capable of betraying his Lord and the Creator of the world: with regard to that second, however, he would make search, and after all—if he could find no better, he need never be at any great loss, for there would always be the head of that troublesome and impertinent Prior.[1] This made the Duke laugh with all his heart, he declared Leonardo to be completely in the right, and the poor Prior, utterly confounded, went away to drive on the digging in his garden, and left Leonardo in peace: the head of Judas was then finished so successfully, that it is indeed the true image of treachery and wickedness; but that of the Redeemer remained, as we have said, incomplete. The admirable excellence of this picture, the beauty of its composition, and the care with which it was executed, awakened in the King of France,[2] a desire to have it removed into his own kingdom, insomuch that he made many attempts to discover architects, who might be able to secure it by defences of wood and iron, that it might be transported without injury. He was not to be deterred by any consideration of the cost that might be incurred, but the painting, being on the wall, his Majesty was compelled to forego his desire,[3] and the Milanese retained their picture.[4]
- ↑ The jesting threat of Leonardo has given rise to the belief that the
head of Judas was in fact a portrait of the Prior, but the character of
Leonardo makes it most unlikely that he could have offered this affront
to an old man who was merely causing him a momentary vexation by
a very pardonable, if not very reasonable, impatience; we leani besides
that the Padre Bandelli, who was at that time Prior,—
erat facie magna et venusta, capite magno, et procedente aetate calvo capillisque cants conspirso”
See Storia Genuina del Cenacolo, &c., by the Padra Dom. Pino. —Milan, 1796.
- ↑ Francis I. namely, who visited Milan in 1515; not Louis XII., as some writers have it, who was there in 1499. Yet the work must have been completed some short time before the last date, since Ludovico II Moro, presented a vineyard in that year to Leonardo, which is believed to have been in acknowledgment of this painting. —Schorn, quoting Amoretti, ut supra.
- ↑ De Pagave (Sienese Edition of Vasari) declares that the king, on finding it impossible to remove the picture, caused a copy to be made of it by Bernardino Luini, according to Pagave, which he placed in the church of St. Germain L’Auxerrois, in Paris; but this also is now lost.
- ↑ It would be well for the Milanese if this were fully true, but in so ruined a state is this inestimable work, at the present time, that its posses-
