A Treatise on Painting

of the work. He Likely referring to Giorgio Vasari, the famous biographer of Renaissance artists. also recounts certain minor things unworthy of the greatness of Vinci’s genius, which must be considered suspicious, having been written by a person very partial to Michelangelo. As we have said, Michelangelo professed an open enmity toward Leonardo and delighted in diminishing his reputation with feigned and mythical pranks. That implacable hatred deeply displeased Leonardo; seeing himself called by King Francis, who had fallen in love with his works during his stay in Milan, he resolved—though he was over seventy years old—to embrace such an honored and glorious offer and to make the journey to France.

The pleasure the King felt was extraordinary, seeing himself the possessor of a man of such talent, whom he so greatly esteemed and desired. And although Leonardo could hardly work anymore due to his old age, he was nonetheless always well-regarded and pampered by the King. Everyone knows that having been ill for many months at Fontainebleau, the King came to visit him. Wishing to sit up in bed out of reverence to recount the details of his illness, Leonardo suffered a seizure. The King took his head to help and support him; having recognized this favor, Leonardo breathed his last in the King's arms at the age of seventy-five. He died more glorious than any other painter—if it is true that "a beautiful death honors a whole life." original: "un bel morir tutta la vita honora." This is a famous quote from the poet Petrarch.

He was very beautiful of body, as was mentioned above. Once his youth had passed, with a philosophical negligence he let his hair and beard grow long, so that he looked like an ancient Hermes Hermes Trismegistus, a legendary Hellenistic figure associated with wisdom and alchemy. or a Druid. He never wished to take a wife, or if he had one (as another painter used to say), it was none other than Art, and his works were his children. One should not believe that all of them have been mentioned here, because the Great Duke of Florence has many others, and I remember having seen several in England. In the Idea of the Temple of Painting by Paolo Lomazzo, chapter 33. mention is made of a Conception of the Virgin Known today as the "Virgin of the Rocks." painted for the church of San Francesco in Milan. In the Ambrosian Library of the same city, many drawings and paintings by this author are preserved.

Here in Paris, in the Palais-Cardinal The residence of Cardinal Richelieu, now the Palais-Royal., one can see a Madonna by his hand, who sits in the lap of Saint Anne and holds in her hands the Christ Child, who plays with a lamb. There is a very beautiful landscape, but the head of the Virgin remains unfinished. Cardinal Richelieu owned a Herodias A painting of Salome with the head of John the Baptist. of exquisite beauty. The Saint John in the Desert, a full figure which is at Fontainebleau, and another painting of a Madonna with Christ, Saint John, and an angel of miraculous beauty set in a landscape, are things to be observed. In the study of the Marquis de Sourdis in Paris, there is another Madonna of great reputation.

Monsieur de Ciarmois, secretary to Marshal de Schomberg—a gentleman of rare qualities who, joining curiosity with intelligence, has made a considerable collection of fine paintings—possesses one by Vinci. In it, with two half-figures, is represented the young and handsome Joseph who, while fleeing, turns his back to the beautiful but dishonest wife of Potiphar. The whole is painted with great love and diligence; the expression is wonderful, and the modesty of the one and the lust of the other seem in the two faces to be real things rather than fictions. Belonging to the same gentleman is a Madonna with Saint Anne and a Christ Child to whom Saint Michael offers a pair of scales, and a Saint John playing with a lamb; it is a painting of extreme beauty. But it would be too much to try to record all of Vinci's paintings; it remains that after the works of the brush, we should speak of those of the pen.

Vinci used to write with his left hand, according to the custom of the Hebrews A reference to Leonardo's famous "mirror writing," which moves from right to left., in which...