314 IDENTIFICATION OF THE AETISAN AND ARTIST. 



particular style.) " I will do so with pleasure," said Douatello. " Then 

 come along;" aud Brunelleschi, as tliey went on, stojiped ab the market, 

 bought eggs and cheese for their supper, put them in an apron, and said 

 to Donatello, " Now, you carry these to my house while I buy something 

 else, and I'll follow you." Donatello entered the room, saw the crucifix, 

 let fall his apron, and smashed the eggs. Brunelleschi soon followed, 

 and found Donatello with his hands stretched out, and his mouth open, 

 looking at this wonderful work. " Come," said he to Donatello, " where's 

 our supper ? " "I have had my supper," said he ; ' ' y on get what you can 

 out of what is left." And then, like a true, noble-hearted, generous 

 artist, he took his friend by the hand, and said, " You are made to 

 represent Christ ; I, only to represent peasants." Nowj this shows, as I 

 said before, that this poor artist carried on his own work with his own 

 hands, shut up in his own house; in fact, that, as Vasari tells us, he 

 never allowed any one to see it until it was quite completed. 



There can be no doubt that, among all the names celebrated in art, 

 there is not one that can be put in comparison with that of Michael Au- 

 gelo; a man who, not merely from his follower, disciple, and intimate, 

 Yasari, but even from jealous and envious and ill-tempered Benvenuto 

 Cellini, receives constantly the epithet of " the divine." No man cer- 

 tainl^' ever had such a wonderful soul for art, in every department: the 

 cupola of St. Peter's, as an architect; his Moses and his Christ, as a 

 sculptor ; and his Last Judgment, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, 

 as a painter, are three monuments which would have made the eternal 

 fame, not of three, but of a hundred, artists in each department. Great, 

 noble, generous, and though perhaps somewhat in his temper not amia- 

 ble, yet sternly honest in all his dealings, he seems to have been the 

 great center around which the art of his period revolved. There was 

 no one so great, so sublime in any i)articular branch of it, that did not 

 look up to Michael Angelo, aud consider him his superior. It is acknowl- 

 edged that Eafifiielle went into the Sistine Chapel, and saw Angelo's 

 wonderful works, and changed entirely his style upon beholding them ; 

 and it is particularly acknowledged by the writers of that time, that in 

 every other department — civil engineering, &c. — he was considered 

 equally supreme. Now, you would suppose that this man, upon whom 

 commissions jjoured in every day for great works, would have employed 

 a number of artisans to assist him ; that he would have had carefully 

 prepared models, which he would have intrusted to skillful artificers, 

 so as to lighten his labor. But no such thing. There is every evidence 

 we can desire, that, from the beginning to the end, Michael Angelo per- 

 formed the whole of his own work; that he began with the piece of 

 marble as it came from the quarry ; that, if not always, x)retty generallj', 

 he did not even condescend to make a design beyond a small wax 

 model, but immediately set to work with chisel and mallet on the figure 

 which he had in his imagination, and which he knew was as truly lurk- 

 ing in the inanimate block. Yasari shows us, in fact, from his unfin- 



