to the drawing,
and working them over with the gradine, which is a toothed instrument
of iron, to the end that they might be somewhat rough and might have
greater force; and, thus finished, he gave them to Giuliano. However,
since that manner did not please the smooth fancy of Bugiardini, no
sooner had Tribolo departed than he took a brush and, dipping it from
time to time in water, so smoothed them that he took away the
gradine-marks and polished them all over, insomuch that, whereas the
lights should have served as contrasts to make the shadows stronger,
he contrived to destroy all the excellence that made the work perfect.
Which having afterwards heard from Giuliano himself, Tribolo laughed
at the foolish simplicity of the man; and Giuliano finally delivered
the work finished in such a manner that there is nothing in it to show
that Michelagnolo ever looked at it.

In the end, being old and poor, and having very few works to do,
Giuliano applied himself with extraordinary and even incredible pains
to make a Pieta in a tabernacle that was to go to Spain, with figures
of no great size, and executed it with such diligence, that it seems a
strange thing to think of an old man of his age having the patience to
do such a work for the love that he bore to art. On the doors of that
tabernacle, in order to depict the darkness that fell at the death of
the Saviour, he painted a Night on a black ground, copied from the one
by the hand of Michelagnolo which is in the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo.
But since that statue has no other sign than an owl, Giuliano, amusing
himself over his picture of Night by giving rein to his fancy, painted
there a net for catching thrushes by night, with the lantern, and one
of those little vessels holding a candle, or rather, a candle-end,
that are carried about at night, with other suchlike things that have
something to do with darkness and gloom, such as night-caps, coifs,
pillows, and bats; wherefore Buonarroti was like to dislocate his jaw
with laughing when he saw this work and considered with what strange
caprices Bugiardini had enriched his Night.

Finally, after having always been that kind of man, Giuliano died at
the age of seventy-five, and was buried in the Church of S. Marco at
Florence, in the year 1556.

Giuliano once relating to Bronzino how he had seen a very beautiful
woman, after he had praised her to the skies, Bronzino said, "Do you
know her?" "No," answered Giuliano, "but she is