his father Lodovico and asked for the boy
from him, saying that he wished to maintain him as one of his own
children; and Lodovico gave him up willingly. Thereupon the
Magnificent Lorenzo granted him a chamber in his own house and had him
attended, and he ate always at his table with his own children and
with other persons of quality and of noble blood who lived with that
lord, by whom he was much honoured. This was in the year after he had
been placed with Domenico, when Michelagnolo was about fifteen or
sixteen years of age; and he lived in that house four years, which was
until the death of the Magnificent Lorenzo in 1492. During that time,
then, Michelagnolo had five ducats a month from that lord as an
allowance and also to help his father; and for his particular
gratification Lorenzo gave him a violet cloak, and to his father an
office in the Customs. Truth to tell, all the young men in the garden
were salaried, some little and some much, by the liberality of that
magnificent and most noble citizen, and rewarded by him as long as he
lived.

At this time, at the advice of Poliziano, a man eminent in letters,
Michelagnolo executed from a piece of marble given to him by that lord
the Battle of Hercules with the Centaurs, which was so beautiful that
now, to those who study it from time to time, it appears as if by the
hand not of a youth but of a master of repute, perfected by study and
well practised in that art. It is now in his house, treasured in
memory of him by his nephew Leonardo as a rare thing, which indeed it
is. That Leonardo, not many years since, had in his house in memory of
his uncle a Madonna of marble in low-relief by the hand of
Michelagnolo, little more than one braccio in height, in which when a
lad, at this same time, wishing to counterfeit the manner of
Donatello, he acquitted himself so well that it seems as if by
Donatello's hand, save that there may be seen in it more grace and
more design. That work Leonardo afterwards gave to Duke Cosimo de'
Medici, who treasures it as a unique thing, for we have no other
low-relief in sculpture by his hand save that one.

Now, returning to the garden of the Magnificent Lorenzo; that garden
was full of antiques and richly adorned with excellent pictures, all
gathered together in that place for their beauty, for study, and for
pleasure. Michelagnolo always had the keys, and he was much more
earnest than the others in his every action, and showed himself alwa