rea
Verrocchio, goldsmith, painter, and sculptor. That so extraordinary a
genius should have fixed upon painting for his means of expression
rather than any of his other natural gifts is the most telling evidence
of the pre-eminence earned for that art by the efforts of those whose
works we have been considering. For once we may go all the way with
Vasari, and accept his estimate of him as even moderate in comparison
with those of modern writers. "The richest gifts," he writes, "are
sometimes showered, as by celestial influence, on human creatures, and
we see beauty, grace, and talent so united in a single person that
whatever the man thus favoured may turn to, his every action is so
divine as to leave all other men far behind him, and to prove that he
has been specially endowed by the hand of God himself, and has not
obtained his pre-eminence by human teaching. This was seen and
acknowledged by all men in the case of Leonardo da Vinci, in whom, to
say nothing of the beauty of his person, which was such that it could
never be sufficiently extolled, there was a grace beyond expression
which was manifested without thought or effort in every act and deed,
and who besides had so rare a gift of talent and ability that to
whatever subject he turned, however difficult, he presently made himself
absolute master of it. Extraordinary strength was in him joined with
remarkable facility, a mind of regal boldness and magnanimous daring.
His gifts were such that his fame extended far and wide, and he was held
in the highest estimation not in his own time only, but also and even to
a greater extent after his death; and this will continue to be in all
succeeding ages. Truly wonderful indeed and divinely gifted was
Leonardo."

To his activities in directions other than painting, I need not allude
except to say that they account in a great measure for the scarcity of
the pictures he has left us, and to emphasise the significance of his
having painted at all. To a man of such supreme genius the circumstances
in which he found himself, rather than any particular technical
facility, determined the course of his career, and in another age and
another country he might have been a Pheidias or a Newton, a Shakespeare
or a Beethoven.

But if the pictures he has left us are few in number--according to the
present estimate not more than a dozen--they are altogether greater than
anything else in the realm of painting, and with their marvellous be