Philip Gilbert Hamerton, who wrote "The Intellectual Life," names
Leonardo da Vinci as having lived the richest, fullest and best-
rounded life of which we know. Yet while Leonardo lived, there also
lived Shakespeare, Loyola, Cervantes, Columbus, Martin Luther,
Savonarola, Erasmus, Michelangelo, Titian and Raphael. Titans all--
giants in intellect and performance, doing and daring, and working
such wonders as men never worked before: writing plays, without
thought of posterity, that are today the mine from which men work
their poetry; producing comedies that are classic; sailing trackless
seas and discovering continents; tacking proclamations of defiance
on church-doors; hunted and exiled for the right of honest speech;
welcoming fierce flames of fagots; falling upon blocks of marble and
liberating angels; painting pictures that have inspired millions!
But not one touched life at so many points, or reveled so in
existence, or was so captain of his soul as was Leonardo da Vinci.

Vasari calls him the "divinely endowed," "showered with the richest
gifts as by celestial munificence" and speaks of his countenance
thus: "The radiance of his face was so splendidly beautiful that it
brought cheerfulness to the hearts of the most melancholy, and his
presence was such that his lightest word would move the most
obstinate to say 'Yes' or 'No.'"

Bandello, the story-teller who was made a Bishop on account of his
peculiar talent, had the effrontery to put one of his worst stories,
that about the adventures of Fra Lippo Lippi, into the mouth of
Leonardo. This rough-cast tale, somewhat softened down and hand-
polished, served for one of Browning's best-known poems. Had
Bandello allowed Botticelli to tell the tale, it would have been
much more in keeping. Leonardo's days were too full of work to