Lon- don: the modem copy by Bossi, in the Brera, at Milan, is too arbitrary to bear comparison with the older work, as a reproduction of Leonardo's great painting. In this celebrated painting of the Last Supper, executed in oils, &c., on the wall, Leonardo has shown himself not only a curious and scientific mani- pulator, but a great painter in the grandeur of his style. Luca Signorelli, of Cortona, is probably the only other Italian painter, who had by his own comprehensive observation, succeeded in emancipating himself from tradi- tionary forms, and generidizing directly from nature: Michelangelo by no means took the lead in that greatness of style of form which distinguishes the cinquecenfo from the quattrocento; in painting, Michelangelo was for years anticipated by Leonardo and Luca Sig- norelli. And of these three great Tuscan masters, Leonardo seems to have the title of precedence, as the Cenacolo of Milan was finished before any of the great works of the others were even commenced, while Leonardo's work was begun some twenty years before the frescoes of the cathedral of Orvieto, or the famous cartoon of Pisa, were even contemplated. This work is remarkable for propriety of subject and arrangement, for its comprehen- sive, and, at the same time, minute details uf character, and for the sim- plicity of the composition, and the largeness of the style of form ; and it was probably one of the first, if not the first oil-painting, executed in Milan. It is now nearly defaced, but is suffix ciently preserved in the copies, and the numerous prints after them. In colour Leonardo was not eonspi- cuous, but in chiaroscuro he achieved great excellence, and was the first who made it a prominent object of ambition with painters : the Lombard light and shade, distinguished for its harmonious tone, subsequently pro- verbial, was one of the immediate results of the efforts of Leonardo da Yinci, at Milan. Leonardo left Milan about the year 1500, and returned to Florence, having served the Duke Ludovico for nearly twenty years, not only in the capacity of painter, but as sculptor, engineer, and architect. In 1491-^, he made the model of the equestrian statue of Fran- cesco Sforza, which was afterwards de- stroyed by the French; and at the same time he was employed in the building of the cathedral, and other works ; and he also composed several books on the Arts, and some scientifio subjects. In Florence, his chief works in painting were the Portrait of Mona Lisa del Giocondo, now in the Louvre, and the celebrated cartoon of the Bat- tle of Anghiari, for the council hall of the Palazzo Yecchio, ordered by the Gonfaloniere Soderini, as a companion to the better-known " Cartoon of Pisa," by Michelangelo, intended for a painting in the same hall. Leo- nardo painted on this work in 1504-d, but left it incomplete ; a small portion, of horsemen fighting for a standard,