these men he showed unbounded kindness, and caused him to study
architecture, with the view of employing his services in that art. He
exchanged thoughts readily with him, and discoursed upon artistic
topics. Those are in the wrong who assert that he refused to
communicate his stores of knowledge. He always did so to his personal
friends, and to all who sought his advice. It ought, however, to be
mentioned that he was not lucky in the craftsmen who lived with him,
since chance brought him into contact with people unfitted to profit
by his example. Pietro Urbano of Pistoja was a man of talent but no
industry. Antonio Mini had the will but not the brains, and hard wax
takes a bad impression. Ascanio dalla Ripa Transone (_i.e._, Condivi)
took great pains, but brought nothing to perfection either in finished
work or in design. He laboured many years upon a picture for which
Michelangelo supplied the drawing. At last the expectations based upon
this effort vanished into smoke. I remember that Michelangelo felt
pity for his trouble, and helped him with his own hand. Nothing,
however, came of it. He often told me that if he had found a proper
subject he should have liked, old as he was, to have recommended
anatomy, and to have written on it for the use of his workmen.
However, he distrusted his own powers of expressing what he wanted in
writing, albeit his letters show that he could easily put forth his
thoughts in a few brief words."

About Michelangelo's kindness to his pupils and servants there is no
doubt. We have only to remember his treatment of Pietro Urbano and
Antonio Mini, Urbino and Condivi, Tiberio Calcagni and Antonio del
Franzese. A curious letter from Michelangelo to Andrea Quarantesi,
which I have quoted in another connection, shows that people were
eager to get their sons placed under his charge. The inedited
correspondence in the Buonarroti Archives abounds in instances
illustrating the reputation he had gained for goodness. We have two
grateful letters from a certain Pietro Bettino in Castel Durante
speaking very warmly of Michelangelo's attention to his son Cesare.
Two to the same effect from Amilcare Anguissola in Cremona acknowledge
services rendered to his daughter Sofonisba, who was studying design
in Rome. Pietro Urbano wrote twenty letters between the years 1517 and
1525, addressing him in terms like "carissimo quanto padre." After
recovering from his illness at Pistoja, he expresses the hope that he