grain could not be taken from them without injury;[1] while the Statues of the Dukes Giuliano and Lorenzo,[2] with those of Night, Aaron, Moses, and the two figures belonging to the latter, altogether not amounting to eleven statues, have still remained incomplete. The same may be said of many others; nay, Michelagnolo would often remark, that if he were compelled really to satisfy himself in the works to be produced, he should give little or nothing to public view. And the reason of this is obvious, he had proceeded to such an extent of knowledge in art, that the very slightest error could not exist in any figure, without his immediate discovery thereof; but having found such after the work had been given to view, he would never attempt to correct it, and would commence some other production, believing that the like failure would not happen again; this then was, as he often declared, the cause wherefore the number of pictures and statues finished by his hand was so small.
When he had broken the Pieta, as related above, he gave it to Francesco Bandini, and this happened about the time when the Florentine sculptor, Tiberio Calcagni, had been made known to Michelagnolo, by the intervention of that Bandini, and of Messer Donato Giannotti, for he being one day in the house of the master, where the broken Pieta still remained, inquired, after a long discussion, wherefore he had destroyed so admirable a performance? to this our artist replied, that he had been moved thereto by the importunities of Urbino his servant, who was daily entreating him to finish that work: there had besides been a piece broken off the arm of the Madonna; and these things, with a vein which had appeared in the marble and had caused him infinite trouble, had deprived him of patience, insomuch that he not only broke the group, but would have dashed it to pieces, if his servant Antonio had not advised him to refrain, and to give it to some one even as it was. Hearing this, Tiberio
- ↑ “Among the works of Michael Angelo’s youth,” observes a German annotator, “is the beautiful group of the Virgin and Child in the Church of Notre Dame at Bruges, originally destined for Genoa. It was seized by a Dutch privateer, and taken to Amsterdam, where it was purchased by a merchant of Bruges, and presented to the church above-named. It was taken to Paris, with other spoils, by the French, but was subsequently restored, and is now in the church.”
- ↑ These two statues are finished, as are the allegorical figures which accompany them.—Ed. Flor., 1832-8.
