to paint Rinaldo degli Albizzi, when declared a rebel and exiled in 1434, and his adherents, as hanging head downwards; and in consequence he had acquired the nickname of Andrea degl’ Impiccati.  On the 21st July 1478 the Council of Eight came to the following resolution:  “item servatis etc. deliberaverunt et santiaverunt Sandro Botticelli pro ejus labore in pingendo proditores flor. quadraginta largos” (see G. MILANESI, Arch. star.  VI (1862) p. 5 note.)

As has been told, Giuliano de’ Medici was murdered on the 26th April 1478, and we see by this that only three months later Botticelli was paid for his painting of the “proditores”.  We can however hardly suppose that all the members of the conspiracy were depicted by him in fresco on the facade of the palace, since no fewer than eighty had been condemned to death.  We have no means of knowing whether, besides Botticelli, any other painters, perhaps Leonardo, was commissioned, when the criminals had been hanged in person out of the windows of the Palazzo del Podesta to represent them there afterwards in effigy in memory of their disgrace.  Nor do we know whether the assassin who had escaped may at first not have been provisionally represented as hanged in effigy.  Now, when we try to connect the historical facts with this drawing by Leonardo reproduced on Pl.  LXII, No.  I, and the full description of the conspirator’s dress and its colour on the same sheet, there seems to be no reasonable doubt that Bernardo Bandini is here represented as he was actually hanged on December 29th, 1479, after his capture at Constantinople.  The dress is certainly not that in which he committed the murder.  A long furred coat might very well be worn at Constantinople or at Florence in December, but hardly in April.  The doubt remains whether Leonardo described Bernardo’s dress so fully because it struck him as remarkable, or whether we may not rather suppose that this sketch was actually made from nature with the intention of using it as a study for a wall painting to be executed.  It cannot be denied that the drawing has all the appearance of having been made for this purpose.  Be this as it may, the sketch under discussion proves, at any rate, that Leonardo was in Florence in December 1479, and the note that accompanies it is valuable as adding one more characteristic specimen to the very small number of his MSS. that can be proved to have been written between 1470 and 1480.]

Notes on the Last Supper (665-668).

665.

One who was drinking and has left the glass in its position and turned his head towards the speaker.

Another, twisting the fingers of his hands together turns with stern brows to his companion [6].  Another with his hands spread open shows the palms, and shrugs his shoulders up his ears making a mouth of astonishment [8].

[9] Another speaks into his neighbour’s ear and he, as he listens to him, turns towards him to lend an ear [10], while he holds a knife in one hand, and in the other the loaf half cut through by the knife. [13] Another who has turned, holding a knife in his hand, upsets with his hand a glass on the table [14].