LIFE

...works of da Vinci. Moved by the prayers of his colleague, he returned seven of them, and six remained in the Mazzenta house. One of these was donated to Cardinal Borromeo for his Ambrosiana library, and another to Ambrogio Figgini, who upon dying left it to his heir Ercole Bianchi. A third was acquired by Charles Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy, and upon the death of Signor Guido, the remaining ones came into the hands of the aforementioned Pompeo Leoni A famous sculptor and collector who compiled many of Leonardo's notes into the "Codex Atlanticus.", who left them to Cleodoro Calchi, his heir, who sold them for 300 scudi to Signor Galeazzo Lonato. Leonardo was accustomed, when he wished to philosophize and apply himself with intense focus to study, to retreat to the said villa of Vaprio The Villa Melzi d’Eril in Vaprio d’Adda., and it is known that he lived there for many years with Francesco Melzi, his disciple. Below, the index of his writings will be placed.

After the fall of "Il Moro" Ludovico Sforza, nicknamed "The Moor," Leonardo's primary patron in Milan., who was led as a prisoner to France in the year 1500 and died in the Tower of Loches, the study of the fine arts in Milan grew quite cold due to the wars that followed. The academy already begun there gradually dissipated; in this academy, Francesco Melzi, Cesare da Sesto, Bernardino Luini, Andrea Salai, Marco d'Oggiono, Antonio Boltraffio, Paolo Lomazzo, and other Milanese had become excellent in painting. They were all imitators of da Vinci to such an extent that their works were—and are today—often believed, esteemed, and sold as being by Leonardo's hand, especially those of Sesto and Luini, who most closely approached the master's style. But Lomazzo would have risen above them all had he not lost his sight in the greenest years of his youth, as had been predicted by Girolamo Cardano A famous Italian polymath, physician, and astrologer.. Being unable to work with his hand, he dedicated himself to treating painting with his intellect, and though blind, he composed those books Such as the Trattato dell'arte della pittura (1584). which are esteemed as excellent even by the most sharp-sighted, in which he continually proposes da Vinci as the ideal of the true and perfect painter.

At the time when Louis XII, King of France, came to Milan (which was one year before the capture of Il Moro), Leonardo was asked by the city's leading citizens to invent some whimsical and magnificent machine with which to gift and delight that great prince. He made a lion of such artifice that, after walking a good distance in a hall, it stopped before the King, and then, opening its chest, it was seen to be full of lilies The fleur-de-lis, the heraldic symbol of the French monarchy.. Through an error by the one who wrote under Lomazzo (Book 2, Chapter 1), it is read that such a thing was done for Francis I, which cannot be true because he entered Milan in the year 1515, at which time Leonardo was in Rome, as will be seen below.

The turmoil in Lombardy and the misfortunes of the Sforza family, Leonardo's patrons, forced him to abandon Milan and return to Florence, his homeland. The first thing he did there was that famous cartoon cartoon: a full-scale preparatory drawing for a fresco or painting of the Virgin with Christ and Saint Anne, with Saint John, which was intended for the high altar of the Annunziata. It was visited in a great flock by all the people of Florence. This cartoon was later carried by Leonardo himself to France, where the King desired him to paint it in color.

He then made for Francesco del Giocondo the much-celebrated portrait of Lisa, his wife, commonly called La Gioconda Known in the English-speaking world as the Mona Lisa., which is seen at Fontainebleau in the company of many other precious paintings of the "Most Christian King" A traditional title for the Kings of France., and was bought for four thousand scudi by Francis I. It is said that he spent four years working on that portrait and that he nevertheless left it unfinished, having such delicate taste and a mind so sharp and subtle that to reach the truth of na—