NOTES TO THE FIRST BOOK OF THE COURTIER His epitaph was written by Bembo, while Castiglione composed a Latin elegy in his honour. Note 99, page 50. Michelangelo Buonarroti, (born 1475; died 1564), was a native of Caprese, a village about forty-seven miles south-east of Florence, and the son of Ludovico Buonarroti Simoni and Francesca, daughter of Neri del Sera. His first schoolmaster seems to have come from Urbino. Appren- ticed at the age of thirteen to Ghirlandajo, he soon came under the protection of Lorenzo de' Medici. In 1496 he removed to Rome, and remained there five years. From 1501 to 1504 he was working upon the great statue of David at Florence, and prepared his cartoon for a vast fresco on the Battle of Cascina, which, although never executed, was often copied, and is said to have exerted a greater influence on the art of the Renaissance than any other single work. In 1505 he was called to Rome to design a colossal mausoleum for Julius II. The anxieties and disappointments connected with this project became the continual tragedy of his long life. " Every day," he wrote, " I am stoned as if I had crucified Christ. My youth has been lost, bound hand and foot to this tomb." The matter was finally ended by the placing of his statue of Moses in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli at Rome. In the spring of 1506 he was present at the unearthing of the Laocoon, and at the date of the Courtier dia- logues he was engaged in casting a great bronze statue of Julius II at Bologna. Duke Guidobaldo's collection at Urbino seems to have included a Cupid made by Buonarroti in imitation of the antique, originally owned by Cesare Borgia, regained by him when he captured Urbino in 1502, and soon presented by him to Guidobaldo's sister-in-law, the Marchioness Isabella d'Este of Mantua. The famous tomb statue of Giuliano de' Medici at Florence is hardly to be regarded as a portrait, and was of course executed long after the period of The Courtier. In 1519 the Marquess of Mantua wrote to Castiglione, who was his ambassador at Rome, regarding a monument to his father that he hoped to have the master design. In 1523 Castiglione brought to Mantua a sketch made by Buonarroti for a villa which the marquess intended to build at Marmirolo. Note 100, page 50. GiORGio Barbarelli, known as Giorgione or " Big George," (born about 1478; died 1511), was a native of Castelfranco, a town about forty miles north-west of Venice, and was reputed to be a natural son of one Giacopo Barbarelli, a Venetian, and a peasant girl. Lack of data ren- ders a consecutive account of his life and work impossible. He was brought up in Venice, and bred as a painter in the school of the Bellini. Vasari says that he played upon the lute and sang well, and was of a gentle disposition. Although he seems to have been exceptionally independent of great people, he enjoyed the especial favour of the Marchioness Isabella d'Este of Mantua. In a letter written from Venice in the year before that of the Courtier dialogues, Albert Diirer declared Giorgione to be the greatest painter in the city, which could then boast of the Bellini, Palma Vecchio, Carpaccio and Titian. One of the most acute of recent critics, Mr. Bernhard Berenson, ascribes to him only 343
