are familiar with the terra-cotta figures at Varallo, for these can be seen from several points of view, and a fuller knowledge of the head is thus obtained than a flat impression from a single point can give. It is not likely that the figure is that of a mere model, for it has no, or very little connection with the action of the piece, and is evidently placed where it is—the extreme figure to the left, which is always a place of honour—for the sake of introducing the portrait into the composition. Gaudenzio would not have been so impressed, say, with old Christie {206} as to give his portrait from memory twenty years after he had seen him last, to put this portrait in the place of honour, and to make the work much more emphatic as a portrait than as the figure of an actor in his drama, inasmuch as he has turned the head towards the spectator and away from the central incident. It is more probable, then, that we must look for some well-known Milanese art-world character as the original for which the figure was intended. [Picture: Plate XVIII. “Stefano Scotto and Leonardo da Vinci”] We know that Gaudenzio Ferrari studied under Stefano Scotto, and have every reason to think that Bernardino de’ Conti—who, I see, studied in the school of Foppa, one of Scotto’s predecessors, if not under Scotto himself, must have known him perfectly well. Leonardo da Vinci kept the rival school at Milan, and the two schools were to one another much what those kept by the late Mr. F. S. Cary and Mr. Lee were some thirty years ago in London. Leonardo, therefore, also doubtless knew Scotto by sight if not personally. I incline to think, then, that we have here the original we are looking for, and that Gaudenzio when working at what he probably regarded as the most important work of his life determined to introduce his master, just as I, if I were writing a novel, might be tempted to introduce a reminiscence of my own old schoolmaster, and to make the portrait as faithful as I could. [Picture: Plate XIX. Fig. 1. Profile of Leonardo da Vinci by Himself (reversed)] [Picture: Plate XIX. Fig. 2. Stafano Scotto (?). From a Drawing by Bernardino de’ Conti]