al de' Rossi he painted the head of Cardinal Cibo, in
which he acquitted himself very well, and he executed the whole
picture with great diligence and labour. At that time, likewise, he
took the portrait of Cencio Guasconi, who was then a very beautiful
youth. And after this he painted at the villa of Baccio Valori, at
Olmo a Castello, a tabernacle in fresco, which, although it had not
much design, was well and very carefully executed.

Meanwhile Palla Rucellai was pressing him to finish his altar-piece,
of which mention has been made above, and Giuliano resolved to take
Michelagnolo one day to see it. And so, after he had brought him to
the place where he kept it, and had described to him with what pains
he had executed the lightning-flash, which, coming down from Heaven,
shivers the wheels and kills those who are turning them, and also a
sun, which, bursting from a cloud, delivers S. Catharine from death,
he frankly besought Michelagnolo, who could not keep from laughing as
he heard poor Bugiardini's lamentations, that he should tell him how
to make eight or ten principal figures of soldiers in the foreground
of this altar-piece, drawn up in line after the manner of a guard, and
in the act of flight, some being prostrate, some wounded, and others
dead; for, said Giuliano, he did not know for himself how to
foreshorten them in such a manner that there might be room for them
all in so narrow a space, in the fashion that he had imagined, in
line. Buonarroti, then, having compassion on the poor man and wishing
to oblige him, went up to the picture with a piece of charcoal and
outlined with a few strokes, lightly sketched in, a line of marvellous
nude figures, which, foreshortened in different attitudes, were
falling in various ways, some backward and others forward, with some
wounded or dead, and all executed with that judgment and excellence
that were peculiar to Michelagnolo. This done, he went away with the
thanks of Giuliano, who not long afterwards took Tribolo, his dearest
friend, to see what Buonarroti had done, telling him the whole story.
But since, as has been related, Buonarroti had drawn his figures only
in outline, Bugiardini was not able to put them into execution,
because there were neither shadows in them nor any other help;
whereupon Tribolo resolved to assist him, and thus made some
sketch-models in clay, which he executed excellently well, giving them
that boldness of manner that Michelagnolo had put in