k, adding: "Consequently, since
on my side nothing remains to be done, I entreat you by the affection
you have always shown to my family, to our Florence, and lastly to
art, that you will use all diligence and assiduity, so far as your
years permit, in pushing forward this noble work, and making it a
living likeness of my lord, as well as worthy of your own unrivalled
genius. It is true that this will add nothing to the fame you now
enjoy; yet it will at least augment your reputation for most
acceptable and affectionate devotion toward myself and my ancestors,
and prolong through centuries the memory of my lawful and sole love;
for the which I shall be eager and liberal to reward you." It is
probable that by this time (October 30, 1560) Michelangelo had
forwarded his sketch to France, for the Queen criticised some details
relating to the portrait of her husband. She may have remembered with
what idealistic freedom the statues of the Dukes of Nemours and Urbino
had been treated in the Medicean Sacristy. Anyhow, she sent a picture,
and made her agent, Baccio del Bene, write a postscript to her letter,
ordering Michelangelo to model the King's head without curls, and to
adopt the rich modern style for his armour and the trappings of his
charger. She particularly insisted upon the likeness being carefully
brought out.

Michelangelo died before the equestrian statue of Henri II. was
finished. Cellini, in his Memoirs, relates that Daniele da Volterra
worked slowly, and caused much annoyance to the Queen-mother of
France. In 1562 her agent, Baccio del Bene, came to Florence on
financial business with the Duke. He then proposed that Cellini should
return to Paris and undertake the ornamental details of the tomb. The
Duke would not consent, and Catherine de' Medici did not choose to
quarrel with her cousin about an artist. So this arrangement, which
might have secured the completion of the statue on a splendid scale,
fell through. When Daniele died in 1566, only the horse was cast; and
this part served finally for Biard's statue of Louis XIII.

III

The sculptor Leone Leoni, who was employed upon the statue of
Giangiacomo de' Medici in Milan, wrote frequently to Michelangelo,
showing by his letters that a warm friendship subsisted between them,
which was also shared by Tommaso Cavalieri. In the year 1560,
according to Vasari, Leoni modelled a profile portrait of the great
master, which he afterwards cast in medal form. Thi