Leonardo da Vinci did not seem to love her; her beauty was not of the style that pleased him, and when asked to paint her portrait he declined, alleging that he had undertaken more than he could accomplish already. His portrait of Leonora made more progress in a week than any work he had ever undertaken. The head was finished, the limbs and the drapery sketched out; but when he had arrived at about the tenth sitting, he requested to have easel and picture both brought down to the citadel, where a large room was assigned to him. It fatigued him, he said, to go to the villa every day; and, having finished the face and head, the few more sittings which were required could be given him there whenever he found it necessary to ask them. Leonora willingly consented to come at his call; and for several days he worked diligently for nearly twelve hours a day, shut up in the hall where he painted, or in a small room adjoining, where he kept the implements of his art. It was on Tuesday, the 19th of September, early in the morning, that Leonora received a brief note from the great painter, loosely translatable as follows: "Most beautiful and excellent Lady,--Though to your perfections my picture owes an excellence which the painter could never have given from his mere mind, yet there are wants which time and observation have enabled me to detect. Come to me, then, if it be possible, at four this evening, and enable me to supply those graces which had previously escaped me. Be as beautiful as possible, and, for that object, as gay. Might I commend to you the depth of two fingers breadths of that fine old Pulciano wine before you come? It heightened your colour, I saw, when last you tasted it; and I want a little more of the red in the cheek." Leonora was punctual to the appointment, and Leonardo, meeting her at the door of the hall, led her round by the back of the picture to the small room I have mentioned, saying, "You must not see it now till it is finished." Then, seating her in a large arm-chair, he stood and gazed at her for a moment, saying, laughingly, "You must be content to be stared at, for I wish to take down every shade of expression in the note-book of my mind, and write it out upon the picture in the other room." After a few minutes, changing her attitude once or twice, and changing her hair to suit his fancy, he went out into the hall, and engaged himself upon the picture.