the match was broken off, and
she remained unmarried.

Piero now occupied that position of eminence and semi-despotic
authority in Florence which his father and grandfather had held; but
he was made of different stuff, both mentally and physically. The
Orsini blood, which he inherited from his mother, mixed but ill in his
veins with that of Florentine citizens and bankers. Following the
proud and insolent traditions of his maternal ancestors, he began to
discard the mask of civil urbanity with which Cosimo and Lorenzo had
concealed their despotism. He treated the republic as though it were
his own property, and prepared for the coming disasters of his race by
the overbearing arrogance of his behaviour. Physically, he was
powerful, tall, and active; fond of field-sports, and one of the best
pallone-players of his time in Italy. Though he had been a pupil of
Poliziano, he displayed but little of his father's interest in
learning, art, and literature. Chance brought Michelangelo into
personal relations with this man. On the 20th of January 1494 there
was a heavy fall of snow in Florence, and Piero sent for the young
sculptor to model a colossal snow-man in the courtyard of his palace.
Critics have treated this as an insult to the great artist, and a sign
of Piero's want of taste; but nothing was more natural than that a
previous inmate of the Medicean household should use his talents for
the recreation of the family who lived there. Piero upon this occasion
begged Michelangelo to return and occupy the room he used to call his
own during Lorenzo's lifetime. "And so," writes Condivi, "he remained
for some months with the Medici, and was treated by Piero with great
kindness; for the latter used to extol two men of his household as
persons of rare ability, the one being Michelangelo, the other a
Spanish groom, who, in addition to his personal beauty, which was
something wonderful, had so good a wind and such agility that when
Piero was galloping on horseback he could not outstrip him by a
hand's-breadth."

II

At this period of his life Michelangelo devoted himself to anatomy. He
had a friend, the Prior of S. Spirito, for whom he carved a wooden
crucifix of nearly life-size. This liberal-minded churchman put a room
at his disposal, and allowed him to dissect dead bodies. Condivi tells
us that the practice of anatomy was a passion with his master. "His
prolonged habits of dissection injured his stomach to such an extent