Of all the interests in living men and
women which may have filled his life at Milan, this attachment alone is
recorded; and in return Salaino identified himself so entirely with
Leonardo, that the picture of Saint Anne, in the Louvre, has been
attributed to him. It illustrates Leonardo's usual choice of pupils, men
of some natural charm of person or intercourse like Salaino, or men of
birth and princely habits of life like Francesco Melzi--men with just
enough genius to be capable of initiation into his secret, for the sake
of which they were ready to efface their own individuality. Among them,
retiring often to the Villa of the Melzi at Canonica al Vaprio, he
worked at his fugitive manuscripts and sketches, working for the present
hour, and for a few only, perhaps chiefly for himself. Other artists
have been as careless of present or future applause, in
self-forgetfulness, or because they set moral or political ends above
the ends of art; but in him this solitary culture of beauty seems to
have hung upon a kind of self-love, and a carelessness in the work of
art of all but art itself.
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