that this should have been the date of this sketch; under these circumstances it would have been done under the auspices of Francis I, but the Italian general was certainly not in favour with the French monarch at the time.  Gian Giacomo Trivulzio was a sworn foe to Ludovico il Moro, whom he strove for years to overthrow.  On the 6th September 1499 he marched victorious into Milan at the head of a French army.  In a short time, however, he was forced to quit Milan again when Ludovico il Moro bore down upon the city with a force of Swiss troops.  On the 15th of April following, after defeating Lodovico at Novara, Trivulzio once more entered Milan as a Conqueror, but his hopes of becoming Governatore of the place were soon wrecked by intrigue.  This victory and triumph, historians tell us, were signalised by acts of vengeance against the dethroned Sforza, and it might have been particularly flattering to him that the casting and construction of the Sforza monument were suspended for the time.

It must have been at this moment—­as it seems to me—­that he commissioned the artist to prepare designs for his own monument, which he probably intended should find a place in the Cathedral or in some other church.  He, the husband of Margherita di Nicolino Colleoni, would have thought that he had a claim to the same distinction and public homage as his less illustrious connection had received at the hands of the Venetian republic.  It was at this very time that Trivulzio had a medal struck with a bust portrait of himself and the following remarkable inscription on the reverse:_ DEO FAVENTE—­1499—­DICTVS—­10—­IA—­EXPVLIT—­LVDOVICV—­SF—­ (Sfortiam) DVC—­ (ducem) MLI (Mediolani)—­NOIE (nomine)—­REGIS—­FRANCORVM—­EODEM—­ANN —­(anno) RED’T (redit)—­LVS (Ludovicus)—­SVPERATVS ET CAPTVS—­EST—­AB—­EO. In the Library of the Palazzo Trivulzio there is a MS. of Callimachus Siculus written at the end of the XVth or beginning of the XVIth century.  At the beginning of this MS. there is an exquisite illuminated miniature of an equestrian statue with the name of the general on the base; it is however very doubtful whether this has any connection with Leonardo’s design.

Nos. 731-740, which treat of casting bronze, have probably a very indirect bearing on the arrangements made for casting the equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza.  Some portions evidently relate to the casting of cannon.  Still, in our researches about Leonardo’s work on the monument, we may refer to them as giving us some clue to the process of bronze casting at that period.

Some practical hints (706-709).

7O6.

OF A STATUE.