Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/31

MICHAEL ANGELO 215 in his native city. The young Michael Angelo showed the utmost distaste for the studies allotted to him, and was continually escaping from his home and from his desk to haunt the ateliers of the painters, particularly that of Ghirlandajo. who was then at the height of his reputation. The father of Michael Angelo, who found his family increase too rapidly for his means, had destined some of his sons for commerce (it will be recollected that in Genoa and Florence the most powerful nobles were merchants or manu- facturers), and others for civil or diplomatic employments ; but the fine arts, as being at that time productive of little honor or emolument, he held in no esteem, and treated these tastes of his eldest son sometimes with contempt and sometimes even with harshness. Michael Angelo, however, had formed some friendships among the young painters, and particularly with Francesco Granacci, one of the best pupils of Ghirlandajo ; he contrived to borrow models and drawings, and studied them in secret with such persevering assiduity and consequent improve- ment, that Ghirlandajo, captivated by his genius, undertook to plead his cause to his father, and at length prevailed over the old man's family pride and prejudices. At the age of fourteen Michael Angelo was received into the studio of Ghir- landajo as a regular pupil, and bound to him for three years ; and such was the precocious talent of the boy, that, instead of being paid for his instruction, Ghir- landajo undertook to pay the father, Leonardo Buonarroti, for the first, second, and third years, six, eight, and twelve golden florins, as payment for the advan- tage he expected to derive from the labor of the son. Thus was the vocation of the young artist decided for life. At that time Lorenzo the Magnificent reigned over Florence. He had formed in his palace and gardens a collection of antique marbles, busts, statues, fragments, which he had converted into an academy for the use of young artists, placing at the head of it as director a sculptor of some eminence, named Bertoldo. Michael Angelo was one of the first who, through the recommendation of Ghir- landajo, was received into this new academy, afterward so famous and so memo- rable in the history of art. The young man, then not quite sixteen, had hitherto occupied himself chiefly in drawing ; but now, fired by the beauties he beheld around him, and by the example and success of a fellow-pupil, Torregiano, he set himself to model in clay, and at length to copy in marble what was before him ; but, as was natural in a character and genius so steeped in individuality, his copies became not so much imitations of form as original embodyings of the leading idea. For example : his first attempt in marble, when he was about fifteen, was a copy of an antique mask of an old laughing Faun ; he treated this in a manner so different from the original, and so spirited as to excite the astonishment of Lorenzo de Medici, who criticised it, however, saying, " Thou shouldst have re- membered that old folks do not retain all their teeth ; some of them are always wanting." * The boy struck the teeth out, giving it at once the most grotesque expression ; and Lorenzo, infinitely amused, sent for his father and offered to at tach his son to his own particular service, and to undertake the entire care of his education. The father consented, on condition of receiving for himself an office