This he did to please the Prior, who had given him a
room wherein he dissected many dead bodies, zealously studying
anatomy." (Vasari.)
A pen drawing at Oxford shows us two students studying anatomy at
night; the body of the subject supports the torch; one student holds
a pair of compasses in his right hand for measuring the proportions.
21 Michael Angelo left Bologna hastily under fear of personal violence
from the sculptors and native craftsmen, who said he was taking the
bread out of their mouths, rather a strong compliment to a boy of
twenty.
22 The dealer Baldassari del Milanese paid Michael Angelo thirty ducats
for this work, and sold it to Raffaello Riario, Cardinal di San
Giorgio, as an antique for two hundred ducats, an evidence, not of
the Cardinal's foolishness, but of Michael Angelo's careful study of
the antique.
23 The Cardinal S. Giorgio made Messer Baldassari refund the two
hundred ducats and take the Cupid back, so Michael Angelo got
nothing for his journey. Cesare Borgia presented this Cupid to
Guidobaldo di Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino. After Cesare Borgia
sacked the town of Urbino in 1592 he sent the Cupid to the
Marchioness of Mantua, who wrote on July 22, 1592, describing the
Cupid as "without a peer among the works of modern times." There is
a sleeping Cupid at Mantua in the Museo Civico, but it is not by
Michael Angelo.
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