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On Monday, the 2nd of January, the Duchess Beatrice drove in her chariot through the park of the Castello and along the streets of the city to the Porta Vercellina and the Church of S. Maria delle Grazie, where even then Leonardo was at work upon his great fresco.
But Sanseverino, suspecting treachery, set spurs to his horse, and, riding with drawn sword in his hand out of the city through the Porta Vercellina, crossed the Ticino, and did not pause until he was in safety. His companions soon followed his example.
Both Leonardo and Bramante were employed on extensive works in the Castello during the duke's absence that summer, although the Florentine master, we know, was chiefly engaged in finishing his great fresco in the refectory of the Dominican convent outside the Porta Vercellina.
With these words he kissed the castellan on the cheek, and, mounted on a black horse, in the long black mantle which he always wore since his wife's death, he rode out, accompanied by his chief senators to the Porta Vercellina. There he turned to his companions, and, with a noble and dignified air, thanked them once more for their faithful services, and bade them all farewell.
He gave him the fine estate of Castelnuovo in the Tortonese, which had once belonged to his father, the great Condottiere Roberto, as well as a house in Pavia near the church of San Francesco and a palace in Milan, near the Porta Vercellina, and allowed him to build a villa and extensive stables in the park of the Castello.
These the men-at-arms received; and, making them hastily up into a bundle, and tying them with a piece of cord, they despatched them by a special messenger to the Prefect; so that hardly had we entered the Porta Vercellina, till our arrival was known at head-quarters.
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.
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