t is said that a sculptor who had
expected to be employed upon the _arca_ of S. Domenic threatened to do
him some mischief if he stayed and took the bread out of the mouths of
native craftsmen. He returned to Florence some time in 1495. The city
was now quiet again, under the rule of Savonarola. Its burghers, in
obedience to the friar's preaching, began to assume that air of
pietistic sobriety which contrasted strangely with the gay
licentiousness encouraged by their former master. Though the reigning
branch of the Medici remained in exile, their distant cousins, who
were descended from Lorenzo, the brother of Cosimo, Pater Patriae,
kept their place in the republic. They thought it prudent, however, at
this time, to exchange the hated name of de' Medici for Popolano. With
a member of this section of the Medicean family, Lorenzo di
Pierfrancesco, Michelangelo soon found himself on terms of intimacy.
It was for him that he made a statue of the young S. John, which was
perhaps rediscovered at Pisa in 1874. For a long time this S.
Giovannino was attributed to Donatello; and it certainly bears decided
marks of resemblance to that master's manner, in the choice of
attitude, the close adherence to the model, and the treatment of the
hands and feet. Still it has notable affinities to the style of
Michelangelo, especially in the youthful beauty of the features, the
disposition of the hair, and the sinuous lines which govern the whole
composition. It may also be remarked that those peculiarities in the
hands and feet which I have mentioned as reminding us of Donatello--a
remarkable length in both extremities, owing to the elongation of the
metacarpal and metatarsal bones and of the spaces dividing these from
the forearm and tibia--are precisely the points which Michelangelo
retained through life from his early study of Donatello's work. We
notice them particularly in the Dying Slave of the Louvre, which is
certainly one of his most characteristic works. Good judges are
therefore perhaps justified in identifying this S. Giovannino, which
is now in the Berlin Museum, with the statue made for Lorenzo di
Pierfrancesco de' Medici.

The next piece which occupied Michelangelo's chisel was a Sleeping
Cupid. His patron thought this so extremely beautiful that he remarked
to the sculptor: "If you were to treat it artificially, so as to make
it look as though it had been dug up, I would send it to Rome; it
would be accepted as an antique,