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satisfaction and be the equal of any man in architecture, in the design of public and private buildings, and in conducting water from one place to another. Furthermore, I can carry out sculpture in marble, bronze, or clay; and likewise in painting I can do any kind of work as well as any man….” And finally, he ended with an enticing prospect: “Moreover, the bronze horse could be made that will be to the immortal glory and eternal honor of the Prince your father of blessed memory, and the illustrious house of Sforza.” 42
    This astonishing letter, in which Leonardo refers to himself as an artist in only six out of thirty-four lines, shows how quickly he was able to assimilate the spirit of this northern city, presenting his many talents in the order in which he thought they would be most valued by Ludovico. The letter may sound boastful, but all of Leonardo’s offers were serious and well thought out. He had undoubtedly studied the work of the leading military engineers of his time, as he said in the letter; there are about twenty-five sheets of drawings of military machines, dating from his time in Florence, in the Codex Atlanticus; and there are over forty in a slightly later style. 43 By juxtaposing this letter, item by item, with existing drawings, Leonardo scholar Kenneth Keele has demonstrated the validity of every claim Leonardo made. 44 Indeed, in his later life, Leonardo was employed in all the capacities he laid out in the letter to
il Moro
.
    He did not receive an immediate response to his letter from the court, let alone an offer of employment. So Leonardo turned once more to painting—the profession in which he was an accomplished and acknowledged master. He began a collaboration with the brothers Ambrogio and Evangelista Predis, the former a successful portrait painter and the latter a woodcarver. 45 The Predis brothers were clearly the lesser artists, but they were well connected in Milan and gladly welcomed Leonardo to their
bottega
. Indeed, Ambrogio was soon able to negotiate a lucrative contract for the three of them.
    In April 1483, the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception commissioned Leonardo and the Predis brothers to paint and decorate a large altarpiece in the church of San Francesco Grande with the central panel “to be painted in oil by Master Leonardo, the Florentine.” The contract specified not only the size and composition of the painting (the Virgin Mary flanked by two prophets, with God the Father appearing overhead, surrounded by angels), but also the traditional colors of gold, blue, and green, the angels’ golden halos, and so on.
    Leonardo worked on the painting for about three years. The result was his second masterpiece, the
Virgin of the Rocks
, now in the Louvre (see Fig. 2-4 on Chapter 2). The finished work bore little resemblance to what the confraternity had ordered. 46 In fact, the priors were so upset that they brought a lawsuit before the duke, which dragged on for over twenty years. 47 Leonardo eventually painted a second version, which now hangs in the National Gallery in London. This could not have pleased the priors much better, as he made only minor changes in the painting’s composition.
    Art historians believe that Leonardo may have let Ambrogio Predis paint large parts of the London version. This seems to be confirmed by recent analyses of the rocks and plants in the painting’s background. Scientists have noted that both the geological and botanical details in the London version are significantly inferior to those in the painting in the Louvre. It is highly unlikely that they were painted by Leonardo. 48
    The confraternity may have had good reasons to be dissatisfied with the
Virgin of the Rocks
, but in the
botteghe
and intellectual circles of Milan, Leonardo’s masterpiece caused a sensation. The artist’s low tones of olive green and gray were in stark contrast to the bright colors of the quattrocento, and the Milanese could not have failed to