Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/577

 The Italian Cities and the Renaissance 541 discovery thereof; but having found such after the work had been given to view, he would never attempt to correct it, and would commence some other production, believing that a like failure would not happen again. This then was, as he often declared, the reason why the number of pictures and statues finished by his hand was so small. . . . His powers of imagination were such that he was fre- quently compelled to abandon his purpose because he could not express by the hand those grand and sublime ideas which he had conceived in his mind, nay, he has spoiled and destroyed many works for this cause. I know, for example, that a short time before his death he burned a large number of his designs, sketches, and cartoons, that none might see the labors he had gone through and the trials to which he had subjected his spirit in his resolve not to fall short of perfection. I have myself secured some drawings by his hand which were found in Florence and which are now in my book of designs; and these, although they give evidence of his great genius, yet prove also that the ham- mer of Vulcan was necessary to bring Minerva from the head of Jupiter. Vignero, another friend of Michael Angelo's, thus describes the impetuous way in which he worked, even in his later years. I may add that I have seen Michael Angelo, although 230. Michael then sixty years old and not in robust health, strike more ge |^ s chips from the hardest marble in a quarter of an hour than pe tuosity. would be carried off by three young stonecutters in three or four times as long, a thing incredible to him who has not seen it. He would approach the marble with such impetuosity, not to say fury, that I have often thought the whole work must be dashed to pieces. At one blow he would strike off pieces of three or four inches ; yet with such exactitude was each stroke given that a mere atom more would sometimes have spoiled the whole work.