The life of Leonardo da Vinci by John William Brown

Leonardo's Florentine period

But his talents excited the envy of all those who surrounded his Holiness's person and had already secured his confidence, as they considered his approach as a sort of invasion of what they had appropriated to themselves as a right; so seldom can men of genius bear with any sort of competition. No one was more free from this unworthy feeling of envy than Leonardo himself; no one more anxious to do ample justice to the merits of others but, most deservedly accustomed to hold the first place at Milan, and conscious that many of the improvements in the arts which he now saw brought into use, were owing to his own inventions and to the improvementa which he himself had introduced, he could not avoid feeling most acutely that he no longer possessed the same superiority over others which he had done in his youth.

If he had given himself time to think, he would have been consoled by the reflection that this was the natural consequence of the progress of the arts, to which he, more than any other person, had eminently contributed. Instead of feeling mortified at the practice of the theory which he himself had first propagated, he ought to have rejoiced at its having met with the success which he had originally contemplated. But his bodily health was no longer equal to the energy of his mind, and his increasing infirmities made him more than usually irritable, for he had naturally too much pride to indulge any feelings of vanity.

Under these circumstances it was not to be expected that Da Vinci could have felt himself happily situated at Rome. Harassed by disappointments, his genius was overcast by the praises he heard on all sides bestowed on others, whom he could not have considered in any way superior to himself. But they enjoyed a greater share of his Holiness's favour, and kept Leonardo in the background by persuading the Pope that he embraced too many branches of science to be able to succeed in any, and that he was become much too speculative in his ideas to execute any work of importance. By these and similar calumnies, unworthy their own fame, and prompted solely by jealousy, they contrived to keep Da Vinci without any employment worthy of his talents.

Of all the celebrated persons who at that time ornamented the Court of Rome, Raphael enjoyed the greatest share of the Pope's confidence and esteem, although he was more considerably indebted to his predecessor Pope Julius the Second. That Pontiff first brought him into notice at the recommendation of his kinsman Bramante da Urbino, who was then in his service, and employed him to paint a suite of rooms in the Vatican, the Stanze della Segnatura, including "The School of Athens", "Parnassus" and "The Disputation of the Holy Sacraments". He executed this commission with such extraordinary taste and skill, that the frescoes he then painted are generally considered superior to any of his subsequent productions under the reign of Leo the Tenth.

The great Michaelangelo, who was also at Rome at that period, had not the good fortune to be so much distinguished by Leo as he had been by Julius, who was his friend and patron; and it ought to be observed, in justice to the latter, that many of the great works, the whole praise of which has been unthinkingly bestowed on Leo, more properly belonged to his predecessor, he having originally undertaken them, though Leo had the liberality and generosity to carry them into effect. If Leonardo da Vinci had enjoyed the advantage of the protection of Julius the Second, he would, no doubt, have been in a much better situation; and had he employed that time in his service which he lost doting the disturbances at Milan, he would not only have been at the head of his profession as an artist, but his knowledge of milifary tactics, and his talents as an engineer, would have made him an invaluable acquisition to that warlike Pontiff.