ll or other foundation upon which
the picture was to be painted, unless the artist took the precaution of
putting a plain piece of paper under the original drawing and pricking
both together and transferring the outlines by the aid of the second
sheet. These cut-up cartoons became the property of the whole workshop,
and were used by the pupils when they wished. No doubt the roughness of
this treatment soon destroyed many of them. Vasari, who cannot have seen
the Cartoon of Pisa, gives us a long, enthusiastic description of it,
ending with some helpful notes as to the materials with which it was
drawn, and an account of its effect upon contemporary artists. He
continues: "In addition, you discovered groups of figures sketched in
various methods, some outlined with charcoal, some shaded with lines, some
rubbed in, some heightened with white-lead, the master having sought to
prove his empire over all materials of draughtsmanship.(84) The craftsmen
of design remained therewith astonished and dumbfounded, recognising the
fullest reaches of their art revealed to them by this unrivalled
masterpiece. Those who examined the forms I have described, painters who
inspected and compared them with works hardly less divine, affirm that
never in the history of human achievement was any product of man's brain
seen like to them in mere supremacy. And certainly we have the right to
believe this; for when the cartoon was finished and carried to the hall of
the Pope, amid the acclamation of all artists and to the exceeding fame of
Michael Angelo, the students who made drawings from it, as happened with
foreigners and natives through many years in Florence, became men of mark
in several branches. This is obvious, for Aristotele da San Gallo worked
there, as did Ridolfo Grillandaio, Rafael Santio da Urbino, Francesco
Granaccio, Baccio Bandinelli, and Alonso Berugetta, the Spaniard; they
were followed by Andrea del Sarto, il Franciabigio, Jacomo Sansovino, il
Rosso, Maturino, Lorenzetto, Tribolo (then a boy), Jacomo da Puntormo, and
Pierin del Vaga, all of them first-rate masters of the Florentine school."

Benvenuto Cellini's account is important, for he himself copied the
cartoon in 1513 just before it disappeared. He says: "Michael Angelo
portrayed a number of foot soldiers, who, the season being summer, had
gone to bathe in the Arno. He drew them at the moment the alarm is
sounded, and the men, all naked, rush to arms. So splendid is their