Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 20.djvu/187

* VINCI. 145 VINCI. In January, 1503, he was again in Floronee, where he served on the coniiiiission of artists to decide upon the proper location for Micliehmgelo's "David." and served as an ciifiiiieer in the war against Pisa. Toward the end of the year lie en- tered U|)0n his famous contest with Michelangelo (q.v.) in a design for the deccjration of the great hall of the Palazzo Vccchio. The contest was of national iniport^ince, designed, liy a, gkirilication of past valor, to encourage the Klorcntiniw in their struggUi with Pisa. Each ])repared a car- toon for one of the long walls, l.eonar(h>'s suhject being the "Battle of Angliiari." 'I'lie centre of the cartoon was a cavalry struggle U])on a bridge over a standard in which the fierce passion of battle was portrayed, as never befor(( or since. To judge from Leonardo's report to the Signoria, based upon profound historical studies, it seenia that on the left the Patriarch of Aqiiileja, leader of the Florentines, watched the battle, praying for success, and on the right the Milanese troops were in full flight. The execution of the paint- ing upon the wall does not seem to have pro- gressed beyond the central group aliout the standard, which survives in the "15attle of the Standard," a drawing in the Louvre ascribed to Rubens, and in the well-known engraving by Edelinek. During this second Florentine period ( 1.503-Ofl) Leonardo painted two fine portraits, that of Ginevra Benci, which is lost, and "Mona Lisa," the pride of the Louvre, perhaps the most cele- brated portrait in the world. She was the third wife of the Florentine Francesco del Giocondo, whence the name "La .Joeonde," by which the por- trait is known in France. The face has sadly suf- fered at the restorer's hand, Mr. Pater to the con- trary notwithstanding. The redness of the lips and the carnation of the face have disappeared, as have the subtle gradations of blue and red about the eyes, which Vasari praises so highly. But the eyes still have their dewy shimmer, as in life, a subtle smile plays about the mouth, and the wonderful hands are almost unspoiled. Leonardo is said to have employed musicians and jesters to produce the subtle and mysterious expression of her countenance, an efi'ect heightened by the strange, rocky landscape in which she appears. Af- ter four years' labor on the work, he pronounced it unfinished : hut to other eyes it seems one of the most highly finished works in modern art. In 150G Leonardo went to Milan on a three months' leave of absence from Florence. The powerful intercession of Cliaumont, the French Governor of Jlilan, at length induced the gon- falonier of Florence to release him from his con- tract in the Palazzo Vecchio. Leonardo was named Court painter to the King, Louis XII., and for the next few years he divided his time between the two cities. He was kept at Florence by a long drawn-out, though ultimately successful, lawsuit against one of his brothers, who refused to carry out the provision of his father's will that Leo- nardo share equally with the other children. At Mil.an he continued his engineering projects, and he had studios both there and at Florence. At this period, especially, he executed many designs for paintings carried out by his Milanese pupils. It has been the service of Morelli to distinguish these from his genuine works, and to rewrite the history of the Milanese school. Among such paintings no longer attributed to Leonardo are the "Holy Family with Saint Catharine" and a half mule female figure recalling ".Mona Lisa" at Saint Petersburg; "Madonna with the Scales," ".Madonna with the Child and Saint .lolin Bap- tist," the "Youthful Bacchus," and a "Youthful Saint John Baptist" — all in the Louvre; and the fresco of a "Virgin with Donor" in Sant" Onofrio, Rome. Even the beautiful "Madonna Litta" (Saint Petersburg), a work wortliy of Leonardo, is now generally assigned to Bcrnardiiwi de' C'ontj. A free copy of Leonardo's "Lcda and the Swan," which we know he painteil during (he second Mi- lanese period, survives in Sodoiiia's version in the Borghose Collection at Rome. The only gen- uine surviving painting of this .second Milanese period — some indeed give it an earlier date — is the "Madonna in the Grotto." There has been much dispute as to whether the original is in the Louvre or in the National Ciallery. Some careful critics consider both genuine, but the best opinion favors the Louvre. In this re- markable work Leonardo has finally solved the problem of chiaroscuro, in the striking con- trast of the faces of the Virgin and the two children with the darkness of the grotto. When the French temporarily abandoned Milan in 1513 Leonardo paid a visit to Rome; but neither this nor his previous brief visit seems to have exercised any infiuenee upon his art. In 1515 he returned to Milan, and was in charge of the festivities when Francis I. of France trium- phantly entered. He was made Court painter at a salary of 700 gold scudi annually, besides being confirmed in his previous possessions. By order of Francis I. he bought up all of his own pictures that could be had, whence the col- lection in the Louvre, and in 1510 he accom- panied the King to France. He passed the re- mainder of his days in the residence assigned him in Castle Cloux, devoted to .scientific research-, and died there soon after the date of his testa- ment. May 2, 1519. He did not die in the arms of Francis I., as is often supposed on the evidence of Vasari. but in the presence of his friend Meizi, a young Milanese nobleman who had been his constant companion during the latter part of his life, and to whom he left most of his prop- erty and his invaluable manuscripts. Leonardo was the most universal genius of that age of geniuses, the Renaissance. As a man of science he towered above all contempo- raries, and had his views been known and gen- erally published, the}' must have revolutionized the science of his day. That they were not is perhaps due to the fact that his manuscripts were almost undecipherable, being written with the left hand, back-handed, and from right to left. With an almost inspired glance he divined the secrets of nature, making discoveries which it has been reserved for our own time to perfect. A consummate master of anatomy, he even divined the circulation of the blood and the action of the eye in vision. He made astounding observations in meteorology, knew the earth's annual motion and the eflfect of the moon upon the tides, fore- shadowed the hv-pothesis of the elevation of con- tinents, and discovered the nature of fossil shells. He originated the science of hydraulics, and prob- ably invented the hydrometer; his scheme for the canalization of rivers is still of practical value. He also invented a large number of labor- saving machines, very remarkable for his day.