Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/302

258 Milanese artist Mortorfano's fresco of the Crucifixion, on the opposite wall. Since, however, he insisted on painting them in oils, these noble figures—which contemporaries describe as living images of both Duke and Duchess—have almost disappeared. But already Lodovico's enemies were closing about him, and he found himself in sore need of men and money.

In April, 1499, Leonardo, who up till this time had found him so generous a patron, wrote to remind him that his salary was two years in arrear, and in reply received a grant of a vineyard outside the Porta Vercellina, with a letter acknowledging his services in the warmest terms, and calling him the most famous of living painters. When, a few months later, the French entered Milan, and Lodovico fled to Innsbruck, Leonardo sent 600 florins which he had saved to the bank of S. Maria Nuova in Florence, and went to Venice. On his journey he stopped at Mantua, and paid a visit to the accomplished Marchesa Isabella, sister to Duchess Beatrice, whom he had often met at the court of Milan, and whose portrait he drew in charcoal. By the end of March he was back in Florence. There he heard the news of Lodovico's final defeat and betrayal to the French, and of the terrible ruin which had overwhelmed his State and friends. The fair palace which he had helped to decorate was pillaged by French soldiery, and the model of his equestrian statue became a target for Gascon archers. A few broken sentences in one of Leonardo's note-books record the grief which he felt that day. Bramante's buildings were left unfinished, the architect Jacopo da Ferrara, a friend dear to him as a brother, had been hung by