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But among the more youthful heads there is one at Florence which Love chooses for its own the head of a young man, which may well be the likeness of Andrea Salaino, beloved of Leonardo for his curled and waving hair belli capelli ricci e inanellati and afterwards his favourite pupil and servant.
Salaino brings exquisite delicacy of execution; d'Oggiono, wild and bizarre beauty; Melzi, the refinements of a miniaturist; Beltraffio, hard brilliancy of light and colour; Cesare da Sesto, somewhat of effeminate sweetness; and thus the qualities of many men emerge, to blend themselves again in what is Lionardo's own.
Andrea Salaino, Marco d'Oggiono, Francesco Melzi, Giovanni Antonio Beltraffio, and Cesare da Sesto, are all of them skilled workmen, losing and finding their individuality, as just described, in the manner of their master.
Of all the interests in living men and women which may have filled his life at Milan, this attachment alone is recorded; and in return Salaino identified himself so entirely with Leonardo, that the picture of Saint Anne, in the Louvre, has been attributed to him.
It illustrates Leonardo's usual choice of pupils, men of some natural charm of person or intercourse like Salaino, or men of birth and princely habits of life like Francesco Melzi men with just enough genius to be capable of initiation into his secret, for the sake of which they were ready to efface their own individuality.
Yet he felt the influence of personal loveliness His favourite pupil Salaino was a youth "of singular grace, with curled and waving hair, a feature of personal beauty by which Lionardo was always greatly pleased."
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