Smiling to himself, Leonardo went out into the fields and hunted about until he had collected a large number of strange creatures, hedgehogs, lizards, locusts, snakes, and many others. These he carried home and locked up in the room he used for a workshop, where no one was allowed to enter but himself. Using the ugly things as models, he began to paint on the shield a monster formed out of all the creatures, with eyes and legs everywhere. It was a long time before he succeeded in making anything frightful enough to suit him. Again and again he erased his work and did it over, trying to combine his creatures differently. But at last something so terrible stared him in the face that he almost felt frightened himself.
"The monster is ready," he said with a laugh; "but I must find a background fitting for him."
So he painted as a background a black and narrow cavern, at whose mouth stood the shapeless creature he had made, all eyes, all legs, all savage jaws. Flames poured from it on every side, and a cloud of vapor rose upwards from its many nostrils. After days of hard work, Leonardo at last went to his father and told him he had finished the shield, which he hoped would please its owner. Ser Piero came at once, and was led into the partly darkened studio, where in just the right light the shield stood on an easel. But no sooner was the father within the room than he turned to fly, so terrible was the object that met his gaze.
"It will do, I see," said Leonardo. "I wanted to make something so dreadful that everyone would shiver with fear at the sight of it. Take it away with you now; but I had better wrap it up, or you will frighten people out of their wits as you go along."
Ser Piero took the shield and went away without telling his son anything about old Francisco. But he was quite sure that the farmer would not like the picture, and that it was not at all suitable to hang in a farmhouse kitchen; and more than that, he felt it was far too wonderful a painting to fall into the hands of a peasant and never be famous. So in order to save the old man's feelings, he went to a shop and bought a shield of the same size as the first one, which had on it a device of a heart pierced by an arrow; and the next time he went to the country he sent for Francisco to come and get it.