dignified in
grief and sweet in death, at the ignoble obsequies of him who,
occupying the loftiest throne of Christendom, incarnated the least
erected spirit of his age. The ivory-smooth white corpse of Christ in
marble, set over against that festering corpse of his Vicar on earth,
"black as a piece of cloth or the blackest mulberry," what a hideous
contrast!

VIII

It may not be inappropriate to discuss the question of the Bruges
Madonna here. This is a marble statue, well placed in a chapel of
Notre Dame, relieved against a black marble niche, with excellent
illumination from the side. The style is undoubtedly Michelangelesque,
the execution careful, the surface-finish exquisite, and the type of
the Madonna extremely similar to that of the Pieta at S. Peter's. She
is seated in an attitude of almost haughty dignity, with the left foot
raised upon a block of stone. The expression of her features is marked
by something of sternness, which seems inherent in the model. Between
her knees stands, half reclining, half as though wishing to step
downwards from the throne, her infant Son. One arm rests upon his
mother's knee; the right hand is thrown round to clasp her left. This
attitude gives grace of rhythm to the lines of his nude body. True to
the realism which controlled Michelangelo at the commencement of his
art career, the head of Christ, who is but a child, slightly overloads
his slender figure. Physically he resembles the Infant Christ of our
National Gallery picture, but has more of charm and sweetness. All
these indications point to a genuine product of Michelangelo's first
Roman manner; and the position of the statue in a chapel ornamented by
the Bruges family of Mouscron renders the attribution almost certain.
However, we have only two authentic records of the work among the
documents at our disposal. Condivi, describing the period of
Michelangelo's residence in Florence (1501-1504), says: "He also cast
in bronze a Madonna with the Infant Christ, which certain Flemish
merchants of the house of Mouscron, a most noble family in their own
land, bought for two hundred ducats, and sent to Flanders." A letter
addressed under date August 4, 1506, by Giovanni Balducci in Rome to
Michelangelo at Florence, proves that some statue which was destined
for Flanders remained among the sculptor's property at Florence.
Balducci uses the feminine gender in writing about this work, which
justifies us in thinking that it may hav