Of these variants upon the model common to them all, we can only trace one with relative certainty.  It is the bust at present in the Bargello Palace, whither it came from the Grand Ducal villa of Poggio Imperiale.  By the marriage of the heiress of the ducal house of Della Rovere with a Duke of Tuscany, this work of art passed, with other art treasures, notably with a statuette of Michelangelo’s Moses, into the possession of the Medici.  A letter written in 1570 to the Duke of Urbino by Buonarroti’s house-servant, Antonio del Franzese of Castel Durante, throws light upon the matter.  He begins by saying that he is glad to hear the Duke will accept the little Moses, though the object is too slight in value to deserve his notice.  Then he adds:  “The head of which your Excellency spoke in the very kind letter addressed to me at your command is the true likeness of Michelangelo Buonarroti, my old master; and it is of bronze, designed by himself.  I keep it here in Rome, and now present it to your Excellency.”  Antonio then, in all probability, obtained one of the Daniele da Volterra bronzes; for it is wholly incredible that what he writes about its having been made by Michelangelo should be the truth.  Had Michelangelo really modelled his own portrait and cast it in bronze, we must have heard of this from other sources.  Moreover, the Medicean bust of Michelangelo which is now placed in the Bargello, and which we believe to have come from Urbino, belongs indubitably to the series of portraits made from Daniele da Volterra’s model.

To sum up this question of Michelangelo’s authentic portraits:  I repeat that Bonasoni’s engraving represents him at the age of seventy; Leoni’s wax model and medallions at eighty; the eight bronze heads, derived from Daniele’s model, at the epoch of his death.  In painting, Marco Venusti and Daniele da Volterra helped to establish a traditional type by two episodical likenesses, the one worked into Venusti’s copy of the Last Judgment (at Naples), the other into Volterra’s original picture of the Assumption (at Trinita de’ Monti, Rome).  For the rest, the easel-pictures, which abound, can hardly now be distributed, by any sane method of criticism, between Bugiardini, Jacopo del Conte, and Venusti.  They must be taken en masse, as contributions to the study of his personality; and, as I have already said, the oil-painting of the Uffizi may perhaps be ascribed with some show of probability to Bugiardini.

IV

Michelangelo’s correspondence with his nephew Lionardo gives us ample details concerning his private life and interests in old age.  It turns mainly upon the following topics:  investment of money in land near Florence, the purchase of a mansion in the city, Lionardo’s marriage, his own illnesses, the Duke’s invitation, and the project of making a will, which was never carried out.  Much as Michelangelo loved his nephew, he took frequent occasions