But though much had been accomplished before the close of the fifteenth century, as respects the higher qualities of imitative art, painting was still in infancy. Leonardo da Vinci, born in 1452, reared it to high maturity. The genius of this extraordinary man seemed as a mirror, receiving and reflecting, in added brightness, every ray of intellectual light which had yet beamed upon the age. Philosopher, poet, artist, he anticipated the march of three centuries; proving, in his own instance, what the unshackled energies of man would then accomplish. Yet--and that, too, by a living historian of most deserved reputation--has Leonardo been represented as a dabbler in various knowledge, a proficient in none--a laborious idler, wasting time and talent in useless multiplicity of pursuit. This apparently has been done to exalt his great contemporary and successor; but history ought not to be written as a picture is painted, touching in under-tones what are deemed secondaries, that the light may be more conspicuously directed to a principal figure. At the shrine of art, the devotion of Da Vinci was neither devoid of fervor nor unfruitful; albeit he courted, and not unsuccessfully, the favors of science, then new and dear to the aspiring mind. His true rank is not only among the fathers, but the masters of the art; he is one who not merely preceded, but excelled. His cartoon of horsemen in the battle of Pisa formed a favorite study of the greatest masters; and, in competition, Michael Angelo produced another of soldiers arming in haste, after bathing; which even his admirers say he scarcely ever afterwards equalled. Yet was Leonardo not vanquished. The Last Supper, painted in fresco, at Milan, exhibited a dignity and propriety of expression, a correctness of drawing, then unequalled; and, if seen as originally finished, probably still unsurpassed. The story of the head of the principal personage having been left incomplete is a vulgar error, as might be easily proved by reference to the early literature of Italian art. The well-known portrait of Mona Lisa, in purity of drawing, sweetness of simple and natural expression, has an equal only in the works of Raphael. But the influence of this master extended much more widely than the sphere of individual examples: he first united the science of anatomy with that of painting, and both with nature; and thus may truly be said to have prepared the art for the coming greatness.