limbs, herculean muscles that seemed fit to support the
universe. These allegories are made of hundreds of figures. To-day
they are still there, though dimmed by the smoke of centuries of
incense, and dismembered by the cracking of plaster and disintegration
of materials.

Angelo's methods of work, as well as their results, were
oppressive. In his youth, while trying to perfect himself in his study
of the human form, he drew or modelled, from nude corpses. He had
these conveyed by stealth from the hospital into the convent of Santo
Spirito, where he had a cell and there he worked, alone.

He was concentrated, mentally and emotionally, upon himself. The only
remark he made after the blow from Torregiano was, "You will be
remembered only as the man who broke my nose!" This proved nearly
true, since Torregiano was banished, and murdered by the Spanish
Inquisition.

All sorts of anecdotes have floated through the centuries concerning
this man and his work. For example, he made a statue of a sleeping
cupid, which was buried in the ground for a time that it might assume
the appearance of age, and pass for an antique. Afterward it was sold
to the Cardinal San Giorgio for two hundred ducats, though Michael
Angelo received only thirty. Nevertheless, he died a rich man, after
having cared for a numerous family, while he himself lived like a man
without means. All the tranquillity he ever knew he enjoyed in his old
age.

It was characteristic of his perversity that he left his name upon
nothing that he made, with one exception. Vasari relates the story of