A Treatise on Painting

...on, more than anything else it suited his imagination. And from his very first childhood, he delighted in making figures in relief sculptural works that project from a flat background, and drawing them from practice; far from these being like the puppets original: "fantocci" that other children usually make, they were figures corrected according to art. Wherefore his father—who was a worthy man, but poorly provided with the things of the world due to his too-large family—considering the elevation of his son's talents and knowing that one must not offer resistance to the forces of nature, settled him in the workshop of Master Andrea da Verrocchio, his friend, earnestly praying him to take care of the boy and to direct him in that study for which he showed himself so passionate. The Master was astonished when he recognized the genius of the youth, and took such wonder at it that he ingenuously confessed to Ser Piero that he would succeed most excellently in that profession. When Leonardo was born, although Giotto, Masaccio, and others of their followers had greatly refined painting with their works, nonetheless in this refinement of the art there was still much to be desired to make it reach perfection. He was, therefore, the first who gave the beginning and the extreme perfection to the third and final manner of painting, which is called modern The "Maniera Moderna" or High Renaissance style. Meanwhile, he did not limit his occupations in his youth to this art alone, but being endowed with a marvelous and divine intellect, he also made himself known as great in Sculpture; and we know that he assisted with his work Francesco Rustici in the casting of three bronze statues that still adorn the door of St. John in Florence The Florence Baptistery, and he also formed for his own studies many heads of children and women that were marvelous to whoever saw them. Likewise, he did not forget Architec-