Latin epigram on Leonardo's portrait of Lucretia
A humanist poem in upright script: "Leonardo painted her, Maurus loved her; the one first of painters, the other of leaders."
This side bears no drawings but a Latin epigram written in an upright, non-mirrored humanist hand. The verses praise a portrait by Leonardo of a woman named Lucretia, so lifelike that the painter is said to have wronged Nature and the gods themselves; the poem repeatedly names Maurus as the woman's lover and protector. Only text is present on the sheet.
On this page
Verses praising a painted portrait of Lucretia
The epigram plays on the rivalry of art and nature: Leonardo could have given his portrait a soul, as he gave it everything else, but withheld it so the image would be the more like its living model, whose soul Maurus possesses. It names the sitter Lucretia, richly endowed by the gods, painted by Leonardo and loved by Maurus, and claims the painter's hand grieved both Nature and the gods above.