It had therefore been completed; but it does not appear that Michelangelo had commenced his fresco in the Sala del Gran Consiglio.
Lionardo began to paint his Battle of the Standard in March 1505.

The work advanced rapidly; but the method he adopted, which consisted in applying oil colours to a fat composition laid thickly on the wall, caused the ruin of his picture.

He is said to have wished to reproduce the encaustic process of the ancients, and lighted fires to harden the surface of the fresco.

This melted the wax in the lower portions of the paste, and made the colours run.

At any rate, no traces of the painting now remain in the Sala del Gran Consiglio, the walls of which are covered by the mechanical and frigid brush-work of Vasari.