Note 32 — SECOND LECTURE. ART OF THE MODERNS.

The flying birds of paste, the lions filled with lilies, the lizards with dragons wings, horned and silvered over, savour equally of the boy and the quack. It is singular enough that there exists not the smallest hint of Lorenzo de Medici having employed or noticed a man of such powers and such early celebrity; the legend which makes him go to Rome with Juliano de Medici at the access of Leo X, to accept employment in the Vatican, whether sufficiently authentic or not, furnishes a characteristic trait of the man. The Pope passing through the room allotted for the pictures, and instead of designs and cartoons, finding nothing but an apparatus of distillery, of oils and varnishes, exclaimed, Oimè costui non è per far nulla, da che comincia a pensare alla fine innanzi il principio dell’ opera! From an admirable sonnet of Lionardo, preserved by Lomazzo, he appears to have been sensible of the inconstancy of his own temper, and full of wishes, at least, to correct it.

Much has been said of the honour he received by expiring in the arms of Francis I. It was indeed an honour, by which destiny in some degree atoned to that monarch for his future disaster at Pavia.