Or likest hovering dreams,
The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.
But hail! thou Goddess sage and holy,
Hail, divinest Melancholy!"

Lorenzo's statue stands in a niche above the sarcophagus, or stone
coffin, in which his body was laid. On the top of the sarcophagus are
two reclining figures called Dawn and Twilight. The tomb itself is in
a chapel, or sacristy, called the New Sacristy (to distinguish it from
one still older), in the Church of S. Lorenzo, Florence. The entire
sacristy is devoted to the memory of the Medici family, who had for
several generations been benefactors of this church.

Now Michelangelo had a great deal to do with this family first and
last, and his work on the tomb has an additional interest on this
account. It was to Lorenzo the Magnificent that he owed his first
start as a sculptor in an academy founded by this prince. He so
pleased his patron that he was received into the duke's own household,
and treated almost like a son. Years passed; Lorenzo had long been
dead, when, one after another, two members of the same family came to
the papal throne, and they desired to honor their name by employing
the greatest sculptor of Italy in this monumental work.

So Michelangelo began designs for the sacristy, the entire decoration
of which was intrusted to him. The walls of the rooms were panelled
with marble, set with niches, in the form of windows, in which the
statues were to be placed.

As the work proceeded, it was interrupted by some strange incidents,
of which we shall hear later. The whole plan was never fully carried