terwards I gave your letter to
Baldassare, and asked him for the child (the sleeping Cupid), saying
I was ready to refund his money. He answered very roughly, swearing
he would rather break it in a hundred pieces; he had bought the
child and it was his property; he possessed writing which proved
that he had satisfied the person who sent it to him, and was under
no apprehension that he should have to give it up. Then he
complained bitterly of you, saying that you had spoken ill of him.
Certain of our Florentines sought to accommodate matters, but failed
in their attempt. Now I look to coming to terms through the
Cardinal; for this is the advice of Baldassare Balducci. What ensues
I will report to you. No more by this. To you I recommend myself.
May God keep you from evil.

"Michael Angelo, in Rome.

"To Sandro Botticelli, at Florence."

(Gotti, ii. 32.)

25 This ugly, but marvellously-finished statue is now in the western
corridor of the Uffizi, in Florence. See p. 107.

26 See p. 108.

27 The work is now in the first chapel on the right in the nave of the
Basilica of Saint Peter's.

28 Now in the Accademia delle Belle Arti of Florence, where it was
placed for its better preservation in 1831.

29 The Office of Works.

30 Documents, copies of which are to be found in "Gaye," vol. ii. pp.
454-464, go to prove that this sculptor was Agostino di Antonio di
Duccio, who was born in 1418 and died in 1481. He was the author of
the relief illustrating the life of S. Gemignano upon the facade of
the Duomo at Modena, and some of the beautiful and delicate marble
reliefs set in the polychromatic front of the Oratory of S.
Bernardino at Perugia, and the fairy-like low relief (bassissimi
rilievi) panels that decorate the interior of the temple of
Malatesta at Rimini.

31 The Madonna and Child in the church of Notre Dame at Bruges,
identified as this work, is in marble. Vasari also states that the
work for the Moscheroni, Merchants of Bruges, was a bronze, but both
accounts were written fifty years after the event. Albert Duerer saw
this work in the church and mentions it as a marble statue in his