Page:The Life of Michael Angelo.djvu/210

 whether in wax or in clay." Possessed of this fortune, Antonio set out. But the ill-luck which affected the projects of Michael Angelo pursued those of his humbler friend still more relentlessly. Antonio went to Paris, but Francis I. was absent. So he left the "Leda" in the charge of one of his Italian friends; Giuliano Buonaccorsi, and returned to Lyons, where he had settled down. On returning to Paris a few months later he found that the "Leda" had disappeared; Buonaccorsi had sold it, to his own profit, to Francis. Antonio, wild with grief, without resources, incapable of defending himself, and lost in the foreign city, died of sorrow at the end of 1533.

But, of all his assistants, the one whom Michael Angelo loved the most, and to whom his affection assured immortality, was Francesco d'Amadore, surnamed Urbino, of Castel Durante. He was in Michael Angelo's service from 1530 and worked under his orders on the mausoleum of Julius II. Michael Angelo was anxious as to what would become of him after he had gone.

"'What will you do if I die?' he once said to him.

"'Serve another,' replied Urbino.

"'Poor fellow!' said his master, 'I will protect you from want,' and he gave him 2000 crowns at one time—a present such as only an emperor or a pope could have made."

Urbino was the first to die. The day after his death Michael Angelo wrote to his nephew:

"Urbino died at four o'clock yesterday afternoon. He has left me so afflicted and so troubled that it would