Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/398

346 shelter of the Loggia dei Lanzi, while Filippino and Piero di Cosimo thought that the choice of the site ought to be left to Michelangelo. This last proposal was eventually adopted, and the David was set up on the steps of the Palazzo Vecchio, where it stood for more than three centuries. Once during a popular tumult in 1527, the left arm of the statue was broken, but the pieces were carefully picked up by Vasari, and put together again sixteen years later. On the whole, however, the colossus suffered very little damage, and now stands in a hall in the Accademia, where it was placed for greater security in 1873.

The success of this statue added enormously to Michelangelo's reputation. Before it was completed, important orders poured in upon him from all sides. The Board of Works of the Duomo gave him a commission for twelve life-sized statues of Apostles, to stand inside the Cathedral, and Piero Soderini ordered him to paint a fresco in the Council Hall, opposite the work on which Leonardo was already engaged. But only one Apostle was ever begun,—the roughly-hewn St. Matthew, now in the court of the Accademia—and the fresco was never painted. The cartoon which Michelangelo designed, and at which he worked during many months, both in 1504 and in 1506, hung during several years together with that of Leonardo in the Pope's hall, where it was admired and copied by every artist of the day. After this it was removed to the Medici Palace, and disappeared, torn in pieces, according to Vasari, during the confusion that reigned in the house at the time of Giuliano de' Medici's death. A few drawings in the Albertina at Vienna, and a chiaroscuro copy