In the year 1500, the French being in possession of Milan, his patron Ludovico in captivity, and the affairs of the state in utter confusion, Leonardo returned to his native Florence, where he hoped to re-establish his broken fortunes, and to find employment. Here begins the third period of his artistic life, from 1500 to 1513, that is, from his forty-eighth to his sixtieth year. He found the Medici family in exile, but was received by Pietro Soderini (who governed the city as "_Gonfaloniêre perpetuo_") with great distinction, and a pension was assigned to him as painter in the service of the republic. One of his first works after his return to Florence was the famous portrait of Madonna Lisa del Giocondo, called in French _La Joconde_, and now in the Louvre (484), which after the death of Leonardo was purchased by Francis I. for 4,000 gold crowns, equal to 45,000 francs or £1,800, an enormous sum in those days; yet who ever thought it too much? Then began the rivalry between Leonardo and Michael Angelo, which lasted during the remainder of Leonardo's life. The difference of age (for Michael Angelo was twenty-two years younger) ought to have prevented all unseemly jealousy; but Michael Angelo was haughty and impatient of all superiority, or even equality; Leonardo, sensitive, capricious, and naturally disinclined to admit the pretensions of a rival, to whom he could say, and _did_ say, "I was famous before you were born!" With all their admiration of each other's genius, their mutual frailties prevented any real good-will on either side. Leonardo, during his stay at Florence, painted the portrait of Ginevra Benci, the reigning beauty of her time. We find that in 1502 he was engaged by Cæsar Borgia to visit and report on the fortifications of his territories, and in this office he was employed for two years. In 1503 he formed a plan for turning the course of the Arno, and in the following year he lost his father. In 1505 he modelled the group which we now see over the northern door of the San Giovanni, at Florence. In 1514 he was invited to Rome by Leo X., but more in his character of philosopher, mechanic, and alchemist, than as a painter. Here Raphael was at the height of his fame, and engaged in his greatest works, the frescos of the Vatican. The younger artist was introduced to the elder; and two pictures which Leonardo painted while at Rome--the "Madonna of St. Onofrio," and the "Holy Family," painted for Filiberta of Savoy, the pope's sister-in-law (which is now at St. Petersburg)--show that even this veteran in art felt the irresistible influence of the genius of his young rival. They are both _Raffaelesque_ in the subject and treatment.