his stores of knowledge.  He always did so to his personal friends, and to all who sought his advice.  It ought, however, to be mentioned that he was not lucky in the craftsmen who lived with him, since chance brought him into contact with people unfitted to profit by his example.  Pietro Urbano of Pistoja was a man of talent but no industry.  Antonio Mini had the will but not the brains, and hard wax takes a bad impression.  Ascanio dalla Ripa Transone (i.e., Condivi) took great pains, but brought nothing to perfection either in finished work or in design.  He laboured many years upon a picture for which Michelangelo supplied the drawing.  At last the expectations based upon this effort vanished into smoke.  I remember that Michelangelo felt pity for his trouble, and helped him with his own hand.  Nothing, however, came of it.  He often told me that if he had found a proper subject he should have liked, old as he was, to have recommended anatomy, and to have written on it for the use of his workmen.  However, he distrusted his own powers of expressing what he wanted in writing, albeit his letters show that he could easily put forth his thoughts in a few brief words.”

About Michelangelo’s kindness to his pupils and servants there is no doubt.  We have only to remember his treatment of Pietro Urbano and Antonio Mini, Urbino and Condivi, Tiberio Calcagni and Antonio del Franzese.  A curious letter from Michelangelo to Andrea Quarantesi, which I have quoted in another connection, shows that people were eager to get their sons placed under his charge.  The inedited correspondence in the Buonarroti Archives abounds in instances illustrating the reputation he had gained for goodness.  We have two grateful letters from a certain Pietro Bettino in Castel Durante speaking very warmly of Michelangelo’s attention to his son Cesare.  Two to the same effect from Amilcare Anguissola in Cremona acknowledge services rendered to his daughter Sofonisba, who was studying design in Rome.  Pietro Urbano wrote twenty letters between the years 1517 and 1525, addressing him in terms like “carissimo quanto padre.”  After recovering from his illness at Pistoja, he expresses the hope that he will soon be back again at Florence (September 18, 1519):  “Dearest to me like the most revered of fathers, I send you salutations, announcing that I am a little better, but not yet wholly cured of that flux; still I hope before many days are over to find myself at Florence.”  A certain Silvio Falcone, who had been in his service, and who had probably been sent away because of some misconduct, addressed a letter from Rome to him in Florence, which shows both penitence and warm affection.  “I am and shall always be a good servant to you in every place where I may be.  Do not remember my stupidity in those past concerns, which I know that, being a prudent man, you will not impute to malice.  If you were to do so, this would cause me the greatest sorrow; for I desire nothing but to