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The love of art was still the ruling passion of his life, and Leonardo still for him the prince of painters. On the 26th of April, he made the Florentine master a present of a vineyard which he had bought from the monastery of S. Victor outside the Porta Vercellina, probably adjoining a house and piece of land which the painter had already received from him, near S. Maria delle Grazie.
I name those three masters for this reason: Leonardo has powers of subtle drawing which are peculiarly applicable in many ways to the drawing of fine ornament, and are very useful for all students.
Then, in Italy at least, the classic Renaissance gave fresh life to anatomy as to all other sciences. Especially did the improvements in painting and sculpture stir men up to a closer study of the human frame. Leonardo da Vinci wrote a treatise on muscular anatomy.
It is a pity ours is not a cathedral town; a bishop is really so interesting. For instance, in 'Leonardo. Madeleine, have you ever seen a bishop?" Madeleine turned towards her with a deep blush on her face, as she stammered out, "What were you asking, Fanny?" But Fanny's quick eye had already caught sight of Delphin, who was coming over from the other side of the street.
We wondered why it was placed here until we learned from our invaluable Joanne that the Italian artist had lived and died at Amboise, inhabiting a little manor house near the château. It was Francis I, the beauty loving as well as the pleasure seeking King, who brought Leonardo to France and to Amboise, the home of his childhood.
Leonardo undertook to execute, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Monna Lisa, his wife; and after toiling over it for four years, he left it unfinished; and the work is now in the collection of King Francis of France, at Fontainebleau.
Leonardo's dying regret was that he had not completed this picture. And yet we might say of it, as Ruskin said of Turner's work, "By no conceivable stretch of imagination can we say where this picture could be bettered or improved upon." Leonardo did not paint this portrait for the woman who sat for it, nor for the woman's husband, who we know was not interested in the matter.
Then it swung back to its first fair seeming, or not to its first, but to a deeper, brighter yet. The Fisherman by Galilee was fortunate. Whoever perceived truth and beauty was fortunate, fortunate now and forever! We came back to Messer Leonardo. "I spent six months at the court in Milan," said the fair man. "I painted the Duke and the Duchess and two great courtiers. Messer Leonardo was away.
At the house of Don Leonardo, they were hospitably received, and found the proprietor to be a rough Spaniard, with a dark quadroon daughter, whose mulatto mother was dead. The household, though primitive, in many particulars, was yet profusely supplied with every necessity, and even many luxuries.
She sat crouching alone till her tirewomen called; horrible talkative things! her own familiar maid Giacinta being the worst to bear with. Now, Michiella, by making love to Leonardo, Camillo's associate, discovers that Camillo is conspiring against her father. She utters to Leonardo very pleasant promises indeed, if he will betray his friend.
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