Leda and the Swan (Michelangelo) Francis I of France, who later sent it to the Palace of Fontainebleau. The best known copy is attributed to Rosso Fiorentino and hangs in the National Gallery in London, with others in the Gemäldegalerie (Dresden), the Gemäldegalerie (Berlin) and the Correr Museum in Venice. The Casa Buonarroti in Florence holds not only a copy but also a preparatory drawing of Leda's head, held to be by Michelangelo himself. There are also several prints of the work, the most faithful of which is thought to be the one by Nicolas Béatrizet, which also shows Castor and Pollux. Leda and the
Leda and the Swan (Correggio) and extraordinary balance between naturalist rendering and poetic transfiguration. Correggio had made a study of Michelangelo's "Leda and the Swan". According to Vasari's "Lives of the Artists", the "Leda" and a "Venus" (i.e. "Danaë") were commissioned by Federico II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua as a gift for Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. This is supported by the theory that Jupiter was flying out of the right hand side of "Leda" in swan form and into the left hand side of "Danaë" in golden-shower form. However, one more recent study suggests that all the paintings in the "amori di Giove" series