Vasari relates, that Verocchio being occupied on a picture of the Baptism of Christ, Lionardo was permitted to paint an accessory figure of an angel in the same work. Verocchio, perceiving that his own performance was manifestly surpassed by that of his young scholar, abandoned the art in despair, and never touched a pencil again. Although Lionardo thus excelled his master while a boy, and soon enlarged the boundaries of the art, it is justly observed by Lanzi that he retained traces of the manner and even general tastes of Verocchio all his life. Like his master, he studied geometry with ardour; he was fonder of design than painting: in his choice of form, whether of face or limb, he preferred the elegant to the full. From Verocchio too he derived his fondness for drawing horses and composing battles, and from him imbibed the wish to advance his art by doing a few things well, rather than to multiply his works. Verocchio was an excellent sculptor; in proof of which the S. Tommaso at Or San Michele, in Florence, and the equestrian statue before S. Giovanni e Paolo, in Venice, may be adduced. Lionardo modelled the three statues, cast in bronze by Il Rustici, for S. Giovanni at Florence, and the colossal equestrian statue of the first Francesco Sforza, (destroyed by the French before it was cast,) at Milan. To his knowledge of sculpture must be also greatly attributed that roundness and relief which he infused into many of his pictures, and which had hitherto been wanting in the art. To this period of Lionardo’s life belong the Medusa’s head, now in the Florence gallery; the cartoon of Adam and Eve; a Madonna, once in the Borghese palace in Rome, known by the accompaniment of a crystal vase of flowers; a triumph of Neptune; and other works mentioned by Vasari. Some of the feebler pictures ascribed to him in Rome and Florence may also belong to this time. His genius for mechanics had already manifested itself: he invented machines for sinking wells, and lifting and drawing weights; proposed methods for boring mountains, cleansing ports, and digging canals. His architectural schemes too were numerous and daring: with the boldness of an Archimedes, he offered to lift the Baptistery, or church of S. Giovanni, in the air, and build under it the basement and steps which were wanting to complete the design. It does not appear that his fellow-citizens availed themselves of these powers in any memorable work; but his plan for rendering the Arno navigable seems to have been adopted two centuries afterwards by Viviani.