It is clear, then, I think, that Leoni’s model was made at Rome in 1560, cast at Milan, and sent early in the spring of 1561 to Michelangelo.  The wide distribution of the medals, two of which exist still in silver, while several in bronze may be found in different collections, is accounted for by what Leoni says about his having given them away to various parts of Europe.  We are bound to suppose that AET. 88 in the legend on the obverse is due to a misconception concerning Michelangelo’s age.  Old men are often ignorant or careless about the exact tale of years they have performed.

There is reason to believe that Leoni’s original model of the profile, the likeness he shaped from life, and which he afterwards used for the medallion, is extant and in excellent preservation.  Mr. C. Drury E. Fortnum (to whose monographs upon Michelangelo’s portraits, kindly communicated by himself, I am deeply indebted at this portion of my work), tells us how he came into possession of an exquisite cameo, in flesh-coloured wax upon a black oval ground.  This fragile work of art is framed in gilt metal and glazed, carrying upon its back an Italian inscription, which may be translated:  “Portrait of Michelangelo Buonarroti, taken from the life, by Leone Aretino, his friend.”  Comparing the relief in wax with the medal, we cannot doubt that both represent the same man; and only cavillers will raise the question whether both were fashioned by one hand.  Such discrepancies as occur between them are just what we should expect in the work of a craftsman who sought first to obtain an accurate likeness of his subject, and then treated the same subject on the lines of numismatic art.  The wax shows a lean and subtly moulded face—­the face of a delicate old man, wiry and worn with years of deep experience.  The hair on head and beard is singularly natural; one feels it to be characteristic of the person.  Transferring this portrait to bronze necessitated a general broadening of the masses, with a coarsening of outline to obtain bold relief.  Something of the purest truth has been sacrificed to plastic effect by thickening the shrunken throat; and this induced a corresponding enlargement of the occiput for balance.  Writing with photographs of these two models before me, I feel convinced that in the wax we have a portrait from the life of the aged Buonarroti as Leoni knew him, and in the bronze a handling of that portrait as the craftsman felt his art of metal-work required its execution.  There was a grand manner of medallion-portraiture in Italy, deriving from the times of Pisanello; and Leoni’s bronze is worthy of that excellent tradition.  He preserved the salient features of Buonarroti in old age.  But having to send down to posterity a monumental record of the man, he added, insensibly or wilfully, both bulk and mass to the head he had so keenly studied.  What confirms me in the opinion that Mr. Fornum’s cameo is the most veracious portrait we possess of Michelangelo in old age, is