VINCI. 



plans for roads, for railing water, &c. : yet amidft Uiffe 

 occupations he cultivated drawing moil afliduoufly from all 

 kinds of objefts of animated nature, in a ftyle of the molt 

 laboured and cxquifile finifiiing, as if he never could attain 

 too clofe an imitation of the obiedl he had felefted. He 

 always ftrove to malce them appear as ftrongly relieved as 

 poiTible ; thi'ir def.'ft is, that not having hit upon the true 

 nature of relieving objects, fuch as has been exemplified in 

 the Dutch fchool fince his time, he laboured his works to 

 blacknefs ; and whilll his principal obiefts appeared illu- 

 mined by the light of the day, his fliadows partook of the 

 blacknefs of night. 



He delighted in obfcrving thofe whofe charafter was 

 ftrongly marked, who liad any thing extravagant in the 

 llyle of their beards, their hair, or drefs, and would follow 

 them till he had fixed their form fully in his mind, and then 

 go home and draw them. By ftudies of this nature he be- 

 came poflefled of ftrong ideas of exprelTion and of clia- 

 rafter, and employed himfelf actively in the ufe of them in 

 defigns ; though the finifhed works of his hand, which 

 conjecture places at this period of his life, are not of a kind 

 to exhibit much of their application. 



His life, Lanzi obferves, " may be divided into four 

 periods, the firll of which wa"!, as we have feen, fpent in pro- 

 fecuting his ftudies in art, and occafionally applying them to 

 praftice in Florence : to this belong not only the head of 

 Medufa, and the few works m'ntioned by Vafari, but pro- 

 bably all thofe paintings of his which have lefs energy of 

 (hade, lefs complicated drapery, and heads of forms rather 

 delicate than exquifite, feemingly derived from the fchool of 

 Vcrocchio. Such are the Maddalenas of the Pitti palace 

 at Florence, and the Aldobrandini at Rome ; fome Madonnas 

 or holy families in various galleries, as the Juftiniani and 

 Borghefe ; fome heads of the Saviour and of the Baptift ; 

 though the multitude of his imitators muft render all deci- 

 fion on their originality ambiguous. Of a different clafs, 

 however, and without a doubt of his hand, is the Bambino, 

 who lies in a little ornamented bed, richly drefled and 

 adorned with necklaces, which is in the apartment of the 

 Gonfaloni^re at Bologna." 



After this firft period of his life, when he was forty-two, 

 ■vin. in 1494, he was invited to Milan by the duke Ludo- 

 vico Sforza, to whom Lionardo rendered himfelf more par- 

 ticularly acceptable by playing upon the lyre, and upon one 

 of a peculiar form, which he himfelf had made. To this 

 inftrument he fung alfo admirably, and recited verfesextem- 

 poraneoufly, fiirpafting all who attempted that fpecies of 

 amufement. But the more efFeftive caufe aftigned for his 

 going to the duke, was a defign entertained by that prince 

 of erefting a monument of bronze to the memory of his 

 father. Among the manuferipts ftill exifting of Lionardo, 

 is a memorial prefented by him to the duke about 1490. In 

 it he offers his fervices in various military mechanical con- 

 trivances, for the purpofe of aiding in lieges, pafTing rivers, 

 &c. and alfo for the condufling watcr-courfes, fculpture in 

 bronze or marble, and painting ; and in conclufion remarks, 

 " that at the fame time that thcfe things arc going on, the 

 cqucftrian ftatiie to the memory of the duke's father need 

 not be neglected." So that it appears by this, that the 

 modelling and ereftion of this ftatue were the primary objedts 

 for which he was carried to Milan ; and it was executed by 

 him in bronze, and ercdted in the city, where it remained till 

 it was demolifhed on the incurfion of the French, after the 

 defeat of Ludovico. The duke appointed him direftor of 

 the academy of painting and fculpture, which he had re- 

 cently revived with additional fplcndour ; and under his 

 inftrudtions many pupils arofe, who incrcafcd the love and 



renown of the arts, as he in great mcafure banilhed the re- 

 mains of the Gothic ftyle, and introduced his own new and 

 more elevated one in its ftead. 



Here, by dflire of the duke, he painted a Nativity, which 

 was fent by him as a prefent to the emperor of Germany ; 

 but if we except this, the portraits of the duke and duchefs, 

 and his grandeft work in the art, the Laft Supper, painted 

 on the walls of the refectory of the Dominican convent of 

 the Madonna delle Grazie, he does not appear to have occu- 

 pied much of the time he fpent at Milan (which was about 

 five years) in painting. Indeed he fcarcely could devote 

 more time to it, as the duke engaged him as an engineer to 

 conduft the waters of the Adda to the walls of Milan : an 

 immenle operation, in which, after much ftudv and labour, 

 he had nearly fucceeded, when it was interrupted by the 

 French. He alfo made many models of ingenious mechanical 

 contrivances, and among them a lion, in compliment to the 

 king of France, on his arrival at Milan, which, after ad- 

 vancing by itfelf many paces to meet the monarch, fud- 

 denly ftopped when it came near him, reared upon its 

 hinder legs, and threw open its breaft, which was filled with 

 lilies. 



Whilft thefe various inventions (hewed the verfatility of 

 his powers, the pidture above alluded to, the Laft Supper, 

 gave immortality to the fame of the moment. Of tliis 

 pidture, one only charafter is given by all who have written 

 or fpoken of it, — that of fuperior excellence in all the moft 

 admirable and exalted quahties of the art. Unfortunately, 

 his knowledge in chemiftry was not equal to his love of 

 novelty, or he would not have painted it with a vehicle and 

 a ground totally difcordant, which neceffarily led to a 

 fpeedy deftruftion of the furface. He painted it with oil 

 colours upon the plaftered wall, and in confequence the 

 colour cracked and peeled off ; fo that in fifty years after 

 it was painted, when Armcnini vifited it, he fays " it was 

 already half fpoiled ;" and Scannelli, who faw it in 1642, 

 fays, that " the fubjedt was fcarcely difcernible." Lanzi, 

 in fpeaking of it recently, obferves, that " what with the 

 attempts to n.-ftore it by oils and varnilhes, and with the re- 

 painting which has accompanied ihefe attempt?, there nov.- 

 remain only three heads of the apoftles by the hand of Da 

 Vinci, and thofe rather drawn than coloured." The alTent, 

 therefore, which may be now given to the high teftimony 

 of contemporary authorities as to the merit of this great 

 work, reds with the copies which were made when the 

 pidture was perfedt, (and they are many,) and the general 

 charadtcr of Lionardo's talent. 



There has lately been introduced into England, and is now 

 exhibiting, ( 1817,) a copy as large in length as the original, 

 faid to be the one painted by M. Uggione, a pupil of Da 

 Vinci, for the convent of the Carthufians at Pavia : which 

 in 1793, upon the breaking up of that order, was fold with, 

 the other cfFcdts of the convent, and is now brought here. 

 In it there remains futRcient of the grandeur of (tylc adopted 

 by its great author to fatisfy every beholder of the jufticc 

 fame has done to his talents. The feledtion of matter, the 

 general treatment of the fubjedt, the unequalled truth and 

 variety of exprefiion, the clofe attention paid to charadter 

 and to nature, the depth, richncfs and brilliancy of its co- 

 lour, with tlip high degree of finifh to which it was carried, 

 — all are manifefted in this copy, though in fome parts 

 impcrfcftly. In it alfo arc feen the want of many points in 

 chiaro-fcuro and in colour, wliich, if they could have been 

 combined with the matter it contains, (and they have fince 

 then been combined by Titian and others,) would place the 

 original of this pidture in every re fpedl at the head of all the 

 pidturee which ever were painted. 



During 



