, has
been rendered. We must be grateful to Calcagni for leaving it in its
suggestively unfinished state.

II

During these same years Michelangelo carried on a correspondence with
Ammanati and Vasari about the completion of the Laurentian Library.
His letters illustrate what I have more than once observed regarding
his unpractical method of commencing great works, without more than
the roughest sketches, intelligible to himself alone, and useless to
an ordinary craftsman. The Florentine artists employed upon the fabric
wanted very much to know how he meant to introduce the grand staircase
into the vestibule. Michelangelo had forgotten all about it. "With
regard to the staircase of the library, about which so much has been
said to me, you may believe that if I could remember how I had
arranged it, I should not need to be begged and prayed for
information. There comes into my mind, as in a dream, the image of a
certain staircase; but I do not think this can be the one I then
designed, for it seems so stupid. However, I will describe it." Later
on he sends a little clay model of a staircase, just enough to
indicate his general conception, but not to determine details. He
suggests that the work would look better if carried out in walnut. We
have every reason to suppose that the present stone flight of steps is
far from being representative of his idea.

He was now too old to do more than furnish drawings when asked to
design some monument. Accordingly, when Pius IV. resolved to erect a
tomb in Milan Cathedral to the memory of his brother, Giangiacomo de'
Medici, Marquis of Marignano, commonly called Il Medeghino, he
requested Michelangelo to supply the bronze-sculptor Leone Leoni of
Menaggio with a design. This must have been insufficient for the
sculptor's purpose--a mere hand-sketch not drawn to scale. The
monument, though imposing in general effect, is very defective in its
details and proportions. The architectural scheme has not been
comprehended by the sculptor, who enriched it with a great variety of
figures, excellently wrought in bronze, and faintly suggesting
Michelangelo's manner.

The grotesque _barocco_ style of the Porta Pia, strong in its total
outline, but whimsical and weak in decorative detail, may probably be
ascribed to the same cause. It was sketched out by Michelangelo during
the pontificate of Pius IV., and can hardly have been erected under
his personal supervision. Vasari says: "He made thr