the day's work, but always very frugally. And, although he was rich,
he lived like a poor man, nor did any friend ever eat at his table,
or rarely; and he would not accept presents from anyone, because it
appeared to him that if anyone gave him something, he would be bound
to him for ever. This sober life kept him very active and in want of
very little sleep, and often during the night, not being able to
sleep, he would rise to labour with the chisel; having made a cap of
thick paper, and over the centre of his head he kept a lighted candle,
which in this way threw light over where he was working without
encumbering his hands. Vasari, who had seen the cap several times,
reflecting that he did not use wax, but candles of pure goat's tallow,
which are excellent, sent him four bundles of these, which weighed
forty libbre. And his servant with all courtesy carried them to him at
the second hour of the evening, and presented them to him; but
Michelagnolo refused them, declaring that he did not want them; and
then the servant said: "They have broken my arms on the way between
the bridge and here, and I shall not carry them back to the house. Now
here in front of your door there is a solid heap of mud; they will
stand in it beautifully, and I will set them all alight." Michelagnolo
said to him: "Put them down here, for I will not have you playing
pranks at my door."

He told me that often in his youth he slept in his clothes, being
weary with labour and not caring to take them off only to have to put
them on again later. There are some who have taxed him with being
avaricious, but they are mistaken, for both with works of art and with
his substance he proved the contrary. Of works of art, as has been
seen and related, he presented to M. Tommaso de' Cavalieri, to Messer
Bindo, and to Fra Sebastiano, designs of considerable value; and to
Antonio Mini, his pupil, all his designs, all his cartoons, and the
picture of the Leda, and all the models in clay and wax that he ever
made, which, as has been related, were all left in France. To Gherardo
Perini, a Florentine gentleman who was very much his friend, he gave
three sheets with some divine heads in black chalk, which since
Perini's death have come into the hands of the most illustrious Don
Francesco, Prince of Florence, who treasures them as jewels, as indeed
they are; for Bartolommeo Bettini he made a cartoon, which he
presented to him, of a Venus with a Cupid that is kissing