About this time Michelagnolo cast a Madonna in bronze for certain Flemish merchants called Moscheroni, persons of much account in their own land, and who paid him a hundred crowns for his work, which they sent into Flanders. The Florentine citizen, Agnolo Doni, likewise desired to have some production from the hand of Michelagnolo, who was his friend, and he being, as we have before said, a great lover of fine works in art, whether ancient or modern; wherefore Michelagnolo began a circular painting of Our Lady for him; she is kneeling, and presents the Divine Child, which she holds in her arms, to Joseph, who receives him to his bosom. Here the artist has finely expressed the perfection of delight with which the mother regards the beauty of her Son, and which is clearly manifest in the turn of her head and fixedness of her gaze: equally obvious is her wish that this contentment shall be shared by that pious old man who receives the babe with infinite tenderness and reverence. Nor did this suffice to Michelagnolo, since the better to display his art, he has assembled numerous undraped figures in the back-ground of his picture, some upriglit, some half recumbent, and others seated.[1] The whole work is, besides, executed with so much care and finish, that of all his pictures, which indeed are but few, this is considered the best.[2]
When the picture was completed, Michelagnolo sent it, still uncovered, to Agnolo Doni’s house, with a note demanding for it a payment of sixty ducats. But Agnolo, who was a frugal person, declared that a large sum to give for a picture, although he knew it was worth more, and told the messenger
- ↑ “None of which,” remarks an Italian annotator, “have anv business here; and, speaking with all due deference to the great master, the introduction of them is a most reprehensible licence.”
- ↑ This picture, which is called hard and displeasing by the compatriots of the master, is now in the Tribune of the Uffizj.
&c. de deux Sophistes Grecs, Paris, 1614. Here, among other interesting and valuable observations, he will find the following: Of this matter” (sketching) “I may add that I have seen Michael Angelo, although then sixty years old, and not in robust health, strike more chips from the hardest marble in a quarter of an hour, than would be carried off by three youngstone-cutters in three or four times as long; a thing incredible to him who has not seen it. He would approach the marble with such impetuosity, not to say fury, that I often thought the whole work must be dashed to pieces; at one blow he would strike off morsels of three and four inches, yet with such exactitude was each stroke given, that a mere atom more would sometimes have spoiled the whole work.
