During the first year of his residence in Rome (between July 2, 1496, and August 19, 1497) Michelangelo must have made some money, else he could not have bought marble and have worked upon his own account.  Vasari asserts that he remained nearly twelve months in the household of the Cardinal, and that he only executed a drawing of S. Francis receiving the stigmata, which was coloured by a barber in S. Giorgio’s service, and placed in the Church of S. Pietro a Montorio.  Benedetto Varchi describes this picture as having been painted by Buonarroti’s own hand.  We know nothing more for certain about it.  How he earned his money is therefore, unexplained, except upon the supposition that S. Giorgio, unintelligent as he may have been in his patronage of art, paid him for work performed.  I may here add that the Piero de’ Medici who gave the commission mentioned in the last quotation was the exiled head of the ruling family.  Nothing had to be expected from such a man.  He came to Rome in order to be near the Cardinal Giovanni, and to share this brother’s better fortunes; but his days and nights were spent in debauchery among the companions and accomplices of shameful riot.

Michelangelo, in short, like most young artists, was struggling into fame and recognition.  Both came to him by the help of a Roman gentleman and banker, Messer Jacopo Gallo.  It so happened that an intimate Florentine friend of Buonarroti, the Baldassare Balducci mentioned at the end of his letter to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, was employed in Gallo’s house of business.  It is probable, therefore, that this man formed the link of connection between the sculptor and his new patron.  At all events, Messer Gallo purchased a Bacchus, which now adorns the sculpture-gallery of the Bargello, and a Cupid, which may possibly be the statue at South Kensington.

Condivi says that this gentleman, “a man of fine intelligence, employed him to execute in his own house a marble Bacchus, ten palms in height, the form and aspect of which correspond in all parts to the meaning of ancient authors.  The face of the youth is jocund, the eyes wandering and wanton, as is the wont with those who are too much addicted to a taste for wine.  In his right hand he holds a cup, lifting it to drink, and gazing at it like one who takes delight in that liquor, of which he was the first discoverer.  For this reason, too, the sculptor has wreathed his head with vine-tendrils.  On his left arm hangs a tiger-skin, the beast dedicated to Bacchus, as being very partial to the grape.  Here the artist chose rather to introduce the skin than the animal itself, in order to hint that sensual indulgence in the pleasure of the grape-juice leads at last to loss of life.  With the hand of this arm he holds a bunch of grapes, which a little satyr, crouched below him, is eating on the sly with glad and eager gestures.  The child may seem to be seven years, the Bacchus eighteen of age.”  This description is comparatively correct, except