Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/301

1519] hardly hope to realise on earth, and that of Judas, for which he was still seeking a model, but would, if it pleased the Duke, make use of the Prior's own head, a joke over which both prince and painter laughed heartily. By the end of the year, however, the work was finished, and Luca Pacioli, in dedicating his book to the Duke, alludes to his friend Leonardo as the "sculptor of the admirable and stupendous equestrian statue, and the painter of the noble and beautiful symbol of the ardent Desire of our Salvation in the temple of le Gratie." Unfortunately, instead of working in fresco—a process which did not admit of the continual retouchings prompted by his fastidious taste—Leonardo painted in oils on a dry stucco ground, which soon crumbled away, and in Vasari's time the great picture was already a wreck. We need not dwell on the melancholy tale of subsequent mutilations and restorations which it has undergone. Enough that Leonardo's soul still dwells in this ruined masterpiece, and that even now it has a power and a charm which no copies can ever give. There is a vigour and sincerity in the heads, a sense of common action and thrill of sympathy running through the group, above all, a depth of tenderness and intensity of feeling in the expression of the faces, which no reproductions give, and which belong to the original alone.

After finishing the Last Supper, Leonardo painted Lodovico's own portrait and that of his young wife, the lamented Duchess Beatrice—who had died early in the year, and was buried in the church close by—kneeling with their little sons at the foot of the