When this was
done, whereas he and all of us present expected to find the corpse already
corrupted and defaced, inasmuch as Michael Angelo had been dead
twenty-five days and twenty-two in his coffin, lo! we beheld him instead
perfect in all his parts and without any evil odour; indeed, we might have
believed that he was resting in a sweet and very tranquil slumber. Not
only were the features of his face exactly the same as when he was in life
(except that the colour was a little like that of death), none of his
limbs were injured or repulsive; the head and cheeks to the touch felt as
though he had passed away only a few hours before. When the eagerness of
the multitude who crowded round had calmed down a little, the coffin was
deposited in the church, behind the altar of the Cavalcanti."
Those who would read of the gorgeous catafalque of stucco, woodwork, and
painting erected in the Church of San Lorenzo by the Academy, may do so in
the pages of Vasari, and in the book called "Esequie del Divino Michel
Angelo Buonarroti, celebrate in Firenze dall' Academia, &c., Firenze, i
Giunti, 1564," and Varchi's "Orazione Funerali," published by the same
house at the same date. The great artist is dead: let us leave him to his
rest in Santa Croce, the Westminster Abbey of his city and the church of
his ward.
Vasari received from Lionardo Buonarroti the commission to design the tomb
for Santa Croce. He did his best to get the Pieta now in the Duomo to
serve as the principal part of the monument, asserting that it had been
intended by Michael Angelo for his monument.
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