o not think so; but take your seat again, and I
shall be able to judge better when I have you in the proper pose."
Michelangelo, who knew well where the fault lay, and how little
judgment belonged to his friend Bugiardini, resumed his seat,
grinning. After some time of careful contemplation, Giuliano rose to
his feet and cried: "It seems to me that I have drawn it right, and
that the life compels me to do so." "So then," replied Buonarroti,
"the defect is nature's, and see you spare neither the brush nor art."

Both Sebastiano del Piombo and Giorgio Vasari were appreciated by
Michelangelo for their lively parts and genial humour. The latter has
told an anecdote which illustrates the old man's eccentricity. He was
wont to wear a cardboard hat at night, into which he stuck a candle,
and then worked by its light upon his statue of the Pieta. Vasari
observing this habit, wished to do him a kindness by sending him 40
lbs. of candles made of goat's fat, knowing that they gutter less than
ordinary dips of tallow. His servant carried them politely to the
house two hours after nightfall, and presented them to Michelangelo.
He refused, and said he did not want them. The man answered, "Sir,
they have almost broken my arms carrying them all this long way from
the bridge, nor will I take them home again. There is a heap of mud
opposite your door, thick and firm enough to hold them upright. Here
then will I set them all up, and light them." When Michelangelo heard
this, he gave way: "Lay them down; I do not mean you to play pranks at
my house-door." Varsari tells another anecdote about the Pieta. Pope
Julius III. sent him late one evening to Michelangelo's house for some
drawing. The old man came down with a lantern, and hearing what was
wanted, told Urbino to look for the cartoon. Meanwhile, Vasari turned
his attention to one of the legs of Christ, which Michelangelo had
been trying to alter. In order to prevent his seeing, Michelangelo let
the lamp fall, and they remained in darkness. He then called for a
light, and stepped forth from the enclosure of planks behind which he
worked. As he did so, he remarked, "I am so old that Death oftentimes
plucks me by the cape to go with him, and one day this body of mine
will fall like the lantern, and the light of life will be put out." Of
death he used to say, that "if life gives us pleasure, we ought not to
expect displeasure from death, seeing as it is made by the hand of the
same master."