whom were naturally left-handed (although they did not
work with the left hand excepting when they wished to use great
strength), stopped to see me, and expressed great wonder, no sculptor
or painter ever having done so before me, as far as I know."

V

If Vasari can be trusted, it was during this residence at Florence,
when his hands were so fully occupied, that Michelangelo found time to
carve the two _tondi_, Madonnas in relief enclosed in circular spaces,
which we still possess. One of them, made for Taddeo Taddei, is now at
Burlington House, having been acquired by the Royal Academy through
the medium of Sir George Beaumont. This ranks among the best things
belonging to that Corporation. The other, made for Bartolommeo Pitti,
will be found in the Palazzo del Bargello at Florence. Of the two,
that of our Royal Academy is the more ambitious in design, combining
singular grace and dignity in the Madonna with action playfully
suggested in the infant Christ and little S. John. That of the
Bargello is simpler, more tranquil, and more stately. The one recalls
the motive of the Bruges Madonna, the other almost anticipates the
Delphic Sibyl. We might fancifully call them a pair of native pearls
or uncut gems, lovely by reason even of their sketchiness. Whether by
intention, as some critics have supposed, or for want of time to
finish, as I am inclined to believe, these two reliefs are left in a
state of incompleteness which is highly suggestive. Taking the Royal
Academy group first, the absolute roughness of the groundwork supplies
an admirable background to the figures, which seem to emerge from it
as though the whole of them were there, ready to be disentangled. The
most important portions of the composition--Madonna's head and throat,
the drapery of her powerful breast, on which the child Christ
reclines, and the naked body of the boy--are wrought to a point which
only demands finish. Yet parts of these two figures remain
undetermined. Christ's feet are still imprisoned in the clinging
marble; His left arm and hand are only indicated, and His right hand
is resting on a mass of broken stone, which hides a portion of His
mother's drapery, but leaves the position of her hand uncertain. The
infant S. John, upright upon his feet, balancing the chief group, is
hazily subordinate. The whole of his form looms blurred through the
veil of stone, and what his two hands and arms are doing with the
hidden right arm and hand of t