and reverence, as may be seen very readily in
his countenance, without considering it long. Nor was this enough for
Michelagnolo, who, the better to show how great was his art, made in
the background of his work a number of nudes, some leaning, some
standing, and some seated; and with such diligence and finish he
executed this work, that without a doubt, of his pictures on panel,
which indeed are but few, it is held to be the most finished and the
most beautiful work that there is to be found. When it was
completed, he sent it covered up to Agnolo's house by a messenger,
with a note demanding seventy ducats in payment. It seemed strange to
Agnolo, who was a careful person, to spend so much on a picture,
although he knew that it was worth more, and he said to the messenger
that forty was enough, which he gave to him. Thereupon Michelagnolo
sent them back to him, with a message to say that he should send back
either one hundred ducats or the picture. Then Agnolo, who liked the
work, said, "I will give him these seventy," but he was not content;
indeed, angered by Agnolo's breach of faith, he demanded the double of
what he had asked the first time, so that, if Agnolo wanted the
picture, he was forced to send him a hundred and forty.

It happened that while Leonardo da Vinci, that rare painter, was
painting in the Great Council Hall, as has been related in his Life,
Piero Soderini, who was then Gonfalonier, moved by the great ability
that he saw in Michelagnolo, caused a part of that Hall to be allotted
to him; which was the reason that he executed the other facade in
competition with Leonardo, taking as his subject the War of Pisa. To
this end Michelagnolo was given a room in the Hospital of the Dyers at
S. Onofrio, and there he began a vast cartoon, but would never consent
that anyone should see it. And this he filled with naked men that were
bathing in the River Arno on account of the heat, when suddenly the
alarm sounded in the camp, announcing that the enemy were attacking;
and, as the soldiers were springing out of the water to dress
themselves, there could be seen, depicted by the divine hands of
Michelagnolo, some hastening to arm themselves in order to give
assistance to their companions, others buckling on their cuirasses,
many fastening other armour on their bodies, and a vast number
beginning the fray and fighting on horseback. There was, among other
figures, an old man who had a garland of ivy on his head to sh