presumptuous person might ever cause to be disturbed any line or
order left by the excellent genius of Michelagnolo of happy memory;
and at that interview was present Messer Giovan Battista Altoviti, who
was much the friend of Vasari and of these arts. And Ferratino, having
heard a discourse that Vasari made to him, readily accepted every
record, and promised to observe and to cause to be observed with the
utmost fidelity in that fabric every order and design that
Michelagnolo had left for that purpose, and, in addition, to be the
protector, defender, and preserver of the labours of that great man.

But to return to Michelagnolo: I must relate that about a year before
his death, Vasari secretly prevailed upon Duke Cosimo de' Medici to
persuade the Pope by means of Messer Averardo Serristori, his
Ambassador, that, since Michelagnolo was much reduced, a diligent
watch should be kept on those who were about him to take care of him,
or who visited him at his house, and that, in the event of some sudden
accident happening to him, such as might well happen to an old man, he
should make arrangements for his property, designs, cartoons, models,
money, and all his other possessions at the time of his death, to be
set down in an inventory and placed in security, for the sake of the
fabric of S. Pietro, so that, if there were things pertaining to that
fabric, and also to the sacristy, library, and facade of S. Lorenzo,
they might not be taken away, as is often wont to happen; and in the
end, all this being duly carried out, such diligence had its reward.
Leonardo, the nephew of Michelagnolo, was desirous to go during the
coming Lent to Rome, as one who guessed that he was now come to the
end of his life; and at this Michelagnolo was content. When,
therefore, he fell sick of a slow fever, he straightway caused
Daniello to write to Leonardo that he should come; but the illness
grew worse, although Messer Federigo Donati, his physician, and his
other attendants were about him, and with perfect consciousness he
made his will in three sentences, leaving his soul in the hands of
God, his body to the earth, and his substance to his nearest
relatives, and enjoining on his friends that, at his passing from this
life, they should recall to him the agony of Jesus Christ. And so at
the twenty-third hour of the seventeenth day of February, in the year
1563 (after the Florentine reckoning, which according to the Roman
would be 1564), he breathe