Michelangelo, being a true artist, anxious only for the presentation of his subject, seems to have remained indifferent to its moral quality.  Whether it was a crucifixion, or a congress of the swan with Leda, or a rape of Ganymede, or the murder of Holofernes in his tent, or the birth of Eve, he sought to seize the central point in the situation, and to accentuate its significance by the inexhaustible means at his command for giving plastic form to an idea.  Those, however, who have paid attention to his work will discover that he always found emotional quality corresponding to the nature of the subject.  His ways of handling religious and mythological motives differ in sentiment, and both are distinguished from his treatment of dramatic episodes.  The man’s mind made itself a mirror to reflect the vision gloating over it; he cared not what that vision was, so long as he could render it in lines of plastic harmony, and express the utmost of the feeling which the theme contained.

Among the many statues left unfinished by Michelangelo is one belonging to this period of his life.  “In order to ingratiate himself with Baccio Valori,” says Vasari, “he began a statue of three cubits in marble.  It was an Apollo drawing a shaft from his quiver.  This he nearly finished.  It stands now in the chamber of the Prince of Florence; a thing of rarest beauty, though not quite completed.”  This noble piece of sculpture illustrates the certainty and freedom of the master’s hand.  Though the last touches of the chisel are lacking, every limb palpitates and undulates with life.  The marble seems to be growing into flesh beneath the hatched lines left upon its surface.  The pose of the young god, full of strength and sinewy, is no less admirable for audacity than for ease and freedom.  Whether Vasari was right in his explanation of the action of this figure may be considered more than doubtful.  Were we not accustomed to call it an Apollo, we should rather be inclined to class it with the Slaves of the Louvre, to whom in feeling and design it bears a remarkable resemblance.  Indeed, it might be conjectured with some probability that, despairing of bringing his great design for the tomb of Julius to a conclusion, he utilised one of the projected captives for his present to the all-powerful vizier of the Medicean tyrants.  It ought, in conclusion, to be added, that there was nothing servile in Michelangelo’s desire to make Valori his friend.  He had accepted the political situation; and we have good reason, from letters written at a later date by Valori from Rome, to believe that this man took a sincere interest in the great artist.  Moreover, Varchi, who is singularly severe in his judgment on the agents of the Medici, expressly states that Baccio Valori was “less cruel than the other Palleschi, doing many and notable services to some persons out of kindly feeling, and to others for money (since he had little and spent much); and this he was well able to perform, seeing he was then the lord of Florence, and the first citizens of the land paid court to him and swelled his train.”