as helping him in his art, anatomy. He was,
according to other accounts, a man of noble person, like Ghirlandajo.
And one can scarcely doubt this who looks at Lionardo's portrait painted
by himself, or at any engraving from it, and remarks the grand presence
of the man in his cap and furred cloak; his piercing wistful eyes;
stately outline of nose; and sensitive mouth, unshaded by his
magnificent flowing beard.

He was endowed with surprising bodily strength, and was skilled in the
knightly exercises of riding, fencing, and dancing. He was a lover of
social pleasure, and inclined to indulge in expensive habits. While a
lad he amused himself by inventing machines for swimming, diving, and
flying, as well as a compass, a hygrometer, etc. etc. In a combination
from the attributes of the toads, lizards, bats, etc. etc., with which
his studies in natural history had made him familiar, he painted a
nondescript monster, which he showed suddenly to his father, whom it
filled with horror. But the horror did not prevent the old lawyer
selling the wild phantasmagoria for a large sum of money. As something
beyond amusement, Lionardo planned a canal to unite Florence with Pisa
(while he executed other canals in the course of his life), and
suggested the daring but not impossible idea of raising _en masse_, by
means of levers, the old church of San Giovanni, Florence, till it
should stand several feet above its original level, and so get rid of
the half-sunken appearance which destroyed the effect of the fine old
building. He visited the most frequented places, carrying always with
him his sketch-book, in which to note down his observations; he followed
criminals to execution in order to witness the pangs of despair; he
invited peasants to his house and told them laughable stories, that he
might pick up from their faces the essence of comic expression.[4] A
mania for truth--alike in great and little things--possessed him.

Lionardo entered young into the service of the Gonzaga family of Milan,
being, according to one statement, chosen for the office which he was to
fill, as the first singer in _improvisatore_ of his time (among his
other inventions he devised a peculiar kind of lyre). He showed no want
of confidence in asserting his claims to be elected, for after declaring
the various works he would undertake, he added with regard to
painting--'I can do what can be done, as well as any man, be he who he
may.' He received from the D