and
letters entitles him to a place among the most illustrious patrons of
the Renaissance. To his keen intellect and discerning eye, to his fine
taste and quick sympathy with all forms of beauty, we owe the production
of some of the noblest works of art that human hands have ever
fashioned. To his personal encouragement and magnificent liberality we
owe the grandest monuments of Lombard architecture, and the finest
development of Milanese painting, the facade of the Certosa and the
cupola of Sta. Maria delle Grazie, the frescoes and altar-pieces of the
Brera and the Ambrosiana. Above all, it was at the Milanese court, under
the stimulating influence of the Moro, that Leonardo da Vinci's finest
work was done.

As a man, Lodovico Sforza is profoundly interesting. Burckhardt has
called him the most complete among the princely figures of the Italian
Renaissance, and there can be no doubt that alike in his virtues and in
his faults, he was curiously typical of the age in which he lived.
Guicciardini, who was certainly no friend to him, and regarded him as
the inveterate foe of Florence, describes him as "a creature of very
rare perfection, most excellent for his eloquence and industry and many
gifts of nature and spirit, and not unworthy of the name of milde and
mercifull;" and the Milanese doctor Arluno, the author of an unpublished
chronicle in the Biblioteca Marciana at Venice, says, "He had a sublime
soul and universal capacity. Whatever he did, he surpassed expectation,
in the fine arts and learning, in justice and benevolence. And he had no
equal among Italian princes for wisdom and sagacity in public affairs."
Contemporary writers describe him as very pleasant in manner and
gracious in speech, always gentle and courteous to others, ready to
listen, and never losing his temper in argument. He shared in the
laxity of morals common to his age; but was a man of deep affections as
well as strong passions, fondly attached to his children and friends,
while the profound and lasting grief with which he lamented his dead
wife amazed his more fickle contemporaries. Singularly refined and
sensitive by nature, he shrank instinctively from bloodshed, and had a
horror of all violent actions. In this he differed greatly from his
elder brother Galeazzo Maria, who was a monster of lust and cruelty,
intent only on gratifying his savage instincts, and as callous to human
suffering as he was reckless of human life. Lodovico, as his most