Page:Cyclopedia of painters and paintings (IA cyclopediaofpain04cham).pdf/392
for Venice, and the year after (1502) to visit
the fortresses of the principal cities of the
Romagna as military engineer to Cæsar Borgia.
Between 1503 and 1505 he produced
the famous cartoon of the Battle of the
Standard, from which he was to have painted
a fresco in the great Hall of the Palazzo
Vecchio at Florence. It hung side by side
with Michelangelo's cartoon of the Battle of
Pisa, in the Hall, where both were studied as
miracles of art by all the painters of the time
until after 1518, though Vasari erroneously
says it was cut to pieces in 1512. In October,
1507, Leonardo once more established
himself in Milan, where he remained, with
the exception of two short visits to Florence
in 1511 and 1513, until 1514, when he accompanied
Giuliano de' Medici to Rome to
assist at the coronation of Leo X. Unless
he had previously visited Rome, of which we
have no proof, Leonardo must at this time
have painted the admirable fresco of the
Madonna with Donor, in a lunette in S. Onofrio
on the Janiculum. Leonardo went in
January, 1516, to France, at the invitation
of Francis I., and spent the last three years
of his life in the King's service. But one of
the many sides of this most many-sided of
great men can be considered here, and that
very imperfectly—namely, his work as a
painter. Of this, unfortunately, very little
which can be regarded as certainly authentic
remains. His great mural painting of the
Last Supper, at Milan, is in such a degraded
and repainted condition that it is but a
shadow of a shade, of the original perfection
of which we can best judge by the fine
drawing for the head of Christ, in the Brera,
and to some extent by the copy by Marco
d' Oggione, in the Royal Academy, London,
and the well-known engraving by Raphael
Morghen. His cartoon survives only in the
drawing of one of its groups by Rubens, in
the Louvre, a Flemish copy of which was
probably used by Edelinck for his engraving
of the Battle of the Standard. Few of
the easel pictures attributed to Leonardo
have stood the test of modern criticism;
one after another has been assigned to some
of his numerous disciples, until those beyond
dispute authentic are the following: La
Belle Ferronière (about 1497), Mona Lisa
(about 1500), Madonna with St. Anne, Madonna
of the Rocks, Louvre, Paris, and National
Gallery, London. Other works which
pass under Leonardo's name are: Bacchus,
St. John Baptist (probably authentic), Louvre;
Vanity and Modesty, Palazzo Barberini,
Rome (painted by Luini or Salaino);
Madonna, Palazzo Belgiojoso, Milan; Madonna
of the Scales, Louvre (Salaino or Cesare
da Sesto); Madonna and Infant St.
John, Louvre (by Bernardino Luini); Portrait
of Charles d'Amboise, Louvre (by
Beltraffio); Resurrection, Berlin Museum;
Salome with Head of John Baptist, Vienna
Museum (by Cesare da Sesto); Male Portrait,
perhaps of Lodovico Sforza, Dresden
Museum; St. Jerome, Vatican; The Goldsmith,
La Monaca, Palazzo Pitti, Florence (attributed
to Lorenzo di Credi); Portrait of Isabella
of Aragon, Ambrosian Library, Milan;
Madonna della Caraffa, Palazzo Borghese,
Rome; Portrait of Leonardo (?), Annunciation
(?), Adoration of the Magi (?), Uffizi,
Florence; Madonna, fresco, Villa Melzi at
Vaprio; Holy Family, Hermitage, St. Petersburg.—Vasari,
ed.
Mil., iv. 17; Burckhardt,
363, 625;
Mündler, 112; Pater,
Studies, 90; Dohme,
2iii.; Ch. Blanc,
École florentine;
Houssaye, Hist. de
Léonard de Vinci (Paris, 1869); Kugler
(Eastlake), ii. 347; Gallenberg, L. da Vinci
(Leipsic, 1834); Archivio storico italiano,
Series III., Vol. 16; Amoretti, Memoire
storiche; Bossi, Cenacolo; Carl Brun,
Kunst und Künstler des Mittelalters und
der Neuzeit; Brown; Heaton; Richter;
Symonds, Renaissance; Eastlake, Five Great
Painters (London, 1882); Art Journal
(1882), 33; Jahrbuch der preuss. Kunstsamml.,
v. 293; Kunst-Chronik, xx. 201,