in skill to himself, and had determined to punish him. One day,
Buonarotti came into the chapel as usual, and whistled and sneered at
a copy which Torregiani was making. The aggrieved artist, a man of
large proportions, very truculent of aspect, with a loud voice and a
savage frown, sprang upon his critic, and dealt him such a blow upon
the nose, that the bone and cartilage yielded under his hand,
according to his own account, as if they had been made of
dough,--_"come se fosse stato un cialdone."_ This was when both
were very young men; but Torregiani, when relating the story many
years afterwards, always congratulated himself that Buonarotti would
bear the mark of the blow all his life. It may be added, that the
bully met a hard fate afterwards. Having executed a statue in Spain
for a grandee, he was very much outraged by receiving only thirty
scudi as his reward, and accordingly smashed the statue to pieces with
a sledge-hammer. In revenge, the Spaniard accused him of heresy, so
that the unlucky artist was condemned to the flames by the
Inquisition, and only escaped that horrible death by starving himself
in prison before the execution.


VII.

SANTA TRINITÀ.

In the chapel of the Sassetti, in this church, is a good set of
frescos by Dominic Ghirlandaio, representing passages from the life of
Saint Francis. They are not so masterly as his compositions in the
Santa Maria Novella. Moreover, they are badly placed, badly lighted,
and badly injured. They are in a northwestern corner, where light
never comes that comes to all. The dramatic power and Flemish skill in