Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/26

 W ARTISTS AND AUTHORS by his inclination ; for instance, the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII. of France, and the subsequent invasion of Milan by Louis XII., which ended in the de- struction of the Duke Ludovico. The greatest work of all, and by far the grandest picture which, up to that time, had been executed in Italy, was the " Last Supper," painted on the wall of the refectory, or dining-room, of the Dominican convent of the Madonna delle Grazie. It occupied Leonardo about two years, from 1496 to 1498. The moment selected by the painter is described in the 26th chapter of St. Matthew, 21st and 22d verses : " And as they did eat, he said, Verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me : and they were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I ? " The knowledge of character displayed in the heads of the different apostles is even more wonderful than the skilful arrangement of the figures and the amazing beauty of the work- manship. The space occupied by the picture is a wall twenty-eight feet in length. and the figures are larger than life. Of this magnificent creation of art, only the mouldering remains are now vis- ible. It has been so often repaired that almost every vestige of the original painting is annihilated ; but from the multiplicity of descriptions, engravings, and copies that exist, no picture is more universally known and celebrated. Perhaps the best judgment we can now form of its merits is from the fine copy executed by one of Leonardo's best pupils, Marco Uggione, for the Certosa at Pavia, and now in London, in the collection of the Royal Academy. Eleven other copies, by various pupils of Leonardo, painted either during his lifetime or within a few years after his death, while the picture was in perfect preservation, exist in differ- ent churches and collections. While engaged on the Cenacolo, Leonardo painted the portrait of Lucrezia Crivelli, now in the Louvre (No. 483). It has been engraved under the title of La Belle Ferronniere, but later researches leave us no doubt that it represents Lucrezia Crivelli, a beautiful favorite of Ludovico Sforza, and was painted at Milan in 1497. It is, as a work of art, of such extraordinary perfection that all critical admiration is lost in wonder. Of the grand equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza, Leonardo never finished more than the model in clay, which was considered a masterpiece. Some years afterward (in 1499), when Milan was invaded by the French, it was used as a target by the Gascon bowmen, and completely destroyed. The profound ana- tomical studies which Leonardo made for this work still exist. In the year 1500, the French being in possession of Milan, his patron Ludo- vico in captivity, and the affairs of the state in utter confusion, Leonardo re- turned to his native Florence, where he hoped to re-establish his broken fortunes, and to find employment. Here begins the third period of his artistic life, from 1500 to 1 5 13, that is, from his forty-eighth to his sixtieth year. He found the Medici family in exile, but was received by Pietro Soderini (who governed the city as " Gonfaloniire perpetno ") with great distinction, and a pension was as- signed to him as painter in the service of the republic. One of his first works