gnificent Messer Ottaviano de' Medici, his gossip, whose son he held
at baptism, and Messer Bindo Altoviti, to whom he presented that
cartoon of the Chapel in which Noah, drunk with wine, is derided by
one of his sons, and his nakedness is covered by the two others; M.
Lorenzo Ridolfi, M. Annibale Caro, and M. Giovan Francesco Lottini of
Volterra. But infinitely more than any of the others he loved M.
Tommaso de' Cavalieri, a Roman gentleman, for whom, being a young man
and much inclined to these arts, he made, to the end that he might
learn to draw, many most superb drawings of divinely beautiful heads,
designed in black and red chalk; and then he drew for him a Ganymede
rapt to Heaven by Jove's Eagle, a Tityus with the Vulture devouring
his heart, the Chariot of the Sun falling with Phaethon into the Po,
and a Bacchanal of children, which are all in themselves most rare
things, and drawings the like of which have never been seen.
Michelagnolo made a life-size portrait of Messer Tommaso in a cartoon,
and neither before nor afterwards did he take the portrait of anyone,
because he abhorred executing a resemblance to the living subject,
unless it were of extraordinary beauty. These drawings, on account of
the great delight that M. Tommaso took in them, were the reason that
he afterwards obtained a good number, miraculous things, which
Michelagnolo once drew for Fra Sebastiano Viniziano, who carried them
into execution; and in truth he rightly treasures them as reliques,
and he has courteously given craftsmen access to them. Of a truth
Michelagnolo always placed his affections with persons noble,
deserving, and worthy of them, for he had true judgment and taste in
all things.

[Illustration: UNFINISHED FIGURE

(_After =Michelagnolo=. Florence: Museo Nazionale_)

_Brogi_]

M. Tommaso afterwards caused Michelagnolo to make many designs for
friends, such as that of the picture for Cardinal di Cesis, wherein is
Our Lady receiving the Annunciation from the Angel, a novel thing,
which was afterwards executed in colours by Marcello Mantovano and
placed in the marble chapel which that Cardinal caused to be built in
the Church of the Pace at Rome. So, also, with another Annunciation
coloured likewise by the hand of Marcello in a picture in the Church
of S. Giovanni Laterano, the design of which belongs to Duke Cosimo
de' Medici, having been presented after Michelagnolo's death by his
nephew Leonardo Buonarroti to his Excellen