shows us ideal types of manhood and womanhood.




XVI

PORTRAIT


In the pictures of this collection we have learned something of the
work of Michelangelo as a sculptor and a painter. He was an artist
whose personality was so strongly impressed upon his work that we have
come thus to know, to a certain extent, the man himself. His, as we
have seen, was not a happy nature, and many of the circumstances of
his life conspired against his happiness.

In his early youth he seemed strangely aware of his own superior gifts
and was often so overbearing that he made enemies. The story is told
of a quarrel he had with a young man named Torrigiano, in whose
company he was copying some frescoes in a church in Florence. Stung by
some tormenting words of Michelangelo, Torrigiano retaliated with a
blow of the fist, which crushed his companion's nose, and disfigured
him for life.

Michelangelo's real education began in the palace of Lorenzo the
Magnificent, who discovered the lad's talent and made him a favorite.
"He sat at the same table with Ficino, Pico, and Poliziano, listening
to dialogues on Plato, and drinking in the golden poetry of Greece.
Greek literature and philosophy, expounded by the men who had