Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/356

344 to look like marble, which appeared to him to be most excellent productions; and as that sculptor did not know how to work in marble, he said, “If this earth were to become marble, woe to the antiques.”

Michelagnolo was told that he ought to resent the perpetual competition of Nanni di Baccio Bigio, to which he replied: “He who strives with those who have nothing gains but little.” A priest, who was his friend, said to him, “’Tis a pity that you have not married, that you might have left children to inherit the fruit of these honourable toils when Michelagnolo replied, “I have only too much of a wife in my art, and she has given me trouble enough; as to my children, they are the works that I shall leave; and if they are not worth much, they will at least live for some time. Woe to Lorenzo Ghiberti, if he had not made the gates of San Giovanni; for his children and grandchildren have sold or squandered all that he left; but the gates are still in their place.” Vasari was sent one night by Pope Julius III. to the house of Michelagnolo for a design, and the master was then working at the Pieta in marble which he afterwards broke, knowing by the knock, who stood at the door, he descended with a lamp in his hand, and having ascertained what Vasari wanted, he sent Urbino for the drawing, and fell into conversation on other matters. Vasari meanwhile turned his eyes on a Leg of the Christ on which Michelagnolo was working and endeavouring to alter it; but to prevent Vasari from seeing this, he suffered the lamp to fall from his hand, and they remained in darkness. He then called to Urbino to bring a light, and stepping beyond the enclosure in which was the work, he remarked: “I am so old that death often pulls me by the cape, and bids me go with him; some day I shall fall myself, like this lamp, and the light of life will be extinguished.”

With all this he took pleasure in the society of men like Menighella, a rude person and common-place painter of Valdarno, but a pleasant fellow; he came sometimes to see Michelagnolo, who made him a design of San Eocco and Sant’ Antonio, which he had to paint for the country people; and this master, who would not work for kings without entreaty, often laid aside all other occupation to make designs of some simple matter for Menighella, ‘‘ dressed after his own mind and fashion,” as the latter would say. Among other