`Leonardo shall try his hand upon it. It is time
he became useful to me,' said Ser Piero to himself.
So on his return to Florence he took the shield to
his son.

It was a rough, badly-shaped shield, so Leonardo
held it to the fire and began to straighten it. For
though his hands looked delicate and beautifully
formed, they were as strong as steel, and he could
bend bars of iron without an effort. Then he sent
the shield to a turner to be smoothed and rounded,
and when it was ready he sat down to think what
he should paint upon it, for he loved to draw strange
monsters.

`I will make it as terrifying as the head of
Medusa,' he said at last, highly delighted with the
plan that had come into his head.

Then he went out and collected together all the
strangest animals he could find--lizards, hedgehogs,
newts, snakes, dragon-flies, locusts, bats, and glow-
worms. These he took into his own room, which
no one was allowed to enter, and began to paint from
them a curious monster, partly a lizard and partly
a bat, with something of each of the other animals
added to it.

When it was ready Leonardo hung the shield in
a good light against a dark curtain, so that the