hapel, and the solemn blue Madonna, now in the Capella
Rucellai, with its little figures of prophets on the frame that are
already almost Michael Angelesque. Here he transferred cartoons for
Domenico and painted draperies and ornaments; here he mixed colours for
fresco painting after the Florentine fashion; and here possibly he first
painted on a vault. No certain trace of his handiwork can be identified
upon the walls, but there is a nude figure seated upon the steps resting
his chin upon his hand in the fresco of the Blessed Virgin going to the
Temple, that has a sinister expression and a force of modelling that
Domenico does not usually command.

Now Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent, desired to encourage the art of
sculpture in Florence; he therefore established a museum of antiquities in
his garden near San Marco, and made Bertoldo, the pupil of Donatello and
the foreman of his workshop, keeper of the collection, with a special
commission to aid and instruct the young men who studied there. Lorenzo
requested Domenico Ghirlandaio to select from his pupils those he
considered the most promising, and send them to work in the garden.
Domenico sent Michael Angelo Buonarroti and Francesco Granacci; possibly
he was rather glad to get these talented elements of insubordination out
of his workshop. Thus it was that Michael Angelo came under the influence
of a pupil and foreman of Donatello. Bertoldo must be considered the
instructor of Michael Angelo in his beloved art of sculpture, and the most
important influence in shaping his genius. Very little is known of the man
upon whom this responsibility was placed, but he appears to have been
worthy of it. Vasari tells us that Bertoldo "was old and could not work;
that he was none the less an able and highly reputed artist, not only
because he had most diligently chased and polished the casts in bronze for
the pupils of Donatello his master, but also for the numerous casts in
bronze of battle-pieces and other little things, which he had executed of
his own; there was no one then in Florence more masterly in such work." We
have no important work entirely by Bertoldo, but he must have been a
considerable artist or he would not have been appointed to his important
post by such a wise man as Lorenzo the Magnificent. His share of the work
for the pulpits of San Lorenzo was probably much greater than we are
accustomed to think. Vasari's word _rinettato_ had a much wider meaning to