beneath the walls of the Palazzo.  Another woodcut shows an angle of the Casa Medici in Via Larga, girls dancing the carola upon the street below, one with a wreath and thyrsus kneeling, another presenting the Magnificent with a book of loveditties.  The burden of all this poetry was:  “Gather ye roses while ye may, cast prudence to the winds, obey your instincts.”  There is little doubt that Michelangelo took part in these pastimes; for we know that he was devoted to poetry, not always of the gravest kind.  An anecdote related by Cellini may here be introduced, since it illustrates the Florentine customs I have been describing.  “Luigi Pulci was a young man who possessed extraordinary gifts for poetry, together with sound Latin scholarship.  He wrote well, was graceful in manners, and of surpassing personal beauty.  While he was yet a lad and living in Florence, it was the habit of folk in certain places of the city to meet together during the nights of summer on the open streets, and he, ranking among the best of the improvisatori, sang there.  His recitations were so admirable that the divine Michelangelo, that prince of sculptors and of painters, went, wherever he heard that he would be, with the greatest eagerness and delight to listen to him.  There was a man called Piloto, a goldsmith, very able in his art, who, together with myself, joined Buonarroti upon these occasions.”  In like manner, the young Michelangelo probably attended those nocturnal gatherings upon the steps of the Duomo which have been so graphically described by Doni:  “The Florentines seem to me to take more pleasure in summer airings than any other folk; for they have, in the square of S. Liberata, between the antique temple of Mars, now the Baptistery, and that marvellous work of modern architecture, the Duomo:  they have, I say, certain steps of marble, rising to a broad flat space, upon which the youth of the city come and lay themselves full length during the season of extreme heat.  The place is fitted for its purpose, because a fresh breeze is always blowing, with the blandest of all air, and the flags of white marble usually retain a certain coolness.  There then I seek my chiefest solace, when, taking my aerial flights, I sail invisibly above them; see and hear their doings and discourses:  and forasmuch as they are endowed with keen and elevated understanding, they always have a thousand charming things to relate; as novels, intrigues, fables; they discuss duels, practical jokes, old stories, tricks played off by men and women on each other:  things, each and all, rare, witty, noble, decent and in proper taste.  I can swear that during all the hours I spent in listening to their nightly dialogues, I never heard a word that was not comely and of good repute.  Indeed, it seemed to me very remarkable, among such crowds of young men, to overhear nothing but virtuous conversation.”