Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/313

1519] the mysteries and learn the secrets of Nature. All forms of life attracted him. Nothing was too small or insignificant to escape his attention. Studies of plants and brambles, of flowers and roots of trees, are mingled with designs of monuments and hydraulic machines, with anatomical sketches of veins and muscles, drawings of rocks and waves, or grotesques and caricatures. And in the midst of this varied and amazing display of mental activity we find lovely women-faces with Mona Lisa's smile, or fair boys with curled and waving hair, in which the artist has tried to seize and hold fast the fleeting beauty of which he wrote: Cosa bella mortal passa, e non d'arte—"Mortal beauty passes away, but not art." As we turn over these wonderful pages, we begin to realise all the greatness of the gifts with which he was endowed, the rare creative faculty and exquisite refinement of feeling which have made Leonardo unique among the Italian painters of the Renaissance, and foremost among the supreme masters of the world.