Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/299

1519] in which all the resources of his art and all the experience of ripened years are gathered up. Very few of his preliminary studies, however, remain. The red chalk drawing in the Accademia at Venice, with the names of the different apostles, is one of the earliest, and some single heads in the library at Windsor are of great beauty, while some curious descriptive notes indicating the attitude of each apostle, in Leonardo's own handwriting, are preserved at South Kensington Museum.

This first realistic conception, which curiously recalls Andrea del Castagno's fresco in Sant' Apollonia of Florence, was gradually transformed by the fine action of Leonardo's imagination into the noble and harmonious scene that is familiar to us all. There is consummate art in the grouping and gestures of the figures, in the simple tunics and mantles of the apostles, and the plain fittings of the upper chamber, with its timbered roof and