For convenience of reference the chapters in the two parts are divided so as to cover the same periods of time in the life of the master.

Count Alessandro da Canossa acknowledged relationship to Michael Angelo in a letter, dated October 4, 1520 (Gotti, i. 4), addressing the master as "honoured kinsman," but the relationship cannot now be proved. The ancestors of Michael Angelo have been traced to one Bernardo who died before the year 1228, and they played their part as citizens of Florence, no mean city, for more than two hundred years—a noble pedigree even for Michael Angelo.

A paid magistrate or mayor, generally from a neighbouring town or country and not a citizen of the place where he was on duty.

Caprese is made up of scattered hamlets and farmhouses near Arezzo, upon the watershed between the Tiber and the Arno.

Upon March 6, 1475, according to our present reckoning, Lodovico wrote in his note-book:

"I record that on this day, March 6, 1474, a male child was born to me. I gave him the name of Michael Angelo, and he was born on a Monday morning four or five hours before daybreak, and he was born while I was Podestà of Caprese, and he was born at Caprese; and the godfathers were those I have named below. He was baptized on the eighth of the same month in the Church of San Giovanni at Caprese." Then follow the godfathers; there are ten of them.

Maestro Francesco only taught Michael Angelo to read and write in the vulgar tongue, for his pupil complained in after life that he knew no Latin; this was not Francesco's fault, for his pupil soon followed his friend's—another Francesco—influence and neglected literature for the art that made him famous.

Ghirlandaio, born 1449, died 1494.

Martin Schongauer, born at Colmar about 1450, died 1488.

When Michael Angelo was thirteen years old Lodovico gave in to his wishes and apprenticed him to Domenico Ghirlandajo (he was called Ghirlandajo because as a goldsmith he had made garlands of golden leaves for the brows of the Florentine ladies) upon the unusual terms set forth in the following minute from Domenico's ledger under the date 1488:

"I record this first of April how that I, Lodovico di Lionardo di Buonarrota, bind my son Michael Angelo to Domenico and Davit di Tommaso di Currado for the next three ensuing years, under these conditions and contracts: to wit that the said Michael Angelo shall stay with the above-named masters during this time, to learn the art of painting, and to practise the same, and to be at the order of the above-named; and they for their part, shall give him in the course of these three years twenty-four florins (fiorini di Sagello, £8 12s.); to wit, six florins in the first year, eight in the second, ten in the third, making in all the sum of ninety-six pounds (lire)."

A note of April 16, 1488, records that two florins were paid to Michael Angelo upon that day. The total sum is estimated by Gotti (p. 6, note) to equal 206.40 lira present value—about £8 12s. It was usual for apprentices to pay a sum to their masters rather than to be paid.

Drawings, even by old masters, were of no pecuniary value in those days; they were merely kept for use in the workshop. The fashion of collecting drawings for their own sake was invented by Giorgio Vasari some sixty years later.

There is a mask of a grinning faun to be seen in the Bargello at Florence, attributed to Michael Angelo and said to be this his first work in sculpture. It does not correspond with either the account of Vasari or of Condivi; it is a poor and ugly piece of work, and shows no sign whatever of the early style of Michael Angelo, but is more likely a work of a later period by some one who had seen the mask under the left arm of "The Night" on the tomb of Lorenzo at San Lorenzo.

"During this time Michael Angelo received from the Magnifico an allowance of five ducats per month, and was furthermore presented for his gratification with a violet-coloured mantle. But, indeed, all the young men who studied in the gardens received stipends of greater or less amount from the liberality of that Magnificent and most noble citizen, being constantly encouraged and rewarded by him whilst he lived." (Vasari.)

Many motives from antique gems may be traced in the art of Michael Angelo, such as the Judith and her maid, some of the athletes the Leda, and even the Adam.

Lorenzo died upon the eighth day of April, 1492.

Equal to-day to 20.60 lire—about seventeen shillings.

Nineteen and a quarter inches according to the measurements of Heath Wilson ("Michael Angelo and his Works," p. 17, ed. 1881). This relief is in the Casa Buonarroti, Florence.

We have no record of this work, and its whereabouts is not known.

The boy, Michael Angelo, probably enjoyed this frolic and its attendant festivities as much as Piero, he could not have done much other work in the dungeon-like studios of Florence in such cold weather. This incident has been regarded as an insult to the artist and a sign of Piero's want of taste. Michael Angelo cannot have felt aggrieved as he stayed on at the palace. Condivi relates that he remained "some months." Piero should rather be blamed for not employing his artist guest upon some more lasting work also.

Nothing is known as to the fate of this work, it is not now in the church.

Vasari states that Michael Angelo devoted much time to the study of anatomy. "For the church of Santo Spirito, in Florence, Michael Angelo made a crucifix in wood, which is placed over the lunette of the high altar. This he did to please the Prior, who had given him a room wherein he dissected many dead bodies, zealously studying anatomy." (Vasari.)

A pen drawing at Oxford shows us two students studying anatomy at night; the body of the subject supports the torch; one student holds a pair of compasses in his right hand for measuring the proportions.

Michael Angelo left Bologna hastily under fear of personal violence from the sculptors and native craftsmen, who said he was taking the bread out of their mouths, rather a strong compliment to a boy of twenty.

The dealer Baldassari del Milanese paid Michael Angelo thirty ducats for this work, and sold it to Raffaello Riario, Cardinal di San Giorgio, as an antique for two hundred ducats, an evidence, not of the Cardinal's foolishness, but of Michael Angelo's careful study of the antique.

The Cardinal S. Giorgio made Messer Baldassari refund the two hundred ducats and take the Cupid back, so Michael Angelo got nothing for his journey. Cesare Borgia presented this Cupid to Guidobaldo di Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino. After Cesare Borgia sacked the town of Urbino in 1592 he sent the Cupid to the Marchioness of Mantua, who wrote on July 22, 1592, describing the Cupid as "without a peer among the works of modern times." There is a sleeping Cupid at Mantua in the Museo Civico, but it is not by Michael Angelo. Signor Fabriczy holds that a Cupid preserved in the museum at Turin may be Michael Angelo's original work, but the translator has not seen it.

Michael Angelo arrived in Rome for the first time at the end of June 1496, and wrote in July to Lorenzo di' Pier Francesco de' Medici. The letter bears a superscription to Sandro Botticelli; historians presume from this that it was not safe to write openly to any of the Medici.

"2nd day of July, 1496.

"Magnificent Lorenzo,—I only write to inform you that last Saturday we arrived safely, and went at once to visit the Cardinal di San Giorgio; and I presented your letter to him. It appeared to me that he was pleased to see me, and he expressed a wish that I should go immediately to inspect his collection of statues. I spent the whole day there, and for that reason was unable to deliver all your letters. On Sunday the Cardinal came into the new house, and had me sent for. I went to him, and he asked me what I thought about the things I had seen. I replied by stating my opinion, and certainly I can say with sincerity that there are many fine things in the collection. Then he asked me if I had the courage to make some beautiful work. I answered that I should not be able to achieve anything so great, but that he should see what I could do. We have bought a piece of marble for a life size statue, and on Monday I shall begin to work. On Monday last I presented your other letter of recommendation to Rucellai, who offered me what money I might want; also those to Cavalcanti. Afterwards I gave your letter to Baldassare, and asked him for the child (the sleeping Cupid), saying I was ready to refund his money. He answered very roughly, swearing he would rather break it in a hundred pieces; he had bought the child and it was his property; he possessed writing which proved that he had satisfied the person who sent it to him, and was under no apprehension that he should have to give it up. Then he complained bitterly of you, saying that you had spoken ill of him. Certain of our Florentines sought to accommodate matters, but failed in their attempt. Now I look to coming to terms through the Cardinal; for this is the advice of Baldassare Balducci. What ensues I will report to you. No more by this. To you I recommend myself. May God keep you from evil.

"Michael Angelo, in Rome.

"To Sandro Botticelli, at Florence."

(Gotti, ii. 32.)

This ugly, but marvellously-finished statue is now in the western corridor of the Uffizi, in Florence. See p. 107.

See p. 108.

The work is now in the first chapel on the right in the nave of the Basilica of Saint Peter's.

Now in the Accademia delle Belle Arti of Florence, where it was placed for its better preservation in 1831.

The Office of Works.

Documents, copies of which are to be found in "Gaye," vol. ii. pp. 454-464, go to prove that this sculptor was Agostino di Antonio di Duccio, who was born in 1418 and died in 1481. He was the author of the relief illustrating the life of S. Gemignano upon the façade of the Duomo at Modena, and some of the beautiful and delicate marble reliefs set in the polychromatic front of the Oratory of S. Bernardino at Perugia, and the fairy-like low relief (bassissimi rilievi) panels that decorate the interior of the temple of Malatesta at Rimini.

The Madonna and Child in the church of Notre Dame at Bruges, identified as this work, is in marble. Vasari also states that the work for the Moscheroni, Merchants of Bruges, was a bronze, but both accounts were written fifty years after the event. Albert Dürer saw this work in the church and mentions it as a marble statue in his "Netherlands Diary," 1520-21.

Now in the Tribuna of the Uffizi, Florence.

Michael Angelo received payment for the cartoon probably in Florence on February the 28th, 1505 ("Gaye," ii., p. 93), and he went to Carrara in April of that year, so the delay was only two months, a short enough time to prepare his great design.

The right bank of the Tiber below Rome. On the opposite shore is the Marmorata, where blocks of marble were unloaded in the times of the ancient Romans; some are there to this day.

The covered way from the Vatican to the Castle of Saint Angelo.

Heath Wilson estimates the area it would have covered as 34-1/2 ft. by 23 ft. (p. 74).

Michael Angelo fled from Rome during the week after Easter, 1506. He relates the circumstances in a letter of October 1542, No. c. d. xxxv. "Le Lettere p. 489," which corroborates Condivi's story word for word, and is another proof of the autobiographical nature of these memoirs.

No fragments of this cartoon remain; perhaps the best copy is that in possession of the Earl of Leicester at Holkham Hall. See also p. 124.

Like the good Catholic he was, he went to hear mass as soon as he had completed his journey; he always behaved as a good son of the Church.

This composition is generally known as the "Sacrifice of Noah," see p. 172. Condivi evidently did not refer these descriptions to the master, they are so full of curious individualities of his own.

That is the picture right.

The picture right, i.e., the spectator's left.

"To bloom," as a painter of to-day would say.

See p. 163.

See pp. 147-165 and 183. The first half may be estimated to have taken eight months and a few days, and the second half from January 1510 to October 1512, with intervals for journeys to Florence, to Bologna, and other interruptions.

That is professional assistance by artists or pupils. Workmen were employed to plaster each day's section of work, writers to do the lettering, and even decorative workmen for architectural details.

These quarries are in the Alpi Apuane near Viareggio, we are informed by a modern Florentine sculptor that this marble is of excellent quality.

See pp. 183-185.

This column was still lying in the Piazza of San Lorenzo in 1888; it has now been removed.

Michael Angelo's love for Lorenzo the Magnificent never abated, and these tombs may be regarded as a tribute to his early patron's memory. He worked upon them in secret during the siege itself.

Condivi had not seen this sacristy and described it merely from the fragmentary recollections of the master.

Possibly in the Duke's collection there may have been an antique gem engraved with the story of Leda which influenced Michael Angelo in his choice of this classical subject for the picture he painted for the Duke.

The best version of this picture is in one the offices of the National Gallery, London; it is probably the much restored original which was supposed to have been destroyed by order of M. Desnoyers. See p. 204.

Francis I.

Afterwards Cardinal Pole, Papal Legate in the time of King Henry VIII. and Queen Mary I., born at Stourton Castle, Staffordshire, 1500; died November 18, 1558.

The Slaves, now in the Louvre, Paris.

The ox, in Italian banter, appears to have taken the position of the ass with us in England, as a dull, heavy beast, a fool. Michael Angelo's answer was, as it were: "It is according to the asses you mean; if it be these asses of Bolognese doubtless they are much bigger; if ours of Florence they are much smaller. You are bigger asses in Bologna than we are in Florence."

Piero Torrigiano gave his version of the affair to Benvenuto Cellini long afterwards: "This Buonarroti and I used, when we were boys, to go into the Church of the Carmine to learn drawing from the Chapel of Masaccio. It was Buonarroti's habit to banter all who were drawing there, and one day, when he was annoying me, I got more angry than usual, and, clenching my fist, I gave him such a blow on the nose that I felt bone and cartilage go down like biscuit beneath my knuckles; and this mark of mine he will carry with him to his grave." Cellini adds—"These words begat in me such hatred of the man since I was always gazing at the masterpieces of the divine Michael Angelo, that, although I felt a wish to go with him to England, I now could never bear the sight of him."

Torrigiano worked for Henry VIII. of England in Henry VII. chapel, Westminster, and at Hampton Court. Afterwards he went to Spain and came to a bad end there, as Condivi says. He died in the prisons of the Inquisition, he had been condemned for destroying a figure of the Madonna of his own carving; his patron paid him insufficiently, so he went to the house, hammer in hand, and destroyed the statue, with this unfortunate result. He starved himself to death in prison as a worse fate awaited him. See Vasari.

Can this refer to the Second Edition of "The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors, and Architects," by the kindly Giorgio Vasari?

--The Temptation of Saint Anthony, from the engraving by Martin Schongauer.

Ghirlandaio.

There is a drawing in the Louvre of a faun's head, in pen and ink, by Michael Angelo, over a red chalk drawing by an inferior hand. It does not appear to be this drawing mentioned by Vasari, but a caprice possibly of the same period, in which the master has undertaken to draw a head with a pen, in which the projections and indentations of the profile shall contradict the outline of the conventional red chalk drawing below.

Vasari tells us that one of these pulpits had not been placed in its position in the church even when Michael Angelo's funeral service was held there in 1564, so it is quite likely that it was still in the workshop in 1489.

That is the Hellenic work of the degenerate Greeks in Italy: all that was to be seen in his day.

Page 10.

All the works of Michael Angelo, whether sculpture, painting, or drawing partake of the nature of bas-relief, that old Tuscan art developed to such good purpose by the Florentines. The marks of his chisel hatch out the forms and develop the planes just as the parallel strokes of his pen cut out the reliefs of his drawings from the paper. His method of sculpture in the round was that of a carver of bas-reliefs. He gradually cut away the background more and more until the relief was actually the highest relief possible, the round. Every piece of sculpture Michael Angelo executed is the better for a background, whether niche or wall, for they all partake of this bas-relief nature; and his paintings and drawings may every one of them be thought of as bas-reliefs, and so it is with all the works of the Florentines, his contemporaries and predecessors. Space and distance never entered into their calculations before the time of Piero di Cosimo and his pupil Andrea del Sarto, and even then with but indifferent results. They were all content with the flat bas-relief effects familiar to them in the gates of the Baptistry and the jewel-like decorations of the Campanile. Their favourite problem was the expression of force by form, and no art was so useful for that purpose as bas-relief, because of its fixed main lines of composition and its absolute power of expressing the detail of the action of muscle and bone.

Leonardo may have shown it to Vasari also as an early work of the master's; Condivi does not mention it.

The cast of an angel from this shrine at the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, is not from the one carved by Michael Angelo, nor is it of his school as the label states; it is probably by Nicolo del Arca. Michael Angelo's figure is the companion angel on the other side of the altar.

See p. 21.

Probably because it was dangerous to write to any member of the Medici family. It proves to us that Michael Angelo and Sandro Botticelli were on confidential terms.

See p. 24.

See p. 25.

Vol. i. p. 22.

The "Monte di Pietà" is a savings-bank and pawn-broker's, established by the state or city.

Le Lettere, ii. p. 4.

Gotti, ii. p. 33 (Archivio Buonarroti).

Nine cubits = 5.31 metres, or 13 feet 6 inches.

Agostino di Duccio.

Gotti estimates six golden florins at 57.60 francs, or about £2 6s.

S.C. 1504. See "Le Lettere," &c., p. 620.

A contemporary account, Gotti, vol. i. p. 29.

Firenze: Le Monnier, 1857, p. 197.

Perkins "Tuscan Sculptors," vol. ii. p. 74.

This reason given by Vasari for the use of various mediums is just the sort of reason he would have had himself for using them. Michael Angelo merely used different materials because it was the best way of getting the different effects he wanted, or, sometimes possibly, because they happened to be handy.

We know how difficult it is to get facts about the works done a few decades ago, even though the artists be still living; for instance, how little we know of the cartoon competition held in Westminster Hall in 1843, or the fresco of Justice painted by Mr. G.F. Watts, R.A., in the New Hall of Lincoln's Inn.

Gotti, i. p. 46 (in the Archivio Buonarroti).

Gaye, vol. ii. pp. 83, 84, 85, 91, 93, gives all the correspondence.

Lettere, No. ccclxxxiii.

About fourteen feet, that is to say, at least three times the size of life, as it was a sitting figure.

Lettere, No. xlviii. p. 61 (in the British Museum).

Le Lettere, No. 1. p. 65 (in the Archivio Buonarroti).

That is, Dame Zanobia.

Le Lettere, No. iv. p. 8 (in the British Museum).

We should like to see it; we have nothing of Michael Angelo's which can help us to imagine what this work was like.

Le Lettere, No. lx. p. 76 (in the British Museum).

Le Lettere, No. lxii. p. 78 (in the Archivio Buonarroti).

Le Lettere, No. lxiii. p. 79 (in the British Museum).

Le Lettere, No. lxiv. p. 80 (in the Archivio Buonarroto).

Nephew of Antonio del Pollaiuolo.

Le Lettere, No. lxv. p. 81 (in the Archivio Buonarroto).

Le Lettere, No. lxxii. p. 88 (in the British Museum).

Le Lettere, No. lxxv. p. 91 (in the Archivio Buonarroti).

Lettere, No. ccclxxxiii. p. 426 (in the Archivio Buonarroti).

Le Lettere, No. c. (Ricordi) p. 563 (in the British Museum).

In the Buonarroti Archives; quoted by Heath Wilson, p. 123.

.Ibid. p. 124.

Le Lettere, No. vii. p. 13 (in the British Museum).

The head of the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence, where Michael Angelo banked his money.

L'Indaco.

Le Lettere, No. x. p. 17 (in the British Museum).

Le Lettere xvii. p. 27 (in the British Museum).

Lorenzo Strozzi, to whose wool-shop Buonarroto went.

Lettere, No. lxxx. p. 97 (in the British Museum).

Lettere, No. lxxxi. p. 98 (in the British Museum).

Albertini, Mirabilia Urbis, quoted by Grimm vol. i. p. 523. Albertini's words are pars testudinea superior.

Director of the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, where Michael Angelo banked his money.

Le Lettere, No. xxi. p. 31 (in the British Museum).

J.A. Symonds. "The Sonnets of Michael Angelo and Campanella," No. lvi. p. 90.

Milanesi Lettere, Contratti, &c., xiv. p. 641.

The director of the hospital where Michael Angelo banked his money.

Milanese, Le Lettere, No. xcvii. p. 115.

Michael Angelo wrote a postscript to letter No. cxvi.: "Oh, cursed a thousand times the day and hour when I left Carrara! This is the cause of my utter ruin. But I shall go back there soon. Nowadays it is a sin to do one's duty."

Milanese. Ricordi, &c., p. 581.

Milanese. "Les Correspondants de Michel Ange," p. 24.

.Ibid. p. 24.

The letters of Vari are in the Buonarroti Archives, Cod. xi., No. 740-761; Symonds, vol. i. p. 362.

Le Lettere, No. ccclxxx., p. 423 (in the Archivio Buonarroti).

Le Lettere, No. xliv., p. 55 (in the British Museum).

Le Lettere, No. cccxc. p. 437. Milanese dates this letter August 8, 1524. Michael Angelo to Giovanni Spina; he signs it "at San Lorenzo."

Several are by the hand of Michael Angelo, but some are done in the mannered style of the architectural draughtsman of the period, and suggest a Florentine assistant.

Gotti, i. 158

Lettere, Nos. cd. and cdii. pp. 450, 453.

Le Lettere, No. cccxciv. p. 442 (in the Archivio Buonarroti).

Le Lettere, No. cd. p. 450 (in the Archivio Buonarroti).

Le Lettere, No. cccxcvii. p. 446 (in the Archivio Buonarroti).

Surnamed Dini; he fell in the sack of Rome.

Le Lettere, No. cccxcix. p. 448 (in the Archivio Buonarroti).

The gate called San Gallo, which remained open until daylight.

Vol. i. p. 207.

Gotti, i. 199. San Nicolo is a little church on the way to San Miniato; the tower forms the foreground in the view from the top of the hill.

See p. 61.

The letter is in Gaye, ii. 229.

Any one who has spent a winter day drawing there will confirm Paolo in this statement.

"Correspondants," pp. 108-112.

Vol. ii. pp. 89, 122.

In the Archivio Buonarroti, Codici xi. No. 765; Bottari, Lettere Pittoriche, vol. iii. pp. 78-84; and Symonds, vol. ii. p. 25.

See p. 66.

Gotti, ii. p. 123.

Gotti, ii. p. 125.

See Gaye, iv. 289-309, and "Lettere," &c., pp. 709-712.

Lettere, No. cdxxxiii., dated July 20.

Lettere, p. 715.

Lettere, No. cdxlv. p. 505 (in the "Biblioteca Nazionale," Florence.)

Bottari, Lett. pitt. iii. 796.

Heath Wilson, p. 449.

Archivio Buonarroti, Cod. vii.

Le Lettere, No. cdlix. p. 519 (in the Archivio Buonarroti).

"The Sonnets of Michael Angelo." By J.A. Symonds. No. lxv.

Le Lettere, No. cdlxxiv. p. 535, written in 1555 (in the Archivio Buonarroti).

If the traveller has no luggage, or has sent it on before, he can walk from the Trastevere station, past the Ponte Rotto, past the Temple of Janus to the Forum, and see Rome for the first time so.

Le Lettere, No. cdxc., under date 1560, p. 554 (in the Archivio Buonarroti).

Gotti, i. 309.

Le Lettere, No. ccxxxi. (December 21st), p. 260 (in the British Museum).

Le Lettere, No. cdlxvi. (October 1549), p. 527 (in the Archivio Buonarroti).

Gotti, i. 311.

Le Lettere, No. cdlxxv. p. 537 (in the Archivio Buonarroti).

Le Lettere, No. cccii., dated February 13, 1557, p. 333 (in the Archivio Buonarroti).

Le Lettere, No. cdxciv. p. 558 (in the Archivio Buonarroti).

Le Lettere, No. cccxiv., dated July 15, 1559, p. 345 (in the Archivio Buonarroti).

Le Lettere, Nos, cdlxxxv., cdlxxxvi. pp. 548, 550.

Gotti. i. 351.

Florence.

Reproduced in Yriarte's Florence, p. 280, English edition.

See Frontispiece.

May we not hope that Michael Angelo's good friend, the Frate Sebastiano del Piombo, painted a portrait of him during their long friendship, and that it will come to light one of these days?

Le Lettere, cxci.-cxciii. pp. 217, 219, are on this subject (in the British Museum).

A hospital in Florence for the benefit of the Poveri Vergognosi, poor folk who have come down in the world.

Le Lettere, No. cclxix. p.299 (in the British Museum).

Le Lettere, No. cdlxxv p. 539.

Cellini.

Le Lettere, No. cdlxxix. Dec. 28, 1556, p. 541.

"Carte-Michelesché Inedite," p. 41.

Gotti, i. 354.

A little after 8 p.m.

Four o'clock in the afternoon.

Gotti, i. p. 354.

Clement VII. used to say, "When Buonarroti comes to see me I always take a seat and bid him be seated at once, feeling sure that he will do so without leave or licence otherwise."—Translator.

Albert Dürer.

Parmigiano.

Assisi (?).

The Farnesina.

Now in the Vatican Gallery.

The church of Santa Maria della Pace.

Sebastiano del Piombo; the picture was the Raising of Lazarus, No. 1 in the National Gallery.

Chiaroscuro, monochrome.

Baldassare Peruzzi.

Bandinelli(?).

Baldassare Peruzzi.

Piazza Navona?

In 1538.

Ottavio Farnese.

Margarite of Austria, natural daughter of Charles V.