day, and cast in
Lionardo's teeth that he could not finish the equestrian statue of the
Duke of Milan. It is therefore not improbable that when, according to the
legend, he corrected a drawing of Ghirlandajo's, he may have said things
unendurable to the elder painter.

[291] Engraved in outline in Harford's _Illustrations of the Genius of
Michael Angelo Buonarroti_, Colnaghi, 1857.

[292] This group, placed in S. Peter's, was made for the French Cardinal
de Saint Denys. It should be said that the first work of Michael Angelo
in Rome was the "Bacchus" now in the Florentine Bargello, executed for
Jacopo Gallo, a Roman gentleman.

[293] Pitti approved of the form of government represented by Soderini.
Machiavelli despised the want of decision that made him quit Florence,
and the euetheia of the man. Hence their curiously conflicting
phrases.

[294] See the chapter entitled "Della Malitia e pessime Conditioni del
Tyranno," in Savonarola's "Tractato circa el reggimento e governo della
Citta di Firenze composto ad instantia delli excelsi Signori al tempo di
Giuliano Salviati, Gonfaloniere di Justitia." A more terrible picture has
never been drawn by any analyst of human vice and cruelty and weakness.

[295] Guasti's edition of the _Rime_, p. 26.

[296] He defends himself thus in a letter to Lodovico Buonarroti: "Del
caso dei Medici io non o mai parlato contra di loro cosa nessuna, se non
in quel modo che s' e parlato generalmente per ogn' uomo, come fu del
caso di Prato; che se le pietre avessin saputo parlare, n' avrebbono
parlato."

[297] It seems clear from the correspondence in the Archivio Buonarroti,
recently published, that when Michael Angelo fled from Florence to Venice
in 1529, he did so under the pressure of no ignoble panic, but because
his life was threatened by a traitor, acting possibly at the secret
instance of Malatesta Baglioni. See Heath Wilson, pp. 326-330.

[298] See Guasti, p. 4.

[299] Vol. I., _Age of the Despots_, p. 251.

[300] To these years we must also assign the two unfinished medallions of
"Madonna and the infant Christ," the circular oil picture of the "Holy
Family," painted for Angelo Doni, and the beautiful unfinished picture of
"Madonna with the boy Jesus and S. John" in the National Gallery. The
last of these works is one of the loveliest of Michael Angelo's
productions, whether we regard the symmetry of its composition or the
refinement of its types. The two groups of two boys