Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/303

1519] the French as a traitor, all his old companions were in prison or exile, and his noble patron Lodovico was a captive in a foreign land. "The Duke," he wrote, "has lost his realm, his fortune and his liberty. Not one of his great undertakings has been completed."

The next sixteen years of Leonardo's life were spent in constant journeyings up and down Italy. During fifteen months he remained in Florence, first in the house of his friend, the sculptor Rustici, and afterwards with the Servi brothers, who commissioned him to paint an altar-piece for their church. After many delays, he at length produced a cartoon of the Madonna and St. Anne, which not only filled all artists with admiration, but brought crowds of men and women, old and young, to the hall in the convent where it was exhibited during two days. "The whole city was stirred," writes Vasari, "and you might have thought it was a procession on some solemn feast day." The Carmelite preacher, Fra Pietro da Nuvolaria, writing to Isabella d'Este, in April, 1501, describes this cartoon, which made all Florence wonder, in the following words:—

This sketch, in which we recognise the design for