Florentine
evidences at all--the Medici chapel tombs and the Duomo Pieta.

The inscription under the Brutus says: "While the sculptor was carving
the statue of Brutus in marble, he thought of the crime and held
his hand"; and the theory is that Michelangelo was at work upon this
head at Rome when, in 1537, Lorenzino de' Medici, who claimed to be
a modern Brutus, murdered Alessandro de' Medici. But it might easily
have been that the sculptor was concerned only with Brutus the friend
of Caesar and revolted at his crime. The circumstance that the head
is unfinished matters nothing. Once seen it can never be forgotten.

Although Michelangelo is, as always, the dominator, this room has
other possessions to make it a resort of visitors. At the end is a
fireplace from the Casa Borgherini, by Benedetto da Rovezzano, which
probably has not an equal, although the pietra serena of which it is
made is a horrid hue; and on the walls are fragments of the tomb of
S. Giovanni Gualberto at Vallombrosa, designed by the same artist but
never finished. Benedetto (1474-1556) has a peculiar interest to the
English in having come to England in 1524 at the bidding of Cardinal
Wolsey to design a tomb for that proud prelate. On Wolsey's disgrace,
Henry VIII decided that the tomb should be continued for his own bones;
but the sculptor died first and it was unfinished. Later Charles I cast
envious eyes upon it and wished to lie within it; but circumstances
deprived him too of the honour. Finally, after having been despoiled
of certain bronze additions, the sarcophagus was used for the remains
of Nelson, which it now holds, in St. Paul's crypt. The Borgherini
fireplace is a miracle of exquisite work, everything having received
thought, the delicate traceries on the pillars not less than the
frieze. The fireplace is in perfect condition, not one head having
been knocked off, but the Gualberto reliefs are badly damaged, yet
full of life. The angel under the saint's bier in No. 104 almost moves.

In this room look also at the beautiful blades of barley on the
pillars in the corner close to Brutus, and the lovely frieze by an
unknown hand above Michelangelo's Martyrdom of S. Andrew, and the
carving upon the two niches for statues on either side of the door.

The little room through which one passes to the Michelangelos may
well be lingered in. There is a gravely fine floor-tomb of a nun
to the left of the door--No. 20--which one would like to see i