former could not but laugh at the excessive simplicity of that poor good man, who afterwards delivered his work, completed in such a fashion that none would suppose Michelagnolo had ever cast eyes upon it.[1]
Finally, having become old and being poor, with but few works to employ his time, Bugiardini put himself to incredible pains and labour in the execution of a Pieta, which he painted in a tabernacle destined to be sent into Spain; the figures were not very large and were completed by the painter with so much care, that one cannot but wonder to see a man of advanced age have the patience to perform such a work for the love which he bore to art. To express the darkness which fell upon the earth at the death of the Saviour, Giuliano painted on the doors of that tabernacle a figure of Night on a ground of black, and this figure he copied from the Night which stands in the Sacristy of San Lorenzo, and is by the hand of Michelagnolo. But the statue of Buonarroto having no other sign or indication than a night-owl, Giuliano gave the reins to his fancy in his picture of the Night, and added thereto various inventions of his own, a net with a lanthorn for catching thrushes in the night, and a little vessel holding an end of candle, such as people use to go about with through the darkness, to say nothing of many other matters, all having relation to twilight or darkness, such as night-caps for men and women, pillows, hats, and I know not what; insomuch that Buonarroto had like to choke with laughing when he saw this work, and beheld in what fashion Bugiardini had enriched his Night.
At length and after having always remained such a person as we have described, Giuliano died at the age of seventyfive years, and was buried in the church of San Marco at Florence in the year 1556.[2]
- ↑ Still in fair preservation, and, according to Lanzi, exhibiting many good points: it may be seen in the Rucellai Chapel of the Church oi Santa Maria Novella, and there is an engraving of the work in the Etruria Pittrice of Malvasia. The artist is said not to have confined himself to one style, but to have sometimes imitated that of Leonardo da Vinci, and at other times to have rather affected the manner of Fra Bartolommeo della Porta.
- ↑ Piacenza, in his additions to Baldinucci, cites a MS. which he found in the Magliabecchiana, and according to which Giuliano Bugiardini died at the age of sixty-five, and in the year 1566.
