he was employed by him in the Sistine Chapel. Giuliano had that happily
constructed mind which, with an ineffable content in its own works,
will pass through life perfectly happy in the feeling that in reaching
mediocrity it has achieved success. Not only wanting talent to produce
better works, he lacked also the faculty of perceiving where his own
were faulty, and having a great aptitude for copying the works of
others, he felt himself as great as the original artists. Michelangelo
was always amused with his naive self-conceit, and kept up a friendship
with him for many years. He even went so far as to sit to Bugiardini
for his likeness, at the request of Ottaviano de' Medici. Giuliano,
having painted and talked nonsense for two hours, at last exclaimed, to
his sitter's great relief, "Now, Michelangelo, come and look at
yourself; I have caught your very expression." But what was
Michelangelo's horror to see himself depicted with eyes which were
neither straight nor a pair! The worthy artist looked from his work to
the original, and declared he could see no difference between them, on
which Michelangelo, shrugging his shoulders, said, "It must be a defect
of nature," and bade his friend go on with it. This charming portrait
was presented to Ottaviano de' Medici, with that of _Pope Clement
VII._, copied from Sebastian del Piombo, and is now in the Louvre.
Bugiardini's works always take the style of other masters. There is a
_Madonna_ in the Uffizi, and one in the Leipsic Museum, both in
Leonardo's style, with his defects exaggerated. The former is a sickly
woman in a sentimental attitude, the child rather heavy, the colouring
is bright and well fused; he has evidently adopted the method which he
had seen Albertinelli use in his studio.

During a stay in Bologna he painted a _Madonna and Saints_ as an
altar-piece for the church of S. Francesco, besides a _Marriage of S.
Catherine_, now in the Bologna Pinacoteca. The composition of this