Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/103

Rh parts in those works; on which occasion Giovann’ Agnolo found means to acquire the knowledge of many things from that truly divine master Buonarroti, by whose side he would stand during long hours, attentively watching his labours and observing the most minute circumstance connected with them.

Among the other statues still wanting to the completion of that work, were those of SS. Cosiino and Damiano, which were to stand one on each side of Our Lady; Michelagnolo, therefore, took measures for the execution of the same, and gave one of them, the San Damiano, to Raffaello da Montelupo; the other, San Cosimo, he commissioned II Frate Giovann’ Agnolo to prepare. The latter set himself to his labours with very great care accordingly, and made a large model of the figure, which was retouched in many parts by Buonarroti, or rather Michelagnolo himself made the head and arms in clay, these being still in Arezzo in the hands of Giorgio Vasari, who preserves them among his most valued possessions, as proof of his regard to the memory of so great a man. It is true that there are not wanting those who have censured Michelagnolo for that circumstance, saying that he had given evidence of but little judgment in confiding the commission for that statue to Giovann’ Agnolo, and had made a bad choice; yet the result proved not only that Michelagnolo Buonarroti had chosen most judiciously, but that the Frate was a very able man.

Having completed and erected in their places the statues of the Duke Lorenzo and of Giuliano, which he did with the assistance of Giovanni Agnolo, Michelagnolo was recalled by the Pope, who desired that he should make arrangements for the execution in marble of the façade of San Lorenzo; he returned to Rome therefore, but had not been there long before Pope Clement died, when all those undertakings were left unfinished. The statue of the Frate Giovann’ Agnolo was meanwhile given to public view at Florence with the rest; and, unfinished as it was. that work obtained very high commendation. Of a truth, indeed, whether it is to be