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Leon (PONCE DE See PONCE DE LEON)

PONCE DE. See PONCE DE LEON .

LEONARDO DA VINCI (-vēn'che), an Italian painter, sculptor, architect, Italian painter, sculptor , arch and engineer; and engineer; born in Vinci, Italy, in 1452. About 1470 he entered the studio Verrocchio, by whom he was instructed in painting and modeling, and where he had ing, and where he had Perugino and Lopupils. He visited the East, serving ing as engineer to the Sultan of "Babylon" or Cairo, and visiting Cyprus, Constantinople, and Armenia; and in 1482 he settled in Milan and attached himself to Lodovico his nephew, the Duke Gian Galeazzo , whom he afterward supplanted.

His famous picture of the "Last Supper," was painted on a wall of the refectory of a convent. It was completed in 1498. His sketches for various of its parts still ous of its parts still exist at Windsor, at Milan, and in the Louvre.

Among other paintings done in Milan were portraits of Lucrezia Crivelli and Cecilia Gallerani, mistresses of the duke, works that cannot now be identified, though "La Belle Ferronnière" of the Louvre has been regarded by some as the influence of Leonardo on art in Milan was clearly marked and lasting, for he founded an academy there in which Beltraffio and favorite pupil, received instruction; and ceived instruction; and the great Berhis own uses many of the characteristics of his was also much employed by his patron as an engineer. He devised a system of hydraulic irrigation of the plains of Lombardy, and acted as director of the court festivities and pageants.

After the fall and imprisonment of the Duke Lodovico, in 1500, Leonardo retired to Florence, and by 1502, he had entered the service of Cæsar Borgia, then Duke of Romagna, as architect and engineer. In the following year he returned to Florence, turned to Florence, when he commenced with St. Anne for the Servite monks, of which only the noble cartoon now in the Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy, London, was completed.

We now reach the period of Leonardo's famous contest with Michael Angelo.

Both painters received commissions to LEONIDAS decorate the Sala del Consiglio in the historical compositions. Michael Angelo Palazzo della Signoria with important chose a subject of "Soldiers Surprised Leonardo dealt with "The Battle of Anghiari" (1440). Two years were spent in the preparation of method of painting on the plaster which his cartoon; but, having employed a the work. The cartoon is now lost. proved a failure, he, in 1506, abandoned About 1504 was completed the most celeeasel-pictures, the half-length of Mona Lisa , third wife of Zanobi del Giocondo, a work purchased by Francis I. for 4,000 now one of the chief treasures of the by Francis I. for 4,000 gold florins, and Louvre. Another work, now lost, pornow one of the chief treasures of the trayed the celebrated beauty Ginevra Divine Proportion" (1509), contained tion" (1509), contained 60 geometrical hand.

In 1506 he was employed by Louis XII., Rome, competing with Michael Angelo who died in 1515, when Leonardo was in for the execution of the façade of San king, Francis I., bestowed on him in 1516, a yearly allowance of 700 scudi, and Lorenzo in Florence.

The young French assigned to his use the Château Cloux, a yearly allowance of 700 scudi , and near Amboise; and it was here that the great artist died, May 2, 1519. an Italian composer; born in Naples, Italy, LEONCAVALLO , RUGGIERO, March 8, 1858. He was friendly with Wagner, and for many years resided as a teacher in Paris, where he composed About that history, of which "Medici" is the first time he sketched his trilogy of Italian section. He produced , in Milan, in 1892, Other operas are "La Bohème" (1897), his "Pagliacci"; in 1893, "Medici." (1904). Died 1919. "Zaza" (1900), and "Der Roland" King of Sparta, succeeded his half-