her, a
divine thing, which is now in the possession of Bettini's heirs in
Florence, and for the Marchese del Vasto he made a cartoon of a "Noli
me Tangere," a rare thing; and these two last were painted excellently
well by Pontormo, as has been related. He presented the two Captives
to Signor Ruberto Strozzi, and the Pieta in marble, which he broke, to
Antonio, his servant, and to Francesco Bandini. I know not, therefore,
how this man can be taxed with avarice, he having given away so many
things for which he could have obtained thousands of crowns. What
better proof can I give than this, that I know from personal
experience that he made many designs and went to see many pictures and
buildings, without demanding any payment? But let us come to the money
earned by him by the sweat of his brow, not from revenues, not from
traffickings, but from his own study and labour. Can he be called
avaricious who succoured many poor persons, as he did, and secretly
married off a good number of girls, and enriched those who served him
and assisted him in his works, as with his servant Urbino, whom he
made a very rich man? This Urbino was his man of all work, and had
served him a long time; and Michelagnolo said to him: "If I die, what
will you do?" And he answered: "I will serve another master." "You
poor creature," said Michelagnolo, "I will save you from such misery";
and presented two thousand crowns to him in one sum, an act such as is
generally left to Caesars and Pontiffs. To his nephew, moreover, he
gave three and four thousand crowns at a time, and at the end he left
him ten thousand crowns, besides the property in Rome.

Michelagnolo was a man of tenacious and profound memory, so that, on
seeing the works of others only once, he remembered them perfectly,
and could avail himself of them in such a manner, that scarcely anyone
has ever noticed it; nor did he ever do anything that resembled
another thing by his hand, because he remembered everything that he
had done. In his youth, being once with his painter-friends, they
played for a supper for him who should make a figure most completely
wanting in design and clumsy, after the likeness of the puppet-figures
which those make who know nothing, scrawling upon walls; and in this
he availed himself of his memory, for he remembered having seen one
of those absurdities on a wall, and drew it exactly as if he had had
it before him, and thus surpassed all those painters--a thing
diffi