that forty ducats which he gave him was enough. Hearing this, Michelagnolo sent back his man to say that Agnolo must now send a hundred ducats or give the picture back; whereupon Doni, who was pleased with the work, at once offered the sixty first demanded. But Michelagnolo, offended by the want of confidence exhibited by Doni, now declared that if he desired to have the picture, he must pay a hundred and forty ducats for the same, thus compelling him to give more than double the sum first required.
When the renowned painter, Leonardo da Yinci, was painting in the Great Hall of the Council, as we have related in his Life, Piero Soderini, who was then Gonfaloniere, moved by the extraordinary ability which he perceived in Michelagnolo, caused him to be entrusted with one portion of that Hall,[1] when our artist finished a façade (whereon he represented the War of Pisa), in competition with Leonardo. Por this work Michelagnolo secured a room in the Hospital of the Dyers at Sant’ Onofrio; and here he commenced a very large Cartoon, but would never permit any one to see it in progress. The work exhibited a vast number of nude figures bathing in the Piver Arno, as men do in hot days, and at this moment the enemy is heard to be attacking the Camp. The soldiers who were bathing, spring forth in haste to seize their arms, which many are portrayed by the divine hand of Michelagnolo as hurriedly doing. Some are affixing their cuirasses or other portions of their armour, while others are already mounted and commencing the battle on horseback.
Among the figures in this work was that of an old man who, to shelter himself from the heat, has wreathed a garland of ivy round his head, and, seated on the earth, is labouring to draw on his stockings, but is impeded by the humidity of his limbs. Hearing the sound of the drums and the cries of the soldiers, he is struggling violently to get one of the stockings on, the action of the muscles and distortion of the mouth evince the zeal of his efforts, and prove him to be toiling all over, even to the points of his feet. There were drummers, and other figures also, hastening to the Camp with their clothes in their arms, all dis-
- ↑ In a letter from Soderini to the Cardinal of Volterra, Michael Angelo is called “a young man who stands above all of his calling in Italy; nay, in the world.” See Gaye, ut supra.
