s work and took a
lamp with his hand by the handle; Vasari explained what he wanted,
whereupon Michelagnolo sent Urbino upstairs for the design, and then
they entered into another conversation. Meanwhile Vasari turned his
eyes to examine a leg of the Christ at which he was working, seeking
to change it; and, in order to prevent Vasari from seeing it, he let
the lamp fall from his hand, and they were left in darkness. He called
to Urbino to bring a light, and meanwhile came forth from the
enclosure where the work was, and said: "I am so old that death often
pulls me by the cloak, that I may go with him, and one day this body
of mine will fall like the lamp, and the light of my life will be
spent."

[Footnote 5: Begarelli.]

For all this, he took pleasure in certain kinds of men after his
taste, such as Menighella, a commonplace and clownish painter of
Valdarno, who was a most diverting person. He would come at times to
Michelagnolo, that he might make for him a design of S. Rocco or S.
Anthony, to be painted for peasants; and Michelagnolo, who was with
difficulty persuaded to work for Kings, would deign to set aside all
his other work and make him simple designs suited to his manner and
his wishes, as Menighella himself used to say. Among other things,
Menighella persuaded him to make a model of a Crucifix, which was very
beautiful; of this he made a mould, from which he formed copies in
pasteboard and other materials, and these he went about selling
throughout the countryside. Michelagnolo would burst out laughing at
him, particularly because he used to meet with fine adventures, as
with a countryman who commissioned him to paint a S. Francis, and was
displeased because Menighella had made the vestment grey, whereas he
would have liked it of a finer colour; whereupon Menighella painted
over the Saint's shoulders a pluvial of brocade, and so contented him.

He loved, likewise, the stone-cutter Topolino, who had a notion of
being an able sculptor, but was in truth very feeble. This man spent
many years in the mountains of Carrara, sending marble to
Michelagnolo; nor would he ever send a boatload without adding to it
three or four little figures blocked out with his own hand, at which
Michelagnolo would die of laughing. Finally Topolino returned, and,
having blocked out a Mercury from a piece of marble, he set himself to
finish it; and one day, when there was little left to do, he desired
that Michelagnolo sho