ng was begun,
and 5000 crowns were spent upon it. Then money or will failed. The
model and drawings perished. Nothing remains for certain to show what
Michelangelo's intentions were. The present church of S. Giovanni dei
Fiorentini in Strada Giulia is the work of Giacomo della Porta, with a
facade by Alessandro Galilei.

Of Tiberio Calcagni, the young Florentine sculptor and architect, who
acted like a kind of secretary or clerk to Michelangelo, something may
here be said. The correspondence of this artist with Lionardo
Buonarroti shows him to have been what Vasari calls him, "of gentle
manners and discreet behaviour." He felt both veneration and
attachment for the aged master, and was one of the small group of
intimate friends who cheered his last years. We have seen that
Michelangelo consigned the shattered Pieta to his care; and Vasari
tells us that he also wished him to complete the bust of Brutus, which
had been begun, at Donato Giannotti's request, for the Cardinal
Ridolfi. This bust is said to have been modelled from an ancient
cornelian in the possession of a certain Giuliano Ceserino.
Michelangelo not only blocked the marble out, but brought it nearly to
completion, working the surface with very fine-toothed chisels. The
sweetness of Tiberio Calcagni's nature is proved by the fact that he
would not set his own hand to this masterpiece of sculpture. As in the
case of the Pieta, he left Buonarroti's work untouched, where mere
repairs were not required. Accordingly we still can trace the
fine-toothed marks of the chisel alluded to by Vasari, hatched and
cross-hatched with right and left handed strokes in the style peculiar
to Michelangelo. The Brutus remains one of the finest specimens of his
creative genius. It must have been conceived and executed in the
plenitude of his vigour, probably at the time when Florence fell
beneath the yoke of Alessandro de' Medici, or rather when his murderer
Lorenzino gained the name of Brutus from the exiles (1539). Though
Vasari may be right in saying that a Roman intaglio suggested the
stamp of face and feature, yet we must regard this Brutus as an ideal
portrait, intended to express the artist's conception of resolution
and uncompromising energy in a patriot eager to sacrifice personal
feelings and to dare the utmost for his country's welfare. Nothing can
exceed the spirit with which a violent temperament, habitually
repressed, but capable of leaping forth like sudden lightning