116 Mr. Edward McCurdy [March 19, 



into three periods. First the early years at Florence. Then his life 

 at Milan under Ludovic Sforza. * The third period, that of the 

 Odyssey of wanderings commenced on his leaving Milan with Fra 

 Luca Paciolo two months after the flight of Ludovic Sforza, and 

 extended for the remaining twenty years of his life. 



The two proceeded to Venice by way of Mantua, where Leonardo 

 made the sketch of Isabella d'Este now in the Louvre, and undertook 

 to paint her portrait, which promise not being fulfilled occasioned a 

 correspondence— pathetically one-sided — extending over several years. 



At Venice, as his manuscripts show, he studied the tides of the 

 Adriatic, and apparently prepared a scheme for flooding part of the 

 Veneto in order to stem the Turkish invasion, and also an apparatus 

 by which it would be possible to approach the Turkish galleys under 

 water. 



In the spring of 1500 he went to Florence, where Filippino Lippi 

 resigned to him a commission for an altar-piece for the church of the 

 Annunziata. He chose as subject the Madonna with St. Anne, but 

 only made a cartoon identical in subject with the much later picture 

 in the Louvre. 



A note in the Codice Atlan-tico tells of his hurried departure from 

 Florence to travel in the Romagna as architect and military engineer 

 in the service of Caesar Borgia. His manuscripts refer to works 

 planned at LTbino, Cesena and Porto Cesenatico. But the office 

 ended with the rebellion of the Duchy, and in March, 1503, Leonardo 

 was once more back in Florence. There he was employed to divert 

 the channel of the Arno, in connection with the war with Pisa. He 

 painted at this time the portrait of Madonna Lisa del Giocondo, the 

 world-famous Mona Lisa, and was also given a commission by the 

 Signoria to paint one of the walls of the Sala del Consiglio. The 

 subject probably chosen for him was the Battle of Anghiari, and the 

 portion executed in colour was known as the Battle for the Standard. 

 So long as the cartoon for this and the subject chosen by Michael 

 Angelo for the opposite wall existed they were, says Benvenuto 

 Cellini, " the school of the world." 



He was granted three months' leave of absence by the Signoria 

 at the request of the French Governor of Milan— the three months 

 were afterwards extended, through repeated requests, to sixteen ; and 

 although Leonardo then returned to Florence in connection with 

 litigation over an inheritance he did not resume work on the battle- 

 piece. He had apparently entered the service of the French. Louis 

 XII. refers to him in a letter to the Signoria as " our painter and 

 engineer in ordinary." He consulted him as to the conduit in the 

 garden of the chateau of Blois, and employed him on hydraulic work 

 in Lombardy. It was probably in May, 1509, when Louis XII. made 

 a triumphal entry into Milan after the victory of Agnadello, that 

 Leonardo constructed as part of the pageant an automatic lion which 

 walked a few paces and then opening its breast revealed it full of 

 lilies. 



