sadder still to tell the fate of Leonardo's fresco, the
greatest picture perhaps that ever was painted.
Dampness lurked in the wall and began to dim and
blur the colours. The careless monks cut a door
through the very centre of the picture, and, later on,
when Napoleon's soldiers entered Milan, they used
the refectory as a stable, and amused themselves by
throwing stones at what remained of it. But though
little of it is left now to be seen, there is still enough
to make us stand in awe and reverence before the
genius of the great master.

Not far from Milan there lived a friend of
Leonardo's, whom the master loved to visit. This
Girolamo Melzi had a son called Francesco, a little
motherless boy, who adored the great painter with
all his heart.

Together Leonardo and the child used to wander
out to search for curious animals and rare flowers,
and as they watched the spiders weave their webs
and pulled the flowers to pieces to find out their
secrets, the boy listened with wide wondering eyes
to all the tales which the painter told him. And
at night Leonardo wrapped the little one close
inside his warm cloak and carried him out to see
the stars--those same stars which old Toscanelli had
taught him to love long ago in Florence. Then
when the day of parting came the child clung
round the master's neck and would not let him go.