merini, only asking ..."

The painter, we know, had never complained of Lodovico's want of
liberality, and before he left Milan that December, he was able to send
600 gold florins to Florence, but he probably received the vineyard
outside the gate in answer to this appeal. In the deed of gift, the
duke expressly states that Leonardo, in his judgment and in that of the
best judges, is the most famous of living painters, and that, having
been employed by him in manifold works, in all of which he has shown
admirable genius, the time has come to put the promises which have been
made him into execution. Accordingly, the duke presents him with this
vineyard, small indeed compared with the painter's merits, but which
Leonardo may take as a sign that, as in the past, he will always find
the ducal house sensible of his services, and that Lodovico himself will
in the future more fully reward the master's excellent acts and singular
talents.

A week later Lodovico remembered the altar-piece which Perugino had
promised to paint for the Certosa, and on the 1st of May wrote to the
Carthusian friars, desiring them to urge the Umbrian painter to complete
and deliver the work without delay.

"You know," he wrote, "how much labour and expense we have bestowed on
the decoration of the Certosa of Pavia, and how much we rejoice to see
that the building is nearly finished. And we have always exhorted
yourselves, venerable Prior and brothers, to choose the most excellent
artists to paint pictures that may be at once helps to devotion and
ornaments of the church. Since, with this intention, we proposed a
certain Perugino and a Maestro Filippo, both of them admirable and
honoured masters, to paint two altar-pieces, and disbursed large sums in
order to obtain these pictures, we are seriously displeased to find that
three years have passed without the work being done. This is unjust both
to ourselves and the friars, since it deprives the Certosa of the
perfection that we desire to see there, and we must beg you to insist on
these excellent masters completing the said altar-pieces within a
reasonable term, or else returning the money which they have received.
For, as you know, nothing is dearer to our hearts than the things that
concern this church and monastery."

Lodovico's exertions were not in vain, at least in the case of Perugino.
Before the end of the year, the great altar-piece containing the lovely
Madonna and saints, which now adorns