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The Alps (1057-1062).
1
057.
At Monbracco, above Saluzzo,--a mile above the Certosa, at the foot
of Monte Viso, there is a quarry of flakey stone, which is as white
as Carrara marble, without a spot, and as hard as porphyry or even
harder; of which my worthy gossip, Master Benedetto the sculptor,
has promised to give me a small slab, for the colours, the second
day of January 1511.
[Footnote: Saluzzo at the foot of the Alps South of Turin.]
[Footnote 9. 10.: Maestro Benedetto scultore; probably some native
of Northern Italy acquainted with the place here described. Hardly
the Florentine sculptor Benedetto da Majano. Amoretti had published
this passage, and M. Ravaisson who gave a French translation of it
in the Gazette des Beaux Arts (1881, pag. 528), remarks as
follows: Le maitre sculpteur que Leonard appelle son "compare" ne
serait-il pas Benedetto da Majano, un de ceux qui jugerent avec lui
de la place a donner au David de Michel-Ange, et de qui le Louvre a
acquis recemment un buste d'apres Philippe Strozzi? To this it may
be objected that Benedetto da Majano had already lain in his grave
fourteen years, in the year 1511, when he is supposed to have given
the promise to Leonardo. The colours may have been given to the
sculptor Benedetto and the stone may have been in payment for them.
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