work posterity still
may read the meaning of that epoch, differently rendered according to the
difference of gifts in each consummate artist, but comprehended in its
unity by study of the four together. Lionardo is the wizard or diviner; to
him the Renaissance offers her mystery and lends her magic. Raphael is the
Phoebean singer; to him the Renaissance reveals her joy and dowers him
with her gift of melody. Correggio is the Ariel or Faun; he has surprised
laughter upon the face of the universe, and he paints this laughter in
ever-varying movement. Michael Angelo is the prophet and Sibylline seer;
to him the Renaissance discloses the travail of her spirit; him she endues
with power; he wrests her secret, voyaging, like an ideal Columbus, the
vast abyss of thought alone. In order that this revelation of the
Renaissance in painting should be complete, it is necessary to add a fifth
power to these four--that of the Venetian masters, who are the poets of
carnal beauty, the rhetoricians of mundane pomp, the impassioned
interpreters of all things great and splendid in the pageant of the outer
world. As Venice herself, by type of constitution and historical
development, remained sequestered from the rest of Italy, so her painters
demand separate treatment.[235] It is enough, therefore, for the present
to remember that without the note they utter the chord of the Renaissance
lacks its harmony.

Lionardo, the natural son of Messer Pietro, notary of Florence and landed
proprietor at Vinci, was so beautiful of person that no one, says Vasari,
has sufficiently extolled his charm; so strong of limb that he could bend
an iron ring or horse-shoe between his fingers; so eloquent of speech that
those who listened to his words were fain to answer "Yes" or "No" as he
thought fit. This child of grace and persuasion was a wonderful musician.
The Duke of Milan sent for him to play upon his lute and improvise Italian
canzoni. The lute he carried was of silver, fashioned like a horse's
head, and tuned according to acoustic laws discovered by himself. Of the
songs he sang to its accompaniment none have been preserved. Only one
sonnet remains to show of what sort was the poetry of Lionardo, prized so
highly by the men of his own generation. This, too, is less remarkable for
poetic beauty than for sober philosophy expressed with singular brevity of
phrase.[236]

This story of Da Vinci's lute might be chosen as a parable of his
achievement. Art