He forbade all pruning of trees as an act of insubordination to Nature, and delighted in rain but cowered in terror from thunder and lightning.

He peered curiously at clouds to find strange shapes in them, and in his pursuit of the grotesque examined the spittle of sick persons on the walls or ground, hoping for suggestions of monsters, combats of horses, or fantastic landscapes.

But why this should have been thought madness in Cosimo when Leonardo in his directions to artists explicitly advises them to look hard at spotty walls for inspiration, I cannot say.

He was also the first, to my knowledge, to don ear-caps in tedious society--as Herbert Spencer later used to do.

He had many pupils, but latterly could not bear them in his presence and was therefore but an indifferent instructor.