d eloquence,
recommended him to the notice of the prince, by whom he was greatly
beloved, and in whose service he remained for about seventeen years.
It is not necessary, nor would it be possible here, to give a
particular account of all the works in which Leonardo was engaged for
his patron, nor of the great political events in which he was
involved, more by his position than by his inclination; for instance,
the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII. of France, and the subsequent
invasion of Milan by Louis XII., which ended in the destruction of the
Duke Ludovico. The greatest work of all, and by far the grandest
picture which, up to that time, had been executed in Italy, was the
"Last Supper," painted on the wall of the refectory, or dining-room,
of the Dominican convent of the Madonna delle Grazie. It occupied
Leonardo about two years, from 1496 to 1498.

The moment selected by the painter is described in the 26th chapter of
St. Matthew, 21st and 22d verses: "And as they did eat, he said,
Verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me: and they were
exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto him,
Lord, is it I?" The knowledge of character displayed in the heads of
the different apostles is even more wonderful than the skilful
arrangement of the figures and the amazing beauty of the workmanship.
The space occupied by the picture is a wall twenty-eight feet in
length and the figures are larger than life.

Of this magnificent creation of art, only the mouldering remains are
now visible. It has been so often repaired that almost every vestige
of the original painting is annihilated; but from the multiplicity of
descriptions, engravings, and copies that exist, no picture is more
universally known and celebrated. Perhaps the best judgment we can now
form of its merits is from the fine copy executed by one of Leonardo's
best pupils, Marco Uggione, for the Certosa at Pavia, and now in
London, in the collection of the Royal Academy. Eleven other copies,
by various pupils of Leonardo, painted either during his lifetime or
within a few years after his death, while the picture was in perfect
preservation, exist in different churches and collections.

While engaged on the Cenacolo, Leonardo painted the portrait of
Lucrezia Crivelli, now in the Louvre (No. 483). It has been engraved
under the title of _La Belle Ferronniere_, but later researches leave
us no doubt that it represents Lucrezia Crivelli, a b