LIONARDO DA VINCI AND FRANCIS I.

Francis I. of France was not only a liberal patron of Lionardo da Vinci, but entertained for him a strong personal friendship. He gave 4000 gold crowns for his celebrated portrait of Mona Lisa, the wife of Francesco Giocondo, which occupied Vinci four years. When Lionardo was advanced in years, and his health declining, he took him into his service, treated him with the greatest kindness, and gave him a pension of 700 crowns annually. The King delighted in the society of Da Vinci, and when his courtiers ventured to express their surprise that he should prefer his company to theirs, he rebuked them by saying, that “he could make as many lords as he chose, but that God alone could make a Lionardo da Vinci.”