The landscape background, against which Mona Lisa is posed, recalls
the severe, rather than exuberant, landscape and the dim vistas of
mountain ranges seen in the neighbourhood of his own birthplace. The
portrait was bought during the reign of Francis I. for a sum which is
to-day equal to about L1800. Leonardo, by the way, does not seem to
have been really affected by any individual affection for any woman,
and, like Michelangelo and Raphael, never married.

In January 4, 1504, Leonardo was one of the members of the Committee
of Artists summoned to advise the Signoria as to the most suitable
site for the erection of Michelangelo's statue of "David," which had
recently been completed.




BATTLE OF ANGHIARI

In the following May he was commissioned by the Signoria to decorate
one of the walls of the Council Hall of the Palazzo Vecchio. The
subject he selected was the "Battle of Anghiari." Although he
completed the cartoon, the only part of the composition which he
eventually executed in colour was an incident in the foreground
which dealt with the "Battle of the Standard." One of the many
supposed copies of a study of this mural painting now hangs on the
south-east staircase in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It depicts the
Florentines under Cardinal Ludovico Mezzarota Scarampo fighting
against the Milanese under Niccolo Piccinino, the General of Filippo
Maria Visconti, on June 29, 1440.