XXI. These works being finished, he had to return to Florence for family affairs; he stayed there long enough to carve the statue called by all men the Giant, which is placed to this day by the door of the Palazzo della Signoria at the end of the balustrade.28 The thing happened in this wise. The Operai29 of Santa Maria del Fiore possessed a piece of marble nine braccia high, which had been brought from Carrara by an artist30 who was not so wise as he ought to have been, as it appeared. Because to transport the marble with greater convenience and less labour, he had roughed it out on the quay itself in such a clumsy way, however, that neither he nor any one else had the courage to put their hands to the block to carve a statue out of it, either of the full size of the marble or [pg 28]even one very much less. As they were not able to get anything out of this piece of marble likely to be any good, it seemed to Andrea del Monte a San Savino, that he might obtain the block, and he asked them to make him a present of it, promising that by joining certain pieces on to it he would carve a figure from it; but the Operai, before disposing of it, sent for Michael Angelo, and told him the wish and offer of Andrea, and, having heard his opinion that he could get something good out of it, in the end they offered it to him. Michael Angelo accepted it, and extracted the above-mentioned statue without adding any other piece at all, so exactly to size that the old surface of the outsides of the marble may be seen on the top of the head and in the base. He has left the same roughnesses in other of his works, as that statue for the tomb of Pope Julius II., which represents Contemplative Life. This is the custom of great masters, lords of their art. But in the Giant it is more wonderful than ever, because, besides not adding any pieces, he amended the faults of the roughing out, an impossible or, at least, a most difficult thing to do (as Michael Angelo himself has said). He received four hundred ducats for this work, and finished it in eighteen months.

XXII. In order that no copy of the Giant should exist which was not his own handiwork, he had it cast in bronze, of the size of the original, for his good friend Pier Soderini, who sent it to France; and similarly he cast a David with Goliath under him. The one to be seen in the middle of the court-yard of the Palazzo de'Signori is by Donatello, a man excellent in his art, and much praised by Michael Angelo, except for one thing—he had not the [pg 29]patience to properly polish his works; so that in the distance they look admirable, but close to they lose their quality. Michael Angelo also cast a bronze group of the Madonna with her Son in her lap, which was sent into Flanders31 by certain Flemish merchants, the Moscheroni, great people at home; they paid him one hundred ducats for it. And, in order not altogether to give up painting, he executed a round panel of Our Lady32 for Messer Agnolo Doni, a Florentine citizen, for which he received seventy ducats.

XXIII. It was some time since he had worked at that art, having given himself up to the study of poets and authors in the vulgar tongue and writing sonnets for his own pleasure. After the death of Pope Alexander VI. he was called to Rome by Pope Julius II., and received a hundred ducats in Florence as his viaticum. At this time Michael Angelo was about twenty-nine years old; for if we count from his birth in 1474, already stated, to the death of the above Alexander, which was in 1503, we shall find the number of years as given.