n added to it would have been by a great measure less beautiful.
But on the other, which is opposite to the first, although it had not
yet been raised on the columns, there was a picture, four braccia in
height and little more than two in width, wherein there was painted
with beautiful invention and excellent design, to represent Fame, or
rather, Honour, a young man in a most beautiful attitude, with a
trumpet in the right hand, and with the feet planted on Time and
Death, in order to show that fame and honour, in spite of death and
time, preserve alive to all eternity those who have laboured valiantly
in this life. This picture was by the hand of Vincenzio Danti, the
sculptor of Perugia, of whom we have spoken, and will speak again
elsewhere.

The church having been embellished in such a manner, adorned with
lights, and filled with a countless multitude, for everyone had left
every other care and flocked together to such an honourable spectacle,
there entered behind the above-named Lieutenant of the Academy,
accompanied by the Captain and Halberdiers of the Duke's Guard, the
Consuls and the Academicians, and, in short, all the painters,
sculptors, and architects of Florence. After all these had sat down
between the catafalque and the high-altar, where they had been awaited
for a good while by an infinite number of lords and gentlemen, who had
been accommodated with seats according to the rank of each, there was
begun a most solemn Mass for the dead, with music and ceremonies of
every kind. Which finished, Varchi mounted the above-mentioned pulpit,
who had never performed such an office since he did it for the most
illustrious Lady Duchess of Ferrara, the daughter of Duke Cosimo; and
there, with that elegance, those modes of utterance, and that voice
which were the peculiar attributes of that great man in oratory, he
recounted the praises and merits, life and works of the divine
Michelagnolo Buonarroti.

Of a truth, what great good fortune it was for Michelagnolo that he
did not die before our Academy was created, whereby his funeral rites
were celebrated with so much honour and such magnificent and
honourable pomp! So, also, it must be considered most fortunate for
him that it happened that he passed from this to an eternal and most
blessed life before Varchi, seeing that he could not have been
extolled by any more eloquent and learned man. That funeral oration by
M. Benedetto Varchi was printed a short time afterwar