of sculpture which is certainly not Leonardo's work. Gian Giacomo
Trivulzio died at Chartres in 1518, only five months before
Leonardo, and it seems to me highly improbable that this should have
been the date of this sketch; under these circumstances it would
have been done under the auspices of Francis I, but the Italian
general was certainly not in favour with the French monarch at the
time. Gian Giacomo Trivulzio was a sworn foe to Ludovico il Moro,
whom he strove for years to overthrow. On the 6th September 1499 he
marched victorious into Milan at the head of a French army. In a
short time, however, he was forced to quit Milan again when Ludovico
il Moro bore down upon the city with a force of Swiss troops. On the
15th of April following, after defeating Lodovico at Novara,
Trivulzio once more entered Milan as a Conqueror, but his hopes of
becoming _Governatore_ of the place were soon wrecked by intrigue.
This victory and triumph, historians tell us, were signalised by
acts of vengeance against the dethroned Sforza, and it might have
been particularly flattering to him that the casting and
construction of the Sforza monument were suspended for the time.

It must have been at this moment--as it seems to me--that he
commissioned the artist to prepare designs for his own monument,
which he probably intended should find a place in the Cathedral or
in some other church. He, the husband of Margherita di Nicolino
Colleoni, would have thought that he had a claim to the same
distinction and public homage as his less illustrious connection had
received at the hands of the Venetian republic. It was at this very
time that Trivulzio had a medal struck with a bust portrait of
himself and the following remarkable inscription on the reverse:_
DEO FAVENTE--1499--DICTVS--10--IA--EXPVLIT--LVDOVICV--SF--
(Sfortiam) DVC-- (ducem) MLI (Mediolani)--NOIE