Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/244

232 because all the gifts of nature were in him enhanced, and strengthened by study and exercise, wherefore he daily produced works of increased excellence, as began clearly to be made manifest in the copy which he made of a plate engraved by the German Martino, and which procured him a very great name. This engraving was one which had just then been brought to Florence, and represented St. Anthony tormented by devils. It is a copper-plate, and Michelagnolo copied it with a pen, in such a manner as had never before been seen. He painted it in colours also; and, the better to imitate the strange forms of some among those devils, he bought fish which had scales somewhat resembling those on the demons; in this painted copy also he displayed so much ability that his credit and reputation were greatly increased thereby. He likewise copied plates from the hands of many old masters, in such sort that the copies could not be distinguished from the originals, for Michelagnolo had tinged and given the former an appearance of age with smoke and other things, so that he had made them look old, and when they were compared with the original, no difference could be perceived. All this he did, that he might give his own copies in the place of the old works which he desired to possess from the hand of their authors, admiring in them the excellence of art and seeking to surpass them, when engaged in the execution of his own works; by which he acquired a very great name.

Lorenzo the Magnificent retained at that time the Sculptor Bertoldo at his garden on the Piazza, not so much as Curator and Guardian of the many fine antiquities collected there at great cost, as because Lorenzo desired to form a good School of Painters and Sculptors; wherefore he wished that the students should have for their chief, and guide the abovenamed Bertoldo, who had been a disciple of Donato. It is true that he was old and could not work, but he was an able and highly reputed artist, not only for the ability and diligence which he had shown in polishing the bronze pulpits of Donato his master, but also for the numerous casts in bronze of battle-pieces and other smaller works, which he had executed for himself, and in the treatment of which there was then no one in Florence who could surpass him.