Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/381

Rh Piero went accordingly one morning to the room for the shield, and having knocked at the door, Leonardo opened it to him, telling him nevertheless to wait a little without, and having returned into the room he placed the shield on the easel, and shading the window so that the light falling on the painting was somewhat dimmed, he made Ser Piero step within to look at it. But the latter, not expecting any such thing, drew back, startled at the first glance, not supposing that to be the shield, or believing the monster he beheld to be a painting, he therefore turned to rush out, but Leonardo withheld him, saying:—The shield will serve the purpose for which it has been executed, take it therefore and carry it away, for this is the effect it was designed to produce. The work seemed something more than wonderful to Ser Piero, and he highly commended the fanciful idea of Leonardo, but he afterwards silently bought from a merchant another shield, whereon there was painted a heart transfixed with an arrow, and this he gave to the countryman, who considered himself obliged to him for it to the end of his life. Some time after Ser Piero secretly sold the shield painted by Leonardo to certain merchants for one hundred ducats, and it subsequently fell into the hands of the Duke of Milan, sold to him by the same merchants for three hundred ducats. No long time after Leonardo painted an admirable, which was greatly prized by Pope Clement VII.; among the accessories of this work was a bottle filled with water in which some flowers were placed, and not only were these flowers most vividly natural, but there were dewdrops on the leaves, which were so true to nature that they appeared to be the actual reality. For Antonio Segni who was his intimate friend, Leonardo delineated on paper a Neptune in his chariot drawn by sea-horses, and depicted with so much animation that he seems to be indeed alive; the turbulent waves also, the various phantasms surrounding the chariot, with the monsters of the deep, the winds, and admirable heads of marine deities, all contribute to the beauty of the work, which was presented by Fabio Segni, the son