Page:Masters in art. Leonardo da Vinci.djvu/28

 ing any curiosities which he saw on his journey. But early in 1503 he was back in Florence, once more absorbed in the study of mathematics. In July he made elaborate plans for a canal between Pisa and Florence. In the following January he was present at the consultation held between the leading artists of the day, to decide upon the site for Michelangelo's statue of 'David.'

By this time both Leonardo and Michelangelo had been commissioned to prepare plans for the decoration of the Council Hall in the Palazzo Vecchio. The subject assigned to Leonardo was the battle between the Florentines and the Milanese at Anghiari in 1440; and the Signory agreed to pay him fifteen florins a month, on condition that his cartoon should be completed by the end of the following February. Throughout the autumn and winter Leonardo worked with unremitting ardor; and by February, 1505, the great cartoon was completed. The subject especially appealed to him, and the rivalry with Michelangelo impelled him to put forth all his powers. Unfortunately he had read of a recipe for a stucco ground employed by the ancient Romans, which he determined to try. But after devoting endless time and labor to the preparation of the wall in the Council Hall, and after painting the central group of horsemen fighting round the standard, Leonardo found that the substance was too soft and that his color began to run. This unhappy result filled him with disgust; and before long he gave up his task and abandoned the work in despair. Leonardo's failure in this case is the more lamentable because of the unanimous testimony borne by his contemporaries' to the magnificence of his design. All alike dwell with enthusiasm on the heroic beauty of the armed warriors and the noble forms of the horses in the central group. In 1513 the Signory ordered a balustrade to be placed in the Council Hall "for the protection of the figures painted by Leonardo da Vinci on the wall." After that we hear no more of the painting, which was probably allowed to perish. Leonardo's cartoon was placed in the Pope's Hall, and that of Michelangelo was hung in the Medici Palace. Benvenuto Cellini saw them in 1559, and describes them as the school of the whole world. In the course of the next century both of these priceless works vanished, and to-day nothing remains to us of Leonardo's masterpiece but a few studies of separate groups and figures in different collections, and Rubens' sketch of the central group.

A better fortune has attended the other great creation of these last years of the painter's residence in his native city. This is the portrait, now in the Louvre, of 'Mona Lisa,' the fair Neapolitan wife of Francesco del Giocondo, magistrate and prior of Florence.

The bitter disappointment which Leonardo felt at the failure of his painting in the Palazzo Vecchio was increased by a vexatious lawsuit into which he was drawn, owing to the refusal of his half-brothers to allow him to share in his father's and uncle's inheritance; and just at this time, when worries and vexations weighed heavily upon his mind, the painter received an invitation to enter the service of the French king, Louis XII. In May, 1506, he went to Milan, then in the possession of the French, having ob-