ished to deprive young men of
its advantages in study; some, that he was moved by affection for
Lionardo da Vinci, who suffered much in reputation by this design;
some, perhaps with sharper intuition, believed that the hatred he bore
to Michelangelo inspired him to commit the act. The loss of the
Cartoon to the city was no slight one, and Baccio deserved the blame
he got, for everybody called him envious and spiteful." This second
version stands in glaring contradiction to the first, both as regards
the date and the place where the Cartoon was destroyed. It does not, I
think, deserve credence, for Cellini, who was a boy of twelve in 1512,
could hardly have drawn from it before that date; and if Bandinelli
was so notorious for his malignant vandalism as Vasari asserts, it is
most improbable that Cellini, while speaking of the Cartoon in
connection with Torrigiano, should not have taken the opportunity to
cast a stone at the man whom he detested more than any one in
Florence. Moreover, if Bandinelli had wanted to destroy the Cartoon
for any of the reasons above assigned to him, he would not have
dispersed fragments to be treasured up with reverence. At the close of
this tedious summary I ought to add that Condivi expressly states: "I
do not know by what ill-fortune it subsequently came to ruin." He
adds, however, that many of the pieces were found about in various
places, and that all of them were preserved like sacred objects. We
have, then, every reason to believe that the story told in Vasari's
first edition is the literal truth. Copyists and engravers used their
opportunity, when the palace of the Medici was thrown into disorder by
the severe illness of the Duke of Nemours, to take away portions of
Michelangelo's Cartoon for their own use in 1516.

Of the Cartoon and its great reputation, Cellini gives us this
account: "Michelangelo portrayed a number of foot-soldiers, who, the
season being summer, had gone to bathe in the Arno. He drew them at
the very moment the alarm is sounded, and the men all naked run to
arms; so splendid is their action, that nothing survives of ancient or
of modern art, which touches the same lofty point of excellence; and,
as I have already said, the design of the great Lionardo was itself
most admirably beautiful. These two Cartoons stood, one in the palace
of the Medici, the other in the hall of the Pope. So long as they
remained intact, they were the school of the world. Though the divine