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Jerome beat his bruised chest with a stone, but his face is contorted with mental pain. Even the lion in the foreground roars in sympathy. It was at this time that Leonardo began to look at the nature and causes of pain. He wrote, “while the highest good is wisdom, the chief evil is bodily pain . . .” Later he noted that nature had placed the more sensitive parts of the body in front “for the preservation of man.” These observations and this painting remind us that human beings were the foundation of the science and the art of Leonardo. This led him very early to the study of human movements and proportions. Studies like these may have been even more interesting to him because of his own fine proportions. Vasari

Leonardo’s unfinished painting St. Jerome in the Wilderness shows the extreme suffering of the saint, partly through Leonardo’s under- standing of the anatomy of the face and neck muscles.

described Leonardo’s person and personality as follows: “The heavens often rain down the richest gifts on human beings naturally, but sometimes with lavish abundance bestow upon a single individual beauty, grace and ability. . . . Men saw this in Leonardo da Vinci whose personal beauty could not be exaggerated, whose every movement was grace itself, and whose abilities were so extra- ordinary that he could readily solve every difficulty. He possessed great physical strength combined with dexterity, and a spirit and courage invariably royal and

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