ancient or of modern art which touches the same lofty point of
excellence; and as I have already said, the design of the great Lionardo
was itself most admirably beautiful. These two cartoons stood, one in
the palace of the Medici, the other in the hall of the Pope. So long as
they remained intact, they were the school of the world. Though the
divine Michel Agnolo in later life finished that great chapel of Pope
Julius, [3] he never rose half-way to the same pitch of power; his
genius never afterwards attained to the force of those first studies.

Note 1. Torrigiani worked in fact for Henry VIII., and his monument to
Henry VII. still exists in the Lady Chapel of Westminster Abbey. From
England he went to Spain, where he modelled a statue of the Virgin for a
great nobleman. Not receiving the pay he expected, he broke his work to
pieces; for which act of sacrilege the Inquisition sent him to prison,
where he starved himself to death in 1522. Such at least is the legend
of his end.

Note 2. The cartoons to which Cellini here alludes were made by Michel
Angelo and Lionardo for the decoration of the Sala del Gran Consiglio in
the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence. Only the shadows of them remain to this
day; a part of Michel Angelo's, engraved by Schiavonetti, and a
transcript by Rubens from Lionardo's, called the Battle of the Standard.

Note 3. The Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.



XIII

NOW let us return to Piero Torrigiani, who, with my drawing in his hand,