I have thought it worth while to introduce this general review of
Michelangelo's habits, without omitting some details which may seem
repulsive to the modern reader, at an early period of his biography,
because we ought to carry with us through the vicissitudes of his long
career and many labours an accurate conception of our hero's
personality. For this reason it may not be unprofitable to repeat what
Condivi says about his physical appearance in the last years of his
life. "Michelangelo is of a good complexion; more muscular and bony
than fat or fleshy in his person: healthy above all things, as well by
reason of his natural constitution as of the exercise he takes, and
habitual continence in food and sexual indulgence. Nevertheless, he
was a weakly child, and has suffered two illnesses in manhood. His
countenance always showed a good and wholesome colour. Of stature he
is as follows: height middling; broad in the shoulders; the rest of
the body somewhat slender in proportion. The shape of his face is
oval, the space above the ears being one sixth higher than a
semicircle. Consequently the temples project beyond the ears, and the
ears beyond the cheeks, and these beyond the rest; so that the skull,
in relation to the whole head, must be called large. The forehead,
seen in front, is square; the nose, a little flattened--not by nature,
but because, when he was a young boy, Torrigiano de' Torrigiani, a
brutal and insolent fellow, smashed in the cartilage with his fist.
Michelangelo was carried home half dead on this occasion; and
Torrigiano, having been exiled from Florence for his violence, came to
a bad end. The nose, however, being what it is, bears a proper
proportion to the forehead and the rest of the face. The lips are
thin, but the lower is slightly thicker than the upper; so that, seen
in profile, it projects a little. The chin is well in harmony with the
features I have described. The forehead, in a side-view, almost hangs
over the nose; and this looks hardly less than broken, were it not for