nsuls, in the name of the Company and Academy,
should lay the whole matter before the Lord Duke, and beseech him for
all the aids and favours that might be necessary, and especially for
permission to have those obsequies held in S. Lorenzo, the church of
the most illustrious House of Medici; wherein are the greater part of
the works by the hand of Michelagnolo that there are to be seen in
Florence; and, in addition, that his Excellency should allow Messer
Benedetto Varchi to compose and deliver the funeral oration, to the
end that the excellent genius of Michelagnolo might be extolled by the
rare eloquence of a man so great as was Varchi, who, being in the
particular service of his Excellency, would not have undertaken such a
charge without a word from him, although they were very certain that,
as one most loving by nature and deeply affected to the memory of
Michelagnolo, of himself he would never have refused. This done, and
the Academicians dismissed, the above-named Lieutenant wrote to the
Lord Duke a letter of this precise tenor:

"The Academy and Company of Painters and Sculptors having resolved
among themselves, if it should please your most illustrious
Excellency, to do honour in some sort to the memory of Michelagnolo
Buonarroti, both from the general obligation due from their profession
to the extraordinary genius of one who was perhaps the greatest
craftsman who has ever lived, and from their particular obligation
through their belonging to a common country, and also because of the
great advantage that these professions have received from the
perfection of his works and inventions, insomuch that they hold
themselves obliged to prove their affection to his genius in whatever
way they are able, they have laid this their desire before your
illustrious Excellency in a letter, and have besought you, as their
peculiar refuge, for a certain measure of assistance. I, entreated by
them, and being, as I think, obliged because your most illustrious
Excellency has been content that I should be again this year in their
Company with the title of your Lieutenant, with the added reason that
the proposal is a generous one and worthy of virtuous and grateful
minds, and, above all, knowing how your most illustrious Excellency is
the patron of talent, and as it were a haven and unique protector for
ingenious persons in this age, even surpassing in this respect your
forefathers, who bestowed extraordinary favours on those excelle