erto been dealing with. From other prints which bear the
signature of Bonasoni, we see that he was interested in faithfully
reproducing Michelangelo's work. What the relations between the two
men were remains uncertain, but Bonasoni may have had opportunities of
studying the master's person. At any rate, as a product of the burin,
this profile is comparable for fidelity and veracity with Leoni's
model, and is executed in the same medallion spirit.

So far, then, as I have yet pursued the analysis of Michelangelo's
portraits, I take Bonasoni's engraving to be decisive for
Michelangelo's appearance at the age of seventy; Leoni's model as of
equal or of greater value at the age of eighty; Venusti's and Da
Volterra's paintings as of some importance for this later period;
while I leave the attribution of minor easel-pictures to Del Conte or
to Bugiardini open.

It remains to speak of that "full relief in bronze made by Daniele da
Volterra," which Vasari mentions among the four genuine portraits of
Buonarroti. From the context we should gather that this head was
executed during the lifetime of Michelangelo, and the conclusion is
supported by the fact that only a few pages later on Vasari mentions
two other busts modelled after his death. Describing the catafalque
erected to his honour in S. Lorenzo, he says that the pyramid which
crowned the structure exhibited within two ovals (one turned toward
the chief door, and the other toward the high altar) "the head of
Michelangelo in relief, taken from nature, and very excellently
carried out by Santi Buglioni." The words _ritratta dal naturale_ do
not, I think, necessarily imply that it was modelled from the life.
Owing to the circumstances under which Michelangelo's obsequies were
prepared, there was not time to finish it in bronze of stone; it may
therefore have been one of those Florentine terra-cotta effigies which
artists elaborated from a cast taken after death. That there existed
such a cast is proved by what we know about the monument designed by
Vasari in S. Croce. "One of the statues was assigned to Battista
Lorenzi, an able sculptor, together with the head of Michelangelo." We
learn from another source that this bust in marble "was taken from the
mask cast after his death."

The custom of taking plaster casts from the faces of the illustrious
dead, in order to perpetuate their features, was so universal in
Italy, that it could hardly have been omitted in the case of