relations with Domenico Ghirlandajo:  “He was fourteen years of age when he entered that master’s service, and inasmuch as one (Condivi), who composed his biography after 1550, when I had published these Lives for the first time, declares that certain persons, from want of familiarity with Michelangelo, have recorded things that did not happen, and have omitted others worthy of relation; and in particular has touched upon the point at issue, accusing Domenico of envy, and saying that he never rendered Michelangelo assistance.”—­Here Vasari, out of breath with indignation, appeals to the record of Lodovico’s contract with the Ghirlandajo brothers.  “These minutes,” he goes on to say, “I copied from the ledger, in order to show that everything I formerly published, or which will be published at the present time, is truth.  Nor am I acquainted with any one who had greater familiarity with Michelangelo than I had, or who served him more faithfully in friendly offices; nor do I believe that a single man could exhibit a larger number of letters written with his own hand, or evincing greater personal affection, than I can.”

This contention between Condivi and Vasari, our two contemporary authorities upon the facts of Michelangelo’s life, may not seem to be a matter of great moment for his biographer after the lapse of four centuries.  Yet the first steps in the art-career of so exceptional a genius possess peculiar interest.  It is not insignificant to ascertain, so far as now is possible, what Michelangelo owed to his teachers.  In equity, we acknowledge that Lodovico’s record on the ledger of the Ghirlandajo brothers proves their willingness to take him as a prentice, and their payment to him of two florins in advance; but the same record does not disprove Condivi’s statement, derived from his old master’s reminiscences, to the effect that Domenico Ghirlandajo was in no way greatly serviceable to him as an instructor.  The fault, in all probability, did not lie with Ghirlandajo alone.  Michelangelo, as we shall have occasions in plenty to observe, was difficult to live with; frank in speech to the point of rudeness, ready with criticism, incapable of governing his temper, and at no time apt to work harmoniously with fellow-craftsmen.  His extraordinary force and originality of genius made themselves felt, undoubtedly, at the very outset of his career; and Ghirlandajo may be excused if, without being positively jealous of the young eagle settled in his homely nest, he failed to do the utmost for this gifted and rough-natured child of promise.  Beethoven’s discontent with Haydn as a teacher offers a parallel; and sympathetic students of psychology will perceive that Ghirlandajo and Haydn were almost superfluous in the training of phenomenal natures like Michelangelo and Beethoven.