Vasari adds that Michelangelo began another Pieta in marble on a much smaller scale.  It is possible that this may have been the unfinished group of two figures (a dead Christ sustained by a bending man), of which there is a cast in the Accademia at Florence.  In some respects the composition of this fragment bears a strong resemblance to the puzzling Deposition from the Cross in our National Gallery.  The trailing languor of the dead Christ’s limbs is almost identical in the marble and the painting.

While speaking of these several Pietas, I must not forget the medallion in high relief of the Madonna clasping her dead Son, which adorns the Albergo dei Poveri at Genoa.  It is ascribed to Michelangelo, was early believed to be his, and is still accepted without hesitation by competent judges.  In spite of its strongly marked Michelangelesque mannerism, both as regards feeling, facial type, and design, I cannot regard the bas-relief, in its present condition at least, as a genuine work, but rather as the production of some imitator, or the rifacimento of a restorer.  A similar impression may here be recorded regarding the noble portrait-bust in marble of Pope Paul III. at Naples.  This too has been attributed to Michelangelo.  But there is no external evidence to support the tradition, while the internal evidence from style and technical manipulation weighs strongly against it.  The medallions introduced upon the heavily embroidered cope are not in his style.  The treatment of the adolescent female form in particular indicates a different temperament.  Were the ascription made to Benvenuto Cellini, we might have more easily accepted it.  But Cellini would certainly have enlarged upon so important a piece of sculpture in his Memoirs.  If then we are left to mere conjecture, it would be convenient to suggest Guglielmo della Porta, who executed the Farnese monument in S. Peter’s.

IV

While still a Cardinal, Paul III. began to rebuild the old palace of the Farnesi on the Tiber shore.  It closes one end of the great open space called the Campo di Fiore, and stands opposite to the Villa Farnesina, on the right bank of the river.  Antonio da Sangallo was the architect employed upon this work, which advanced slowly until Alessandro Farnese’s elevation to the Papacy.  He then determined to push the building forward, and to complete it on a scale of magnificence befitting the supreme Pontiff.  Sangallo had carried the walls up to the second story.  The third remained to be accomplished, and the cornice had to be constructed.  Paul was not satisfied with Sangallo’s design, and referred it to Michelangelo for criticism —­possibly in 1544.  The result was a report, which we still possess, in which Buonarroti, basing his opinion on principles derived from Vitruvius, severely blames Sangallo’s plan under six separate heads.  He does not leave a single merit, as regards either harmony of proportion,