s the most splendid and determined of any in all Renaissance
sculpture. He may, if we like, symbolize the new generation that is
always deriving sustenance from the old, without care or thought of
what the old has to suffer; he crushes his head against his mother's
breast in a very passion of vigorous dependence. [4]

Whatever was originally intended, it is certain that in Michelangelo's
sacristy disillusionment reigns as well as death. But how beautiful
it is!

In a little room leading from the sacristy I was shown by a smiling
custodian Lorenzo the Magnificent's coffin, crumbling away, and
photographs of the skulls of the two brothers: Giuliano's with one
of Francesco de' Pazzi's dagger wounds in it, and Lorenzo's, ghastly
in its decay. I gave the man half a lira.

While he was working on the tombs Michelangelo had undertaken now and
then a small commission, and to this period belongs the David which we
shall see in the little room on the ground floor of the Bargello. In
1534, when he finally abandoned the sacristy, and, leaving Florence for
ever, settled in Rome, the Laurentian library was only begun, and he
had little interest in it. He never saw it again. At Rome his time was
fully occupied in painting the "Last Judgment" in the Sixtine Chapel,
and in various architectural works. But Florence at any rate has two
marble masterpieces that belong to the later period--the Brutus in
the Bargello and the Pieta in the Duomo, which we have seen--that
poignantly impressive rendering of the entombment upon which the old
man was at work when he died, and which he meant for his own grave.

His death came in 1564, on February 23rd, when he was nearly
eighty-nine, and his body was brought to Florence and buried amid
universal grief in S. Croce, where it has a florid monument.

Since we are considering the life of Michelangelo, I might perhaps
say here a few words about his house, which is only a few minutes'
distant--at No. 64 Via Ghibellina--where certain early works and
personal relics are preserved. Michelangelo gave the house to his
nephew Leonardo; it was decorated early in the seventeenth century with
scenes in the life of the master, and finally bequeathed to the city
as a heritage in 1858. It is perhaps the best example of the rapacity
of the Florentines; for notwithstanding that it was left freely in
this way a lira is charged for admission. The house contains more
collateral curiosities, as they might be called, t