The capricious spirit of Ludovico was
susceptible also of the charm of music, and Leonardo's nature had a kind
of spell in it. Fascination is always the word descriptive of him. No
portrait of his youth remains; but all tends to make us believe that up
to this time some charm of voice and aspect, strong enough to balance
the disadvantage of his birth, had played about him. His physical
strength was great; it was said that he could bend a horse-shoe like a
coil of lead.
The Duomo, the work of artists from beyond the Alps, so fantastic to the
eye of a Florentine used to the mellow, unbroken surfaces of Giotto and
Arnolfo, was then in all its freshness; and below, in the streets of
Milan, moved a people as fantastic, changeful and dreamlike. To Leonardo
least of all men could there be anything poisonous in the exotic flowers
of sentiment which grew there. It was a life of brilliant sins and
exquisite amusements: Leonardo became a celebrated designer of pageants:
and it suited the quality of his genius, composed in almost equal parts
of curiosity and the desire of beauty, to take things as they came.
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