[55] W. Pater: The Renaissance, p. 124, The Macmillan Co., 1910.

[56] M. Herzfeld: Leonardo da Vinci, p. 88.

[57] Scognamiglio, l. c. p. 32.

[58] L. Schorn, Bd. III, 1843, p. 6.

[59] The same is a.s.sumed by Merejkowski, who imagined a childhood for Leonardo which deviates in the essential points from ours, drawn from the results of the vulture phantasy. But if Leonardo himself had displayed this smile, tradition hardly would have failed to report to us this coincidence.

[60] l. c. p. 309.

[61] A. Konstantinowa, l. c., says: "Mary looks tenderly down on her beloved child with a smile that recalls the mysterious expression of la Gioconda." Elsewhere speaking of Mary she says: "The smile of Gioconda floats upon her features."

[62] Cf. v. Seidlitz, l. c. Bd. II, p. 274.

[63] Cf. Three Contributions to the Theory of s.e.x, translated by A. A.

Brill, 2nd edition, 1916, Monograph series.

[64] "On the 9th of July, 1504, Wednesday at 7 o'clock died Ser Piero da Vinci, notary at the palace of the Podesta, my father, at 7 o'clock. He was 80 years old, left 10 sons and 2 daughters." (E. Muntz, l. c. p.

13.)

[65] I shall overlook a greater error committed by Leonardo in his notice in that he gives his 77-year-old father 80 years.

[66] "He who usurps on earth my place, my place, my place, which is void in the presence of the Son of G.o.d, has made out of my cemetery a sewer."

Canto x.x.xVII.

[67] It seems that in that pa.s.sage of the diary Leonardo also erred in the number of his sisters and brothers, which stands in remarkable contrast to the apparent exactness of the same.

[68] v. Seidlitz, l. c., II, p. 270.

[69] Solmi, Conf. fior, p. 13.

[70] Muntz, l. c., La Religion de Leonardo, p. 292, etc.

[71] Herzfeld, p. 292.

[72] Vasari, translated by Schorn, 1843.

[73] Ebenda, p. 39.

[74] Concerning these letters and the combinations connected with them see Muntz, l. c., p. 82; for the wording of the same and for the notices connected with them see Herzfeld, l. c., p. 223.

[75] Besides, he lost some time in that he even made a drawing of a braided cord in which one could follow the thread from one end to the other, until it formed a perfectly circular figure; a very difficult and beautiful drawing of this kind is engraved on copper, in the center of it one can read the words: "Leonardus Vinci Academia" (p. 8).

[76] This criticism holds quite generally and is not aimed at Leonardo's biographers in particular.

[77] Seidlitz II, p. 271.

[78] La natura e piena d'infinite ragione che non furono mai in isperienza, M. Herzfeld, l. c. p. II.