- be sacrificed; it represents the Passion of Christ. St. Anne seems to make some movement to hold her daughter back. This may be an allusion to the Church, which would not seek to prevent the Lord's Passion. The figures are life-sized, and yet the com position is a small one, because as all of them are seated or bending down, they overlap each other on the left hand side of the group. This sketch is not yet completed. He has done nothing else. Two of his pupils are painting portraits, and he touches them up from time to time. He grows very impatient of painting, and spends all his time over geometry. I write this merely to acknowledge the receipt of your letter. I will perform the commission and will advise your Excellency.[1]
The second letter, written no doubt just a week after the above, says:—
- 'Most Illustrious and most Excellent Lady,—During this Holy Week I have learnt the intentions of Leonardo the painter from his pupil Salai, and from several other of his friends, who, to inform me yet more fully, conducted me to his house on Wednesday in Holy Week. To sum it up, his mathematical studies have so drawn him away from painting, that he cannot endure to use his brush. Nevertheless, I endeavoured first of all skilfully to plead your Excellency's cause. Then, seeing him well inclined to please your Excellency, I spoke to him in all sincerity, and we came to the following conclusion: he can leave the service of the King of France without incurring his displeasure, and as he hopes within a month at latest, he will place himself at your Excellency's orders in preference to that of any other person. But, in any case, no sooner shall he have finished a little picture he is now painting for one, Robertet, the favourite of the King of France, than he will immediately execute the portrait and send it to your Excellency. I have left two good canvassers about him. The small picture on which he is working is a Madonna, seated disentangling her spindles, while the child, with his foot on the basket containing the spindles, has laid hold of the winder, and gazes attentively at its four rays (branches) which form a cross, and as though desiring to have the cross, he
6
- ↑ Eugene Müntz, in his able life of Leonardo, quotes this letter (vol. 2, p. 124), but gives the date as April 3, 1501. Moreover, he refers to its 'elegant and faithful' translation by M. Yriarte in the 'Gazette des Beaux Arts' in 1888, but the latter distinctly states it was written six days after the Marchesa's letter of March 22, 1501, so it should bear date March 28, 1501 (new style calendar). M. Yriarte's exact words are: 'Le 22 Mars 1501 la Marquise s'adresse a lui (Fra Nuvolaria). . . . Six jours apràs Nuvolaria repond à la princesse: je m'occuperai avec soin et celérité de la commission.' 'Gazette des Beaux-Arts' (vol. 37, p. 123).
