After the misfortunes of Lodovico Sforza, he returned to Florence, where having remained thirteen years, he went to Rome at the time his patron Leo X. ascended the papal chair; but his stay there was short. Some of his best works at Florence may be referred to this period; among which number we may reckon the celebrated portrait of Mona Lisa, which was the labour of four years, and yet was left unfinished; the Cartoon of S. Anna, prepared for a picture in the church of the Servi, which was never executed in colours; the cartoon of the battle of Niccolo Piccinino, intended to dispute the palm of excellence with Michelangiolo in the council chamber at Florence,[133] but like the other, never executed by Vinci, after failing in an attempt to paint it in a new method in oil on the wall. He probably employed another method in painting the Madonna with the child in her arms, in the monastery of S. Onofrio, of Rome, a picture in the style of Raffaello, but which is now peeling off the walls in many places. There are some other fine pieces, which if we may be allowed to hazard a conjecture, might be with propriety assigned to this period, in which Lionardo, having attained his highest skill, and unoccupied by other pursuits, painted in his best manner. Such is the specimen that was preserved at Mantua, but which was stolen, and concealed during the sack of the city; after many vicissitudes, however, it was sold for a high price to the imperial court of Russia. The subject is a Holy Family; in the back-ground is seen a woman of a very beautiful and majestic countenance standing in an upright position. It bears the cipher of Lionardo, consisting of a D interlaced with an L and a V, as it is seen in the picture of the Signori Sanvitali, at Parma. The Consigliere Pagave, who left a memorandum of it in his MSS. was the first to observe and to recognise it, upon its being brought to Milan in 1775, where it was also kept concealed. The same judicious critic in painting has conjectured that this production was executed in Rome, for one of the princesses of Mantua, or rather for the sister-in-law of Leo X.; inasmuch as it displayed a decided emulation of Raphael's manner, at that time highly extolled in Rome. Such a conjecture might receive support from his picture of a Madonna, which ornaments San Onofrio, also in the Raphael manner; and in order that this picture, and that of Mantua just mentioned, might not be confounded by posterity with the works of Raffaello, Lionardo, according to Signor Pagave, took care to affix the cipher of his name. Indeed, this is not at all improbable: both writers and painters are impelled by their natural genius to adopt a peculiar style; and whoever will compare the portraits that remain, expressive of the elevated, touching, penetrating, and beautiful spirit, incessantly bent upon acquiring something still more exquisite in art, which inspired these two prodigies, will find little difficulty in