Explore "The Romance of Leonardo Da Vinci" by Dmitri Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Sitting in his high-backed armchair, Ludovico Sforza softly stroked his smooth-shaved chin with a white and well-kept hand. His handsome face wore that expression of perfect candour which is acquired by past masters in political trickery; his high-bridged aquiline nose, and subtly writhen lips recalled his father Francesco, the great _Condottiere_; though if Francesco were, as the poets said, at once lion and fox, Ludovico was merely fox. He was attired in pale blue silk, puffed and embroidered; his smooth hair covered ears and brow like a wig, and a gold chain dangled on his breast; in word and gesture he was uniformly courteous and urbane.
'Have you certain intelligence, Messer Bartolomeo, of the departure of the French army from Lyons?'