Page:The Life of Michael Angelo.djvu/41

 “Ah! grant; oh! grant that I no longer return to myself.”

I can hear that tragic cry issuing from the sorrowful face whose anxious eyes still look at us in the Museum of the Capitol.

He was of medium stature, broad-shouldered, strongly built and muscular. His body deformed by work, he walked with raised head, hollowed out back and protruding stomach. So do we see him in a portrait by Francis of Holland—a portrait in which he is represented upright, in profile and dressed in black: a Roman cloak over his shoulders, a piece of stuff on his head, and, on the top of it, well pulled down, a large black felt hat. He had a round skull, a square forehead, swollen over the eyes and lined with wrinkles. His hair was black, by no means thick, dishevelled and becurled. His small, sad, strong eyes were horn-coloured, variable, and speckled with yellow and blue. His big, straight nose, with a bump in the middle, had been broken by a blow from Torrigiani’s fist. He had deep lines from the nostrils to the corners of the lips. His mouth was delicate, with