t waste openness of space which had always been
his vision of beauty, since, as a little boy, he gazed across the
Umbrian Plain, and the wonder of it sank into his soul.

LEONARDO DA VINCI

On the sunny slopes of Monte Albano, between Florence and Pisa, the
little town of Vinci lay high among the rocks that crowned the steep
hillside. It was but a little town. Only a few houses crowded together
round an old castle in the midst, and it looked from a distance like a
swallow's nest clinging to the bare steep rocks.

Here in the year 1452 Leonardo, son of Ser Piero da Vinci, was born. It
was in the age when people told fortunes by the stars, and when a baby
was born they would eagerly look up and decide whether it was a lucky
or unlucky star which shone upon the child. Surely if it had been
possible in this way to tell what fortune awaited the little Leonardo,
a strange new star must have shone that night, brighter than the others
and unlike the rest in the dazzling light of its strength and beauty.

Leonardo was always a strange child. Even his beauty was not like that
of other children. He had the most wonderful waving hair, falling in
regular ripples, like the waters of a fountain, the colour of bright
gold, and soft as spun silk. His eyes were blue and clear, with a
mysterious light in them, not the warm light of a sunny sky, but rather
the blue that glints in the iceberg. They were merry eyes too, when he
laughed, but underneath was always that strange cold look. There was a
charm about his smile which no one could resist, and he was a favourite
with all. Yet people shook their heads sometimes as they looked at him,
and they talked in whispers of the old witch who had lent her goat to
nourish the little Leonardo when he was a baby. The woman was a dealer
in black magic, and who knew but that the child might be a changeling?

It was the old grandmother, Mona Lena, who brought Leonardo up and
spoilt him not a little. His father, Ser Piero, was a lawyer, and spent
most of his time in Florence, but when he returned to the old castle of
Vinci, he began to give Leonardo lessons and tried to find out what the
boy was fit for. But Leonardo hated those lessons and would not learn,
so when he was seven years old he was sent to school.

This did not answer any better. The rough play of the boys was not to
his liking. When he saw them drag the wings off butterflies, or torture
any animal that fell into their hands, his fa