he astonishment of Lorenzo de Medici, who criticised it, however,
saying, "Thou shouldst have remembered that old folks do not retain
all their teeth; some of them are always wanting." The boy struck the
teeth out, giving it at once the most grotesque expression; and
Lorenzo, infinitely amused, sent for his father and offered to attach
his son to his own particular service, and to undertake the entire
care of his education. The father consented, on condition of
receiving for himself an office under the government, and thenceforth
Michael Angelo was lodged in the palace of the Medici and treated by
Lorenzo as his son.

Michael Angelo continued his studies under the auspices of Lorenzo;
but just as he had reached his eighteenth year he lost his generous
patron, his second father, and was thenceforth thrown on his own
resources. It is true that the son of Lorenzo, Piero de Medici,
continued to extend his favor to the young artist, but with so little
comprehension of his genius and character, that on one occasion,
during the severe winter of 1494, he set him to form a statue of snow
for the amusement of his guests.

Michael Angelo, while he yielded, perforce, to the caprices of his
protector, turned the energies of his mind to a new study--that of
anatomy--and pursued it with all that fervor which belonged to his
character. His attention was at the same time directed to literature,
by the counsels and conversations of a very celebrated scholar and
poet then residing in the court of Piero--Angelo Poliziano; and he
pursued at the same time the cultivation of his mind and the practice
of his art. Engrossed by his own studies, he was scarcely aware of
what was passing around him, nor of the popular intrigues which were
preparing the ruin of the Medici; suddenly this powerful family were
flung from sovereignty to temporary disgrace and exile; and Michael
Angelo, as one of their retainers, was obliged to fly from Florence,
and took refuge in the city of Bologna. During the year he spent there
he found a friend, who employed him on some works of sculpture; and on
his return to Florence he executed a Cupid in marble, of such beauty
that it found its way into the cabinet of the Duchess of Mantua as a
real antique. On the discovery that the author of this beautiful
statue was a young man of two-and-twenty, the Cardinal San Giorgio
invited him to Rome, and for some time lodged him in his palace. Here
Michael Angelo, surrounded and i