uncovered.

* * * * *

Michelangelo was the firstborn in a large family. Simone Buonarroti, his
father, belonged to an ebbtide branch of the nobility that had lost
everything but the memory of great ancestors turned to dust. This father
had ambitions for his boy; ambitions in the line of the army or a snug
office under the wing of the State, where he might, by following closely
the beck and nod of the prince in power, become a magistrate or a keeper
of customs.

But no boy ever disappointed a proud father more.

When great men in gilt and gold braid, with scarlet sashes across their
breasts, and dangling swords that clicked and clanged on the stone
pavement, strode by, rusty, dusty little Michel refused to take off his
cap and wish them "Long life and God's favor," as his father ordered.
Instead, he hid behind his mother's gown and made faces. His father used
to say he was about as homely as he could be without making faces, and if
he didn't watch out he would get his face crooked some day and couldn't
get it back.

Simone Buonarroti had qualities very Micawber-like mixed in his clay, and
the way he cringed and crawled may have had something to do with setting
the son on the other tack.

The mother was only nineteen when Michel was born, and although the
moralists talk much about woman's vanity and extravagance, the theory
gets no backing from this quarter. She was a plain woman in appearance,