Leonardo da Vinci Read Free Page A

left-handed Leonardo in drawing and painting, but it might well have slowed him down and ruled out any major new projects.
    He did complete two paintings in Rome – probably the last of his career. Both, now in the Louvre, depicted a young, somewhat androgynous John the Baptist. In one, usually called “St. John in the Desert,” he is sitting under a tree in a wild place, his right arm crossed over his chest with the forefinger extended. In details that may have been added to the painting long after Leonardo’s death, St. John is wearing a panther-skin loincloth and a crown of grape leaves, leading some critics to call the picture “St. John with the Attributes of Bacchus.” The other painting, more powerful but uneasily ambiguous, shows the naked torso of the saint against a dark background, again with his right arm crossed over his chest, but now with the forefinger pointed to the sky. The faces in both paintings show the same features, but the half-length St. John has a subtle smile as mysterious as Mona Lisa’s. This painting may well have been commissioned by Pope Leo; the pope did order a work by Leonardo. But when he heard that the artist was distilling oils for the varnish he would use on the painting, the pope complained, “Alas, this man will never do anything, because he starts to think of the end before he has even begun the work.”
    The pose of the half-length “St. John” may have evolved from a sketch of an announcing angel – Gabriel – dating from about 1505, with the right arm pointing to the sky and the left touching the chest. The sketch may have been done by Salai, but the position of the pointing arm was corrected in Leonardo’s hand. But the evolution of the drawing was not filled out until 1991, when another sketch turned up in a private collection – the notorious drawing now known as the “Angelo Incarnato,” or angel made flesh.
    In this version, the right arm is still upright, but the left hand, with feminine grace, holds a veil of filmy fabric against the chest, and below, a large erection clearly appears through the veil (though someone has smudged it slightly, apparently trying to erase it). The figure has the head and face given to St. John in both paintings, but the expression has been transformed: The cheeks are gaunter, suggesting illness; the eyes are large and pleading; the smile is a sly invitation. In this context, the arm is no longer announcing but beckoning. The drawing is disturbing, verging on pornography.
    The finished painting of the half-length St. John has none of this lurid quality. The right arm has been crossed over the chest, half hiding the overly graceful fingers of the left hand; the face glows, softened and deepened by fine layers of the varnish that vexed the pope. But the androgyny and mystery of the painting remain – and the effect is highlighted by the uneasy knowledge of the Angelo Incarnato .
    Leonardo was part of the pope’s entourage when Leo traveled to Bologna and Florence in October 1515 to meet the new French king. Only twenty-one years old, Francis had taken the throne when Louis XII, his cousin and father-in-law, died without a male heir, and Francis had recently proved himself by defeating the Sforzas’ Swiss mercenaries in the Battle of Marignano . The new king had long admired his father-in-law’s paintings by Leonardo and had seen “ The Last Supper .” In addition, he had been presented with a mechanical lion constructed by Leonardo when Francis met Giuliano de’ Medici the previous July.
    There is no record of their first meeting or any trace of a royal invitation to Leonardo. But in the late summer or early fall of 1516, about six months after his patron Giuliano de’ Medici died of consumption, Leonardo and his entourage left Rome on the long journey to Francis’ court at Amboise , in the valley of the Loire . They probably stopped over in Milan, where Salai stayed for a while in Leonardo’s garden; Salai would rejoin the