that its fragility of structure, the tenuity of life vigorous but infinitely refined, reappears in the weak drawing made by Francesco d’Olanda of Buonarroti in hat and mantle.  This is a comparatively poor and dreamy sketch.  Yet it has an air of veracity; and what the Flemish painter seized in the divine man he so much admired, was a certain slender grace and dignity of person—­exactly the quality which Mr. Fortnum’s cameo possesses.

Before leaving this interesting subject, I ought to add that the blind man on the reverse of Leoni’s medal is clearly a rough and ready sketch of Michelangelo, not treated like a portrait, but with indications sufficient to connect the figure with the highly wrought profile on the obverse.

Returning now to the passage cited from Vasari, we find that he reckons only two authentic portraits in painting of Michelangelo, one by Bugiardini, the other by Jacopo del Conte.  He has neglected to mention two which are undoubtedly attempts to reproduce the features of the master by scholars he had formed.  Probably Vasari overlooked them, because they did not exist as easel-pictures, but were introduced into great compositions as subordinate adjuncts.  One of them is the head painted by Daniele da Volterra in his picture of the Assumption at the church of the Trinita de’ Monti in Rome.  It belongs to an apostle, draped in red, stretching arms aloft, close to a column, on the right hand of the painting as we look at it.  This must be reckoned among the genuine likenesses of the great man by one who lived with him and knew him intimately.  The other is a portrait placed by Marcello Venusti in the left-hand corner of his copy of the Last Judgment, executed, under Michelangelo’s direction, for the Cardinal Farnese.  It has value for the same reasons as those which make us dwell upon Daniele da Volterra’s picture.  Moreover, it connects itself with a series of easel-paintings.  One of these, ascribed to Venusti, is preserved in the Museo Buonarroti at Florence; another at the Capitol in Rome.  Several repetitions of this type exist:  they look like studies taken by the pupil from his master, and reproduced to order when death closed the scene, making friends wish for mementoes of the genius who had passed away.  The critique of such works will always remain obscure.

What has become of the portrait of Del Conte mentioned by Vasari cannot now be ascertained.  We have no external evidence to guide us.

On the other hand, certain peculiarities about the portrait in the Uffizi, especially the exaggeration of one eye, lend some colouring to the belief that we here possess the picture ascribed by Vasari to Bugiardini.

Michelangelo’s type of face was well accentuated, and all the more or less contemporary portraits of him reproduce it.  Time is wasted in the effort to assign to little men their special part in the creation of a prevalent tradition.  It seems to me, therefore, the function of sane criticism not to be particular about the easel-pictures ascribed to Venusti, Del Conte, and Bugiardini.