Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/505

Rh chapel of Pope Julius, which had been painted by Buonarroto.

But when Benvenuto had seen the works here alluded to,: he was not only amazed, but felt almost in despair, as he regarded the graceful animation which Raphael was imparting to the art, and remarked the profound knowledge of design evinced by Michelagnolo. He anathematized the manner of Lombardy, and that which he had acquired with so much study and labour at Mantua; nay, had it been possible, he would very fain have divested himself of all that he had learned with so much pains: but since better might not be, he resolved to unlearn that which he had given his youth to acquiring; and after the loss of so many years, he determined from a master to become once more a disciple.

He thereupon began to copy and draw from those works which he considered the best and most difficult, giving scarcely any of his attention to other matters, but labouring perpetually at these designs for two years, when his bad manner had become changed for a good one to such an extent that he was now held by the artists in much account: nay, what was more, he demeaned himself in such sort, and displayed so much diffidence as well as courtesy, that he