e. No. 1508. 5 ft. 7 in. h. by 4 ft. 3 in. w. (1.70 x
1.29)

Painted between 1509 and 1516 with the help of assistants.]

On October 10, 1516, when he was resident at the Manor House of Cloux
near Amboise in Touraine with Francesco Melzi, his friend and
assistant, he showed three of his pictures to the Cardinal of Aragon,
but his right hand was now paralysed, and he could "no longer colour
with that sweetness with which he was wont, although still able to
make drawings and to teach others."

It was no doubt in these closing years of his life that he drew the
"Portrait of Himself" in red chalk, now at Turin, which is probably
the only authentic portrait of him in existence.

HIS DEATH

On April 23, 1519--Easter Eve--exactly forty-five years before the
birth of Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci made his will, and on May 2 of
the same year he passed away.

Vasari informs us that Leonardo, "having become old, lay sick for many
months, and finding himself near death and being sustained in the arms
of his servants and friends, devoutly received the Holy Sacrament. He
was then seized with a paroxysm, the forerunner of death, when King
Francis I., who was accustomed frequently and affectionately to visit
him, rose and supported his head to give him such assistance and to do
him such favour as he could in the hope of alleviating his sufferings.
The spirit of Leonardo, which was most divine, conscious that he could
attain to no greater honour, departed in the arms of the monarch,
being at that time in the seventy-fifth year of his age." The not
over-veracious chronicler, however, is here drawing largely upon his
imagination. Leonardo was only sixty-seven years of age, and the King
was in all probability on that date at St. Germain-en Laye!

Thus died "Mr. Lionard de Vincy, the noble Milanese, painter,
engineer, and architect to the King, State Mechanician" and "former
Professor of Painting to the Duke of Milan."

"May God Almighty grant him His eternal peace," wrote his friend and
assistant Francesco Melzi. "Every one laments the loss of a man whose
like Nature cannot produce a second time."

HIS ART

Leonardo, whose birth antedates that of Michelangelo and Raphael by
twenty three and thirty-one years respectively, was thus in the
forefront of the Florentine Renaissance, his life coinciding almost
exactly with the best period of Tuscan painting.

Leonardo was the first to investigate scientifically and to apply