Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/357

Rh things Menighella received from him the model of a Crucifix, which was most beautiful; he formed a mould from this also, whence Menighella made copies in various substances, and went about the country selling them. This man would sometimes make Michelagnolo laugh till he cried, more especially when he related the adventures he met with; as, for example, how a peasant, who had ordered the figure of San Francesco, made complaints that the painter had given him a grey dress, he desiring to have a finer colour, when Menighella put a pluvial of brocade on the back of the Saint, which gladdened the peasant to his heart.

He favoured, in like manner, the stone-cutter Topolino, who imagined himself an excellent sculptor, although, in fact, a very poor creature. He passed much time at the quarries of Carrara, sending marbles to Michelagnolo, nor did he ever despatch a cargo without adding three or four little figures from his own hand, at the sight of which Michelagnolo would almost die of laughing. At length, and after his return, he had rough-hewn a figure of Mercury in marble, which he was on the point of finishing, v/hen he begged Michelagnolo to go and see it, insisting earnestly that he should give his true opinion of the work. ‘‘ Thou art a fool to attempt figures, Topolino,” said the master; “for dost thou not see that, from the knee to the foot, this Mercury of thine wants a full third of a braccio of its due length? and thou hast made him a dwarf and a cripple?” “Oh, that is nothing,” replied Topolino, “if it has no other fault I shall find a remedy for that, never fear me.” The master laughed again at his simplicity and departed; when Topolino, sawing his Mercury in two below the knee, fastened a piece of marble nicely between the parts, and having thus added the length required, he gave the figure a pair of buskins, the fastenings of which passed beyond the junctures. He then summoned the master once more; and Michelagnolo could not but wonder as well as laugh, when he saw the resolutions of which those untaught persons are capable, when driven by their needs, and which would certainly never be taken by the best of masters.

While Michelagnolo was concluding the Tomb of Julius II., he permitted a stone-cutter to execute a terminal figure, which he desired to put up in San Pietro in Vincola, directing him meanwhile by telling him daily, “Cut away here,”—