Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/366

354 beloved and admired. For all these causes, that demonstration was more precious and more truthful than all the pomp of gold and banners that could have been displayed. When the remains, with this magnificent attendance, had been carried to Santa Croce, the Monks performed the ceremonies customary for the dead; when the corpse was removed (but not without the greatest difficulty, because of the concourse of people) to the Sacrist}^, where the abovenamed Prorector, who was there by virtue of his office, thinking to gratify many thereby, and also (as he afterwards confessed) desirous of seeing him dead whom he had not seen living, or at so early an age that he had lost all memory of him; the Prorector, I say, resolved to have the cerements taken off. This was done accordingly, and whereas he, and all of us who were present, expected to find the body decomposed, since the master had been dead twenty-five days, and twenty-two in the coffin, we found it altogether perfect, and so totally free from odour that we were almost tempted to believe he lay in a sweet and quiet sleep. The features were exactly as in life, except that they showed the pallor of death; the limbs were unaltered, and the face and cheeks were firm to the touch, as though but a few days had elapsed sihce Michelagnolo had passed away.

When the great press of people had departed, arrangements were made for placing the body in a tomb of the church which is near the altar of the Cavalcanti family, beside the door leading into the cloister of the Chapter House. But meanwhile the news had spread through the city, and so great a concourse hastened to look upon the corpse, that the tomb was not closed without much difficulty, and if it had been day instead of night, we must have left it open many hours to satisfy the general wish. On the following morning, while the painters and sculptors were preparing the solemnities, many of those distinguished persons who have ever abounded in Florence, began to append verses, both in Latin