erfectly, in so short a time, a work so
admirable; and it is certainly a miracle that a stone without any
shape at the beginning should ever have been reduced to such
perfection as Nature is scarcely able to create in the flesh. Such
were Michelagnolo's love and zeal together in this work, that he left
his name--a thing that he never did again in any other work--written
across a girdle that encircles the bosom of Our Lady. And the reason
was that one day Michelagnolo, entering the place where it was set up,
found there a great number of strangers from Lombardy, who were
praising it highly, and one of them asked one of the others who had
done it, and he answered, "Our Gobbo from Milan." Michelagnolo stood
silent, but thought it something strange that his labours should be
attributed to another; and one night he shut himself in there, and,
having brought a little light and his chisels, carved his name upon
it. And truly the work is such, that an exalted spirit has said, as
to a real and living figure--

Bellezza ed Onestate
E Doglia e Pieta in vivo marmo morte,
Deh, come voi pur fate,
Non piangete si forte,
Che anzi tempo risveglisi da morte;
E pur mal grado suo
Nostro Signore, e tuo
Sposo, Figliuolo, e Padre,
Unica Sposa sua, Figliuola, e Madre.

From this work he acquired very great fame, and although certain
persons, rather fools than otherwise, say that he has made Our Lady
too young, are these so ignorant as not to know that unspotted virgins
maintain and preserve their freshness of countenance a long time
without any mark, and that persons afflicted as Christ was do the
contrary? That circumstance, therefore, won an even greater increase
of glory and fame for his genius than all his previous works.

[Illustration: PIETA

(_After =Michelagnolo=. Rome: S. Peter's_)

_Anderson_]

Letters were written to him from Florence by some of his friends,
saying that he should return, because it was not unlikely that he
might obtain the spoiled block of marble lying in the Office of Works,
which Piero Soderini, who at that time had been made Gonfalonier of
the city for life, had very often talked of having executed by
Leonardo da Vinci, and was then arranging to give to Maestro Andrea
Contucci of Monte Sansovino, an excellent sculptor, who was seeking to
obtain it. Now, however difficult it might be to carve a complete
figure out of it without adding pieces (for which work of finishing it
without ad