This magnificent statue took nearly two years to complete.  As a study of growing youth, boldly recognizing all that is awkward and immature, it has never ceased to cause wordy warfare to reign in the camp of the critics.  “The feet, hands and head are all too large,” the Athenians say.  But linger around the “old swimmin’-hole” any summer day, and you will see tough, bony, muscular boys that might have served as a model for the “David.”

The heads of statues made by the Greeks are small in proportion to the body.  The “Gladiator” wears a Number Six hat, and the “Discobolus” one size smaller; yet the figures represent men weighing one hundred eighty pounds each.  The Greeks aimed to satisfy the eye, and as the man is usually seen clothed, they reduced the size of the head when they showed the nude figure.

But Michelangelo was true to Nature, and the severest criticism ever brought against him is that he is absolutely loyal to truth.  He was the first man ever to paint or model the slim, slender form of a child that has left its round baby shape behind and is shooting up like a lily-stalk.  A nude, hardy boy six years old reveals ankle-bones, kneecap, sharp hips, ribs, collar-bone and shoulder-blade with startling fidelity.  And why, being Nature’s work, it is any less lovely than a condition of soft, cushioned adipose, we must let the critics tell, but Michelangelo thought it wasn’t.

From Fourteen Hundred Ninety-six, when Michelangelo first arrived in Rome, to Fifteen Hundred Four, he worked at nothing but sculpture.  But now a change came over his restless spirit, for an invitation had come from the Gonfaloniere of Florence to decorate one of the rooms of the Town Hall, in competition with Leonardo da Vinci—­the only Leonardo.

He painted that strong composition showing Florentine soldiers bathing in the Arno.  The scene depicts the surprise of the warriors as a trumpet sounds, calling them to battle with the enemy that is near at hand.  The subject was chosen because it gave opportunity for exploiting the artist’s marvelous knowledge of anatomy.  Thirty figures are shown in various attitudes.  Nearly all are nude, and as they scramble up the bank, buckling on their armor as they rush forward, eager for the fight, we see the wild, splendid swell of muscle and warm, tense, pulsing flesh.  As an example of Michelangelo’s consummate knowledge of form it was believed to be his finest work.

But it did not last long; the jealous Bandinelli made a strong bid for fame by destroying it.  And thus do Bandinelli and Torrigiano go clattering down the corridors of time hand in hand.  Yet we know what the picture was, for various men who saw it recorded their impressions; but although many of the younger artists of Italy flocked to Florence to see it, and many copied it, only one copy has come down to us—­the one in the collection of the Earl of Leicester, at Holkham.

So even beautiful Florence could not treat her gifted son with impartiality, and when a call came from Pope Julius the Second, who had been elected in Fifteen Hundred Three, to return to Rome, the summons was promptly obeyed.