Angela de' Rossi, the sister of the Count of Sansecondo, for
Signor Alessandro Vitelli, her husband, who was then on garrison-duty
in Florence. For Messer Ottaviano de' Medici he painted in a large
picture, copied from one by Fra Sebastiano del Piombo, two full-length
portraits, Pope Clement seated and Fra Niccolo della Magna standing;
and in another picture, likewise, with incredible pains and patience,
he portrayed Pope Clement seated, and before him Bartolommeo Valori,
who is kneeling and speaking to him.

[Illustration: THE MARTYRDOM OF S. CATHARINE

(_After the painting by =Giuliano Bugiardini=. Florence: S. Maria
Novella, Rucellai Chapel_)

_Alinari_]

Next, the above-named Messer Ottaviano de' Medici having besought
Giuliano privately that he should take for him the portrait of
Michelagnolo Buonarroti, he set his hand to it; and, after he had kept
Michelagnolo, who used to take pleasure in his conversation, sitting
for two hours, Giuliano said to him: "Michelagnolo, if you wish to see
yourself, get up and look, for I have now fixed the expression of the
face." Michelagnolo, having risen and looked at the portrait, said to
Giuliano, laughing: "What the devil have you been doing? You have
painted me with one of my eyes up in the temple. Give a little thought
to what you are doing." Hearing this, Giuliano, after standing pensive
for a while and looking many times from the portrait to the living
model, answered in serious earnest: "To me it does not seem so, but
sit you down again, and I shall see a little better from the life
whether it be true." Buonarroti, who knew whence the defect arose and
how small was the judgment of Bugiardini, straightway resumed his
seat, grinning. And Giuliano looked many times now at Michelagnolo and
now at the picture, and then finally, rising to his feet, declared:
"To me it seems that the thing is just as I have drawn it, and that
the life is in no way different." "Well, then," answered Buonarroti,
"it is a natural deformity. Go on, and spare neither brush nor art."
And so Giuliano finished the picture and gave it to Messer
Ottaviano, together with the portrait of Pope Clement by the hand of
Fra Sebastiano, as Buonarroti desired, who had sent to Rome for it.

Giuliano afterwards made for Cardinal Innocenzio Cibo a copy of the
picture in which Raffaello da Urbino had formerly painted portraits of
Pope Leo, Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, and Cardinal de' Rossi; but in
place of Cardin