Freud's article on Leonardo has remained a classic in the application of psychoanalysis to æsthetics and pathography. Even now, after fifty years, one reads and re-reads it with fascination, though it rarely serves any longer as a model for analytic contributions in these fields. Psychoanalytic theory and methodology, as well as the scope of their application to allied disciplines, have naturally evolved. K. R. Eissler believes, however, that Freud's approach was inherently correct and that critics have missed the essence of his contribution. Granted that the facts about the artist's childhood were meager, that a key determinant in the reconstruction of his infantile experiences was unwittingly distorted (the kite of his screen memory that was transformed through verbal black magic into a vulture), and that more recent data will suggest different