114 Mr. Edward McCurdy [March 19, 



secret, and offering to make trial of any, either in the Ducal Park or 

 in whatsoever place might please his Excellency, in case any of the 

 suid inventions should seem to be impossible. In case that natural 

 incredulity, which the writer of the letter apparently expected to meet 

 with, by reason of the scope and variety of the inventions, which 

 comprise pontoons, scaling ladders, cannon or bombards, mines, 

 covered chariots, catapults, mangonels and smoke powders, should 

 dispose any to look on the list as a piece of rodomontade, it may be 

 observed that the contents of Leonardo's manuscripts at Paris and 

 .Milan fully substantiate every claim contained in the letter. 



The position which Leonardo desired to occupy under Ludovic 

 Sforza was not very unlike that of military engineer and inspector of 

 fortresses which he occupied at a later period in the service of Csesar 

 Borgia. 



The concluding paragraphs of the letter to Ludovic Sforza refer 

 to Leonardo's readiness to be employed in the arts of peace — in 

 architecture as a designer both of public and private buildings, in 

 the construction of water-courses, in painting and in sculpture, 

 whether of marble, bronze or clay, and especially in the execution of 

 the equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza. This project had been 

 formed some years previously by Galeazzo Maria Sforza as a means 

 of commemorating his house, but afterwards set aside through his 

 inability to obtain a sculptor capable of executing it. It was upon 

 this equestrian statue that Leonardo commenced work in the service 

 of the Sforzas. He laboured upon it intermittently for sixteen years. 

 The extent and fervency of the researches that he considered neces- 

 sary, which comprised studies of various antique equestrian statues, 

 and numerous notes of the proportions of particular horses, as well as 

 a treatise on the anatomy of the horse, brought about that, as was the 

 case with others of his commissions, as Petrarch says, " the work was 

 retarded by desire." Six years after its commencement the Floren- 

 tine ambassador in Milan wrote to Lorenzo de' Medici, on behalf of 

 Ludovic Sforza, asking him to send an artist capable of executing the 

 statue, because, "although Ludovic has entrusted the work to 

 Leonardo da Vinci, he is not fully persuaded that this master knows 

 how to execute it." 



Perhaps Leonardo's creative power was stimulated by the prospect 

 of being superseded. A note in one of his manuscripts states : " On 

 the 23rd day of April, 1490, I began this book and began the horse 

 again." Progress was then fairly continuous. The clay model was 

 exhibited in November, 1493, on the occasion of the marriage of 

 Bianca Maria Sforza with the Emperor Maximilian. The process of 

 casting in bronze would require, Leonardo calculated, a hundred 

 thousand pounds weight of metal. The financial embarrassments of 

 Ludovic's later years no doubt rendered this an impossibility. 



The monk Fra Salba da Castiglione, who was present when the 

 French entered Milan in 1499, records the fact of the destruction of 

 the clay model under the arrows of the Gascon bowmen. The statue 





