The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti | Page 6

and Vasari relate that, during his apprenticeship to
Ghirlandajo, Michelangelo demonstrated his technical ability by
producing perfect copies of ancient drawings, executing the facsimile

with consummate truth of line, and then dirtying the paper so as to pass
it off as the original of some old master. "His only object," adds Vasari,
"was to keep the originals, by giving copies in exchange; seeing that he
admired them as specimens of art, and sought to surpass them by his
own handling; and in doing this he acquired great renown." We may
pause to doubt whether at the present time--in the case, for instance, of
Shelley letters or Rossetti drawings--clever forgeries would be accepted
as so virtuous and laudable. But it ought to be remembered that a
Florentine workshop at that period contained masses of accumulated
designs, all of which were more or less the common property of the
painting firm. No single specimen possessed a high market value. It
was, in fact, only when art began to expire in Italy, when Vasari
published his extensive necrology and formed his famous collection of
drawings, that property in a sketch became a topic for moral casuistry.
Of Michelangelo's own work at this early period we possess probably
nothing except a rough scrawl on the plaster of a wall at Settignano.
Even this does not exist in its original state. The Satyr which is still
shown there may, according to Mr. Heath Wilson's suggestion, be a
rifacimento from the master's hand at a subsequent period of his career.
V
Condivi and Vasari differ considerably in their accounts of
Michelangelo's departure from Ghirlandajo's workshop. The former
writes as follows: "So then the boy, now drawing one thing and now
another, without fixed place or steady line of study, happened one day
to be taken by Granacci into the garden of the Medici at San Marco,
which garden the magnificent Lorenzo, father of Pope Leo, and a man
of the first intellectual distinction, had adorned with antique statues and
other reliques of plastic art. When Michelangelo saw these things and
felt their beauty, he no longer frequented Domenico's shop, nor did he
go elsewhere, but, judging the Medicean gardens to be the best school,
spent all his time and faculties in working there." Vasari reports that it
was Lorenzo's wish to raise the art of sculpture in Florence to the same
level as that of painting; and for this reason he placed Bertoldo, a pupil
and follower of Donatello, over his collections, with a special

commission to aid and instruct the young men who used them. With the
same intention of forming an academy or school of art, Lorenzo went to
Ghirlandajo, and begged him to select from his pupils those whom he
considered the most promising. Ghirlandajo accordingly drafted off
Francesco Granacci and Michelangelo Buonarroti. Since Michelangelo
had been formally articled by his father to Ghirlandajo in 1488, he can
hardly have left that master in 1489 as unceremoniously as Condivi
asserts. Therefore we may, I think, assume that Vasari upon this point
has preserved the genuine tradition.
Having first studied the art of design and learned to work in colours
under the supervision of Ghirlandajo, Michelangelo now had his native
genius directed to sculpture. He began with the rudiments of
stone-hewing, blocking out marbles designed for the Library of San
Lorenzo, and acquiring that practical skill in the manipulation of the
chisel which he exercised all through his life. Condivi and Vasari agree
in relating that a copy he made for his own amusement from an antique
Faun first brought him into favourable notice with Lorenzo. The boy
had begged a piece of refuse marble, and carved a grinning mask,
which he was polishing when the Medici passed by. The great man
stopped to examine the work, and recognised its merit. At the same
time he observed with characteristic geniality: "Oh, you have made this
Faun quite old, and yet have left him all his teeth! Do you not know
that men of that great age are always wanting in one or two?"
Michelangelo took the hint, and knocked a tooth out from the upper
jaw. When Lorenzo saw how cleverly he had performed the task, he
resolved to provide for the boy's future and to take him into his own
household. So, having heard whose son he was, "Go," he said, "and tell
your father that I wish to speak with him."
A mask of a grinning Faun may still be seen in the sculpture-gallery of
the Bargello at Florence, and the marble is traditionally assigned to
Michelangelo. It does not exactly correspond to the account given by
Condivi and Vasari; for the mouth shows only two large tusk-like teeth,
with the tip of the tongue protruding between them. Still, there is no
reason to