ordered that the coffin should be opened.  “He thought he should be doing what was pleasing to many of those present; and, as he afterwards admitted, he was personally anxious to behold in death one whom he had never seen in life, or at any rate so long ago as to have quite forgotten the occasion.  All of us who stood by expected to find the corpse already defaced by the outrage of the sepulchre, inasmuch as twenty-five days had elapsed since Michelangelo’s death, and twenty-one since his consignment to the coffin; but, to our great surprise, the dead man lay before us perfect in all his parts, and without the evil odours of the grave; indeed, one might have thought that he was resting in a sweet and very tranquil slumber.  Not only did the features of his countenance bear exactly the same aspect as in life, except for some inevitable pallor, but none of his limbs were injured, or repulsive to the sight.  The head and cheeks, to the touch, felt just as though he had breathed his last but a few hours since.”  As soon as the eagerness of the multitude calmed down a little, the bier was carried into the church again, and the coffin was deposited in a proper place behind the altar of the Cavalcanti.

When the academicians decreed a catafalque for Michelangelo’s solemn obsequies in S. Lorenzo, they did not aim so much at worldly splendour or gorgeous trappings as at an impressive monument, combining the several arts which he had practised in his lifetime.  Being made of stucco, woodwork, plaster, and such perishable materials, it was unfortunately destined to decay.  But Florence had always been liberal, nay, lavish, of her genius in triumphs, masques, magnificent street architecture, evoked to celebrate some ephemeral event.  A worthier occasion would not occur again; and we have every reason to believe that the superb structure, which was finally exposed to view upon the 14th of July, displayed all that was left at Florence of the grand style in the arts of modelling and painting.  They were decadent indeed; during the eighty-nine years of Buonarroti’s life upon earth they had expanded, flourished, and flowered with infinite variety in rapid evolution.  He lived to watch their decline; yet the sunset of that long day was still splendid to the eyes and senses.

The four deputies appointed by the academy held frequent sittings before the plan was fixed, and the several parts had been assigned to individual craftsmen.  Ill health prevented Cellini from attending, but he sent a letter to the lieutenant, which throws some interesting light upon the project in its earlier stages.  A minute description of the monument was published soon after the event.  Another may be read in the pages of Vasari.  Varchi committed his oration to the press, and two other panegyrical discourses were issued, under the names of Leonardo Salviati and Giovan Maria Tarsia.  Poems composed on the occasion were collected into one volume, and distributed by the Florentine firm of Sermatelli.  To load these pages with the details of allegorical statues and pictures which have long passed out of existence, and to cite passages from funeral speeches, seems to me useless.  It is enough to have directed the inquisitive to sources where their curiosity may be gratified.