It has been generally believed that the greatest Florentine artist of the second half of the fifteenth century—Leonardo da Vinci—was a stranger to Lorenzo. The fact appeared the more strange because Leonardo was the son of a chancellor or notary of the Republic, and a pupil of Andrea del Verocchio, who was in constant intercourse with the Medici. Newly discovered documents[225] show that Leonardo, if not among those admitted to study in the San Marco gardens, was at least acquainted with the Medici, and that it was Lorenzo who sent him, when thirty years old, to Lodovico il Moro, in company with one Atalante Migliorotti, famous for playing on the lyre. The date hitherto assigned to his first visit to Milan—1482 or 1483—is confirmed; but there is no explanation of the fact that his name is never mentioned during the war of 1478-79. He was then twenty-six, and might have done good service to his country by that knowledge of mechanics and hydraulics which he afterwards turned to such good account in Lombardy. On January 1 of the fatal year 1478, the Signoria commissioned him to paint an altar-piece for the chapel dedicated to St. Bernard in the palace. This commission, like many of the same kind, was not executed, but was transferred after Leonardo’s departure for Milan to Filippino Lippi, whose beautiful Madonna (see p. 175) was placed not in the chapel, but in the council chamber. Under the rule of the two Sforzas—Gian Galeazzo and Lodovico il Moro—Leonardo founded at Milan a school of painting which gave a new direction to Lombard art. When he returned to Florence after the downfall of the Moro, Lorenzo had been seven years in his grave, and his sons were in exile. _FIFTH BOOK._ THE GROWTH OF THE MEDICEAN SUPREMACY. CHAPTER I. CHANGE IN THE FLORENTINE CONSTITUTION.