Leda and the Swan (Michelangelo) to spend in hiding. It was a square work in tempera, representing Jupiter as a swan making love to a reclining Leda (based on a composition from ancient Roman gems and seals), an egg and Castor and Pollux as children. It was completed by mid-October 1530 but Alfonso described it as a "little thing" in Michelangelo's hearing and so he refused to hand it over. The work and some of the preparatory drawings were in fact acquired (either as a purchase or a gift) by Antonio Mini, who took it to France in 1531. In 1532 he left it to
Ab ovo Ab ovo Ab ovo (Latin: "from the beginning, the origin, the egg") is a reference to one of the twin eggs from which Helen of Troy was born. The eggs were laid by Leda after mating with Zeus disguised as a swan. Had Leda not laid the egg, Helen would not have been born, so Paris could not have eloped with her, so there would have been no Trojan War. The English literary use of the phrase comes from Horace's "Ars Poetica", where he describes his ideal epic poet as one who "does not begin the Trojan War from the