BIANCA SFORZA—THE LADY OF THE 
AMBROSIANA 
“ Quant bella giovinezza 
Che si fugge tuttavia ! 
Chi vuol esser lieto, sia, 
Di doman non c’b certezza.” 
Lorenzo de’ Medici. 
There are some portraits which have a strange and 
peculiar fascination. Most of us recall unforgettable 
faces by Giorgione and Titian, by Rembrandt and 
Holbein, as well as the one supreme picture which has 
laid its spell on all generations—Leonardo’s “ Mona 
Lisa. Something of the same mysterious charm be¬ 
longs to the unknown “Lady of the Ambrosiana,” in 
Milan, a portrait which certainly came from Leonardo’s 
studio, if it was not actually painted by his hand. For 
centuries this lovely profile hung in a dark corner of 
Cardinal Federico Borromeo’s Gallery, dirty and 
neglected. But even in those ignorant days its sur¬ 
passing beauty attracted the notice of connoisseurs. 
Fifty years ago Otto Mundler praised its divine excel¬ 
lence, and Gaillard, the accomplished French engraver, 
revealed its charm to readers of the Gazette des Beaux 
Arts in a plate executed only two years before his 
premature death. Dr. Bode has told us of the young 
