. Leonardo da Vinci, artist, thinker and man of science. g years artistafter artist was consulted, plan after plan submitted and rejected. Onthe refusal or the re-tirement from the contestof the brothers Mante-gazza, the gifted sculp-tors of the Certosa atPavia, Galeazzo Mariaapplied to the famousFlorentine sculptor andpainter, Antonio del Pol-lajuolo. After his deathin 1498 they found thedesign and the modelwhich he had made forthe equestrian statue ofF rancesco S forza,ordered by Lodovico ilMoro. This model isrepresented in two differ-ent styles in his drawingsnow in my collection:the one sh
. Leonardo da Vinci, artist, thinker and man of science. g years artistafter artist was consulted, plan after plan submitted and rejected. Onthe refusal or the re-tirement from the contestof the brothers Mante-gazza, the gifted sculp-tors of the Certosa atPavia, Galeazzo Mariaapplied to the famousFlorentine sculptor andpainter, Antonio del Pol-lajuolo. After his deathin 1498 they found thedesign and the modelwhich he had made forthe equestrian statue ofF rancesco S forza,ordered by Lodovico ilMoro. This model isrepresented in two differ-ent styles in his drawingsnow in my collection:the one showing DukeFrancesco with Veronaunder his feet, the other,the same Duke in full armour riding over an armed man. I could never discover whythis design was not carried out (Vasari). It is this second con-ception which Morelli recognised in a drawing in the Print Roomat Munich, whereas Louis Courajod declared it to be the sketchfor Leonardos statue. Not, adds the learned Director of theLouvre, that there is anything against the supposition that Pollajuolo. EQUESTRIAN BAS-RELIEF BY LEONARDO DA PRATO (iSIl). (Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice.) 146 LEONARDO DA VINCI may have seen and drawn Leonardos model. Richter, again,suggests that this design—a horse rearing above a prostrate man—was obligatory for all the competitors. For my part, I must say,that if the drawing at Munich represents Leonardos work, it is asingularly clumsy and ineffective rendering. Nothing could be morewooden and lifeless than the hind-quarters of the horse, and theforelegs, which are very evidently ankylosed, are equally faulty intreatment. The head and neck alone have a certain amount ofspirit. As to the rider, his seat is awkward and undignified in theextreme, and the ensemble is wholly wanting in those monumental,rhythmic, one might almost say melodious lines, which were soobviously Leonardos main preoccupation in the drawings at Windsor.^ The study of the horse was a passion with Leonardo ; number
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