Note 147 — Chapter XXVII

Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1374 and 632. The manuscripts by him, mentioned in No. 131 of the Quarterly Review, as in the possession of his descendant, Count Marini, of Borgo S. Sepolcro, no longer exist; and a small portrait there of himself does not appear to be by his hand. As a further specimen of the Friar's ideas on this matter, we may offer an extract from his De Divina Proportione Epistola (Venice, 1509), wherein he compares perspective to music, ranking both with the geometrical sciences, since just as "the former refreshes the mind with harmony, the latter delights it greatly by correct distance and variety of colours." "Who, indeed, is there that, seeing an elegant figure with its exact outlines well defined, and seeming to want nothing but breath, would not pronounce it something rather divine than human? And painting imitates nature as nearly as can be told, which is proved to our eyes in the exquisite representation, so worthily composed by the graceful hand of our Leonardo, of the ardent desire after our salvation; wherein it is impossible to imagine greater attention than that of the apostles, aroused on hearing, in the words of infallible truth, 'One of you shall betray me,'—when, interchanging with each other attitudes and gestures, they seem to converse in startled and sad astonishment."