Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/260

248 and bore a bier on the shoulder: the other represented Cybele, who appeared to be weeping at her misfortune of being compelled to remain in a world deprived of all genius by the death of so great a man, while Heaven was smiling, because his soul had passed to the celestial regions. The fabric was so arranged that a free passage remained between the niches, the spectator passing in or out by the ends of the quadrangular edifice, which was of an oval form, and resembled a temple in that part destined to receive the dead body of Julius. Finally, there were to be added forty statues in marble, to say nothing of the numerous stories, angels, and other ornaments, or of the richly carved cornices and architectural decorations.

To forward the progress of the work, moreover, Michelagnolo had arranged that a portion of the marbles should be sent to Florence, where it was his custom to pass a part of the summer, by way of avoiding the malaria of Rome, and where he did in fact complete the several pieces required for one entire side of the monument. In Rome also he finished two of the captives, which were indeed divine, with some other statues, so good that better have never been seen. But as these figures were not used for the Tomb, Michelagnolo afterwards gave the two captives above-mentioned to the Signor Roberto Strozzi, in whose house he lay sick, and by whom they were sent to King Francis. They are now at Cevan ,in France. Our artist likewise commenced eight Statues in Rome with five in Florence, and finished a figure of Victory, with a prisoner lying beneath her feet. This is now in the possession of Duke Cosimo, to whom the group was presented by Leonardo, the nephew of Michelagnolo, and who has placed it in the Great Hall of his Palace painted by Vasari.

The Moses, in marble, five braccia high, was also completed by Michelagnolo, and never will any modern work approach the beauty of this statue; nay, one might with equal justice affirm, that of the ancient statues none is equal to this. Seated in an attitude of imposing dignity, the