On 20th December 1929, nine days after leaving Genoa and having been badly battered by tempestuous waves off the coast of Brittany, the Italian ship Leonardo da Vinci berthed at the East India Dock in the Port of London and began to discharge what was perhaps the most remarkable cargo ever brought into Great Britain.' It included Botticelli's Birth of Venus (Fig.9) and Piero della Francesca's Duke and Duchess of Urbino from the Uffizi, Donatello's bronze David from the Bargello, Giorgione's Tempesta from the collection of Prince Giovanelli, Titian's 'La Bella' and 'Portrait of an Englishman' from the Pitti, Masaccio's Crucifixion from Naples, Piero's Flagellation from Urbino and Carpaccio's so-called Courtesans from the Accademia in Venice - to choose a few items at random. In charge of these, and of several hundred other works of art, was the Director of the Brera and Sopraintendente delle Belle Arti ofLombardy, Ettore Modigliani (Fig.20), who was later compared by Roberto Longhi to Sir Francis Drake delivering the treasures of the Invincible Armada to Queen Elizabeth.2