uld see it, and straitly besought him that he
should tell him his opinion. "You are a madman to try to make figures,
Topolino," said Michelagnolo. "Do you not see that your Mercury is
more than a third of a braccio too short between the knees and the
feet, and that you have made him a dwarf and all misshapen?" "Oh, that
is nothing! If there is nothing else wrong, I will put it right; leave
it to me." Michelagnolo laughed once more at his simplicity; and when
he was gone, Topolino took a piece of marble, and, having cut the
Mercury a quarter of a braccio below the knees, he let it into the new
piece of marble and joined it neatly together, making a pair of
buskins for the Mercury, the tops of which were above the joins; and
so he added the length required. Then he invited Michelagnolo to come,
and showed him his work once again; and the master laughed, marvelling
that such simpletons, when driven by necessity, form resolutions of
which able men are not capable.

While Michelagnolo was having the tomb of Julius II finished, he
caused a marble-hewer to execute a terminal figure for placing in the
tomb in S. Pietro in Vincola, saying to him, "Cut away this to-day,"
"Level that," "Polish here"; insomuch that, without the other noticing
it, he enabled him to make a figure. Wherefore, when it was finished,
the man gazed at it marvelling; and Michelagnolo said: "What do you
think of it?" "I think it fine," he answered, "and I am much obliged
to you." "Why so?" asked Michelagnolo. "Because by your means I have
discovered a talent that I did not know I possessed."

Now, to be brief, I must record that the master's constitution was
very sound, for he was lean and well knit together with nerves, and
although as a boy he was delicate, and as a man he had two serious
illnesses, he could always endure any fatigue and had no infirmity,
save that in his old age he suffered from dysuria and from gravel,
which in the end developed into the stone; wherefore for many years he
was syringed by the hand of Maestro Realdo Colombo, his very dear
friend, who treated him with great diligence. He was of middle
stature, broad in the shoulders, but well proportioned in all the rest
of the body. In his latter years he wore buskins of dogskin on the
legs, next to the skin, constantly for whole months together, so that
afterwards, when he sought to take them off, on drawing them off the
skin often came away with them. Over the stockings he wore boots o