“The countenance of this figure is the most revolting mistake of the spirit and meaning of Bacchus.  It looks drunken, brutal, and narrow-minded, and has an expression of dissoluteness the most revolting.  The lower part of the figure is stiff, and the manner in which the shoulders are united to the breast, and the neck to the head, abundantly inharmonious.  It is altogether without unity, as was the idea of the deity of Bacchus in the conception of a Catholic.  On the other hand, considered merely as a piece of workmanship, it has great merits.  The arms are executed in the most perfect and manly beauty; the body is conceived with great energy, and the lines which describe the sides and thighs, and the manner in which they mingle into one another, are of the highest order of boldness and beauty.  It wants, as a work of art, unity and simplicity; as a representation of the Greek deity of Bacchus, it wants everything.”

Jacopo Gallo is said to have also purchased a Cupid from Michelangelo.  It has been suggested, with great plausibility, that this Cupid was the piece which Michelangelo began when Piero de’ Medici’s commission fell through, and that it therefore preceded the Bacchus in date of execution.  It has also been suggested that the so-called Cupid at South Kensington is the work in question.  We have no authentic information to guide us in the matter.  But the South Kensington Cupid is certainly a production of the master’s early manhood.  It was discovered some forty years ago, hidden away in the cellars of the Gualfonda (Rucellai) Gardens at Florence, by Professor Miliarini and the famous Florentine sculptor Santarelli.  On a cursory inspection they both declared it to be a genuine Michelangelo.  The left arm was broken, the right hand damaged, and the hair had never received the sculptor’s final touches.  Santarelli restored the arm, and the Cupid passed by purchase into the possession of the English nation.  This fine piece of sculpture is executed in Michelangelo’s proudest, most dramatic manner.  The muscular young man of eighteen, a model of superb adolescence, kneels upon his right knee, while the right hand is lowered to lift an arrow from the ground.  The left hand is raised above the head, and holds the bow, while the left leg is so placed, with the foot firmly pressed upon the ground, as to indicate that in a moment the youth will rise, fit the shaft to the string, and send it whistling at his adversary.  This choice of a momentary attitude is eminently characteristic of Michelangelo’s style; and, if we are really to believe that he intended to portray the god of love, it offers another instance of his independence of classical tradition.  No Greek would have thus represented Eros.  The lyric poets, indeed, Ibycus and Anacreon, imaged him as a fierce invasive deity, descending like the whirlwind on an oak, or striking at his victim with an axe.  But these romantic ideas did not find expression, so far as I am aware,