r it by religious
meditation, by acts of charity, and by a most conscientious
distribution by will of all his worldly possessions to his relatives
and friends. At length, after protracted suffering, this great and
most extraordinary man died at Cloux, near Amboise, May 2, 1519, being
then in his sixty-seventh year. It is to be regretted that we cannot
wholly credit the beautiful story of his dying in the arms of Francis
I., who, as it is said, had come to visit him on his death-bed. It
would indeed have been, as Fuseli expressed it, "an honor to the king,
by which destiny would have atoned to that monarch for his future
disaster at Pavia."

MICHAEL ANGELO

By ANNA JAMESON

(1474-1564)

[Illustration: Michael Angelo.]

We have spoken of Leonardo da Vinci. Michael Angelo, the other great
luminary of art, was twenty-two years younger, but the more severe and
reflective cast of his mind rendered their difference of age far less
in effect than in reality. It is usual to compare Michael Angelo with
Raphael, but he is more aptly compared with Leonardo da Vinci. All the
great artists of that time, even Raphael himself, were influenced more
or less by these two extraordinary men, but they exercised no
influence on each other. They started from opposite points; they
pursued throughout their whole existence, and in all they planned and
achieved, a course as different as their respective characters.

Michael Angelo Buonarroti was born at Setignano, near Florence, in the
year 1474. He was descended from a family once noble--even among the
noblest of the feudal lords of Northern Italy--the Counts of Canossa;
but that branch of it represented by his father, Luigi Leonardo
Buonarroti Simoni, had for some generations become poorer and poorer,
until the last descendant was thankful to accept an office in the law,
and had been nominated magistrate or mayor (_Podesta_) of Chiusi. In
this situation he had limited his ambition to the prospect of seeing
his eldest son a notary or advocate in his native city. The young
Michael Angelo showed the utmost distaste for the studies allotted to
him, and was continually escaping from his home and from his desk to
haunt the ateliers of the painters, particularly that of Ghirlandajo
who was then at the height of his reputation.

The father of Michael Angelo, who found his family increase too
rapidly for his means, had destined some of his sons for commerce (it
will be recollected that