It was just the place to train such a many-sided genius as Leonardo, though rather let us say it was just the place for such a many-sided genius to find and train himself. Certainly the young Leonardo must have owed very little except suggestion and some minor directions in technics to anyone else. He very soon came to surpass his master in painting at least, and the master recognized that fact apparently without any jealousy. According to the story as we have it, Verrocchio was employed by the Brethren of Vallombrosa to paint the "Baptism of Christ." Leonardo was given by the master permission to paint an angel in the left-hand corner. There was such a striking contrast between the fresh youthful work of the pupil and the labored work of the master that Verrocchio is said to have painted no more, or at least made no more ambitious attempts at great pictures. Sculpture was always the favorite of the old master, however, so that it was not so much of a tragedy. It was after this, in his early manhood, that Leonardo became interested in the things of nature around him and made many investigations into their meaning. He took up astronomy for a time and anticipated some of the thoughts that Copernicus was to put in order in his great theory. Such ideas in astronomy were in the air at that time. Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa had more than hinted at them when, about the middle of the fifteenth century, he declared that the earth moved in the heavens like the other stars. Astronomical subjects were {28} favorite speculations for intellectual genius. Regiomontanus, who died before he was forty, was alive in Leonardo's boyhood, and after having begun that series of astronomical leaflets which later were to influence so deeply Columbus and the Portuguese navigators, was invited down to Rome to reform the calendar. Toscanelli made the observations on comets, out of which later their orbits were confirmed. Every form of natural observation caught the inquiring Leonardo's eye, and he studied the plants around him and meditated on crystal formation and occupied himself with all the forms of living things. Somehow his feeling seemed to be that such broadening of his intelligence would help him to breadth of expression in art, though probably it was only his native curiosity occupying itself in the insatiable youthful years with everything that came to hand. His achievements in science are sketched hurriedly in the chapter on Physical Science.