Buonarotti employed in rendering worship to such creatures. This
Lorenzo is chiefly known as having married Madeleine de Boulogne, and
as having died, as well as his wife, of a nameless disorder,
immediately after they had engendered the renowned Catharine de'
Medici, whose hideous life was worthy of its corrupt and poisoned
source.

Did Michel Angelo look upon his subject as a purely imaginary one?
Surely he must have had some definite form before his mental vision;
for although sculpture cannot, like painting, tell an elaborate story,
still each figure must have a moral and a meaning, must show cause for
its existence, and indicate a possible function, or the mind of the
spectator is left empty and craving.

Here, at the tomb of Lorenzo, are three masterly figures. An heroic,
martial, deeply contemplative figure sits in grand repose. A
statesman, a sage, a patriot, a warrior, with countenance immersed in
solemn thought, and head supported and partly hidden by his hand, is
brooding over great recollections and mighty deeds. Was this Lorenzo,
the husband of Madeleine, the father of Catharine? Certainly the mind
at once dethrones him from his supremacy upon his own tomb, and
substitutes an Epaminondas, a Cromwell, a Washington,--what it
wills. 'Tis a godlike apparition, and need be called by no mortal
name. We feel unwilling to invade the repose of that majestic reverie
by vulgar invocation. The hero, nameless as he must ever remain, sits
there in no questionable shape, nor can we penetrate the sanctuary of
that marble soul. Till we can summon Michel, with his chisel, to add
the finishing strokes to the grave, silent face of the naked figure
reclining below the tomb, or to supply the lacking left hand to the
colossal form of female beauty sitting upon the opposite sepulchre, we