Leonardo da Vinci

April 15^th is the birthday of Leonard da Vinci.  The year was 1452, so 2012 marks the 550^th anniversary of his birth.  Connection to Scott?  Tenuous, at best.  Unless you’re a "Da Vinci Code" fan.  But Ms. Rosina Drew, possibly the last living person to have met Scott, celebrated her 100^th birthday (in 1911) by presenting a communion table to the Rhu parish church, which included an image of da Vinci’s Last Supper.  The story is a recent one, published in Helensburgh Heritage.

From Donald Fullerton’s article, with a link to the full text here: 

http://www.helensburgh-heritage.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=893:centenarian-knew-sir-walter-scott&catid=39:people-&Itemid=399

‘FLAGS were at half-mast throughout Helensburgh and Rhu when a much-loved centenarian died at what is now the Ardencaple Hotel.

In the summer of 2011 a photo of Rosina Drew when she was 100 turned up in the United States after a house in the Kansas-Missouri area was cleared, and hers is a fascinating story.

She was born Rosina Elizabeth Douglas on August 31 1811, daughter of master mariner William Douglas and his wife Rosina Service, at their Troon home — almost a year before Henry Bell’s Comet began to ply on the Clyde and four years before the battle of Waterloo.

She spent much of her youth with her widowed aunt, Mrs Gilbert Douglas, at Orbiston in Lanarkshire.

One of the reasons she was well known in later life was because when she was 18 she met literary giant Sir Walter Scott.

He paid a three or four day visit to her aunt in Orbiston, and the young Miss Douglas was delighted to be old enough to be included in the dinner party invited to meet the distinguished guest, who seemed happy and in almost boyish spirits…

To mark her 100^th birthday she presented the current communion table in Rhu Parish Church. She was present for the dedication on August 30 — the day before her big day.
The front of the oak communion table, made in London, has a machine-carved representation in deep relief of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper…’

Madame de Pompadour

It's good to be the king, and it may be good to be the mistress as well.  Especially if you are the chief mistress, as Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, the Madame de Pompadour, became for Louis XV of France.  Jeanne filled a void in Louis' heart after his second chief mistress died, and she enjoyed a short life of favor, dying of tuberculosis on April 15, 1764.

We find Madame de Pompadour mentioned in the introduction to Walter Scott's "Quentin Durward", which was set in France.  Here the author discusses his meeting with a character called Marquis de Hautlieu.

'...Observing this peculiarity, I backed out of the candid confession which my vanity had meditated, and engaged the Marquis [de Hautlieu] in farther remarks on the mansion of his ancestors. "There," he said, " was the theatre where my father used to procure an order for the special attendance of some of the principal actors of the Comedie Francoise, when the King and Madame Pompadour more than once visited him at this place ; — yonder, more to the centre, was the Baron's hall, where his feudal jurisdiction was exercised when criminals were to be tried by the Seigneur or his bailiff; for we had, like your old Scottish nobles, the right of pit and gallows, or fossa cum furca, as the civilians term it; — beneath that lies the Question-chamber, or apartment for torture ; and truly, I am sorry a right so liable to abuse should have been lodged in the hands of any living creature. But," he added, with a feeling of dignity derived even from the atrocities which his ancestors had committed beneath the grated windows to which he pointed, "such is the effect of superstition, that, to this day, the peasants dare not approach the dungeons, in which, it is said, the wrath of my ancestors had perpetrated, in former times, much cruelty." As we approached the window, while I expressed some curiosity to see this abode of terror, there arose from its subterranean abyss a shrill shout of laughter, which we easily detected as produced by a group of playful children, who had made the neglected vaults a theatre, for a joyous romp at Colin Maillard....'

Leaving Naples

April 15, Naples.—I am on the eve of leaving Naples after a residence of three or four months, my strength strongly returning, though the weather has been very uncertain. What with the interruption occasioned by the cholera and other inconveniences, I have not done much. I have sent home only the letters by L.L. Stuart and three volumes of the Siege of Malta. I sent them by Lord Cowper's son—Mr. Cowper returning, his leave being out—and two chests of books by the Messrs. Turner, Malta, who are to put them on board a vessel, to be forwarded to Mr. Cadell through Whittaker. I have hopes they will come to hand safe. I have bought a small closing carriage, warranted new and English, cost me £200, for the convenience of returning home. It carries Anne, Charles, and the two servants, and we start to-morrow morning for Rome, after which we shall be starting homeward, for the Greek scheme is blown up, as Sir Frederick Adam is said to be going to Madras, so he will be unable to send a frigate as promised. I have spent on the expenses of medical persons and books, etc., a large sum, yet not excessive...


From Scott's Journal.

Scott's departure from Abbotsford to Naples was covered a few posts ago.  Scott's entourage arrived in Naples on December 17, 1831.  After nearly four months of rest and recuperation, he is leaving on April 15, 1832.  According to Lockhart ("Memoirs of Sir Walter Scott"), the person he saw most on this trip was Sir William Gell, who had also turned to Naples for his health.    Scott's post from this day discusses his "Siege of Malta", which has recently been published.  Scott also logs the story of Il Bizarro; also recently published.  Lockhart's biography relates that Scott worked on these stories through much of his time in Naples.