auty
and subtlety have probably had a wider influence, both on painters and
on lovers of painting, than those of any other master. They seem to be
endowed with a spirit of something beyond painting itself, and in the
presence of _The Last Supper_ or the _Mona Lisa_ the babble of
conflicting opinions on questions of style, technique, and what not is
silenced.

Similarly, in writing of Leonardo's pictures, every one of which is a
masterpiece, it seems superfluous to say even a word about what the
whole world already knows so well. All that can be usefully added is a
little of the tradition, where it is sufficiently authenticated,
relating to the circumstances under which they came into existence, and
such of the circumstances of his life as concern their production.

When still quite a youth Leonardo was apprenticed to Andrea Verrocchio,
and the story goes that it was the marvellous painting of the angel, by
the pupil, in the master's _Baptism_ in the Academy at Florence, that
induced Verrocchio to abandon painting and devote himself entirely to
sculpture. This angel has been attributed to the hand of Leonardo from
the earliest times, but can hardly be taken, at any rate in its present
condition, as a decided proof of the genius that was to be displayed in
manhood. More certain are the _S. Jerome_ in the Vatican, and the
_Adoration of the Kings_ in the Uffizi, though neither is carried beyond
the earlier stages of "under-painting." A few finished portraits are now
assigned with tolerable certainty to his earlier years; but for his
famous masterpieces we must jump to the year 1482, when he left Florence
and went to Milan, where for the next sixteen years he was
intermittently engaged in the execution of the great equestrian statue,
which was destroyed by the French mercenaries before it was actually
completed.

It appears that he was recommended by Lorenzo de'Medici to Lodovico il
Moro, Duke of Milan, probably for the very purpose of executing this
statue. However that may be, it is now certain that in 1483 he was
commissioned by the Franciscan monks to paint a picture of the Virgin
and Child for their church of the Conception, and that between 1491 and
1494 Leonardo and his assistant, Ambrogio di Predis, petitioned the Duke
for an arbitration as to price. This was the famous _Virgin of the
Rocks_, now in the Louvre, and the similar, and though not precisely
identical, composition in our National Gallery is generally su