The lower figure is still left in the rough, and is supposed to
be like the artist. The head of the upper figure is so dull that it cannot
have been carved by the sculptor who finished the torso so exquisitely. It
may have been left a mere block, like the head of one of the captives of
the Boboli. The man who carved the head, and also worked on other portions
of the group, turned the neck round too much. If we imagine the head less
turned and looking down towards the crouching figure, conquered by the
young genius of beauty and victory, we shall see the grace in the pose of
the torso to greater advantage. We imagine a somewhat similar story for
the figure in the Bargello, called the Adonis. The boar cannot be by
Michael Angelo's hand, and, indeed, very little of the figure suggests his
grasp of plastic possibilities; the figure cannot have been much more than
blocked out by him, and was finished after his death by some artist of the
type of Vincenzio Danti.
CHAPTER X
THE CHAPEL OF POPE PAUL, AND THE PIETA OF SANTA MARIA DEL FIORE
Michael Angelo wrote a number of sonnets and made many drawings for his
friends, especially for the Marchioness of Pescara and Messer Tomaso dei
Cavalieri, a noble Roman gentleman. For him they were generally subjects
from Greek and Roman mythology, but for the Marchioness the drawings
always represented episodes from the story of the Passion of our Lord. A
Pieta, drawn for this lady, was engraved by Giulio Bonasoni and Tudius
Bononiensis in 1546.
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