squandered or stolen; as regards plans and designs, leave that care to me."

It seems that the overseers of the building were not above accepting bribes from the various contractors, and that they would occasionally shut their eyes just when their fullest vigilance was required. On one of these occasions Michelangelo wrote them the following letter:

"To the overseers of the Fabbrica di San Pietro. You know very well I told Balduccio not to send the supply of lime [cement] unless of the first quality. The fact that he has sent a very inferior article and that you have accepted it makes me suspect that you must have come to an understanding with him. Those who accept supplies which I have refused connive with and make friends of my enemies. All these pourboires and presents and inducements corrupt the true sense of justice. I beg of you, therefore, in the name of the authority with which I have been invested by the Pope, not to accept henceforth any building materials that are not perfect, even if they come from heaven" (se ben la venissi dal cielo).

There is no doubt that such stern inflexibility of character, united with the consciousness of his own artistic value and with an undisguised disgust at the intrigues and corruption of the people by whom he was officially surrounded, must have embittered the feelings of many, and actually put his life in danger. Those were times when every artist carried, as it were, his life at the point of his sword, which he must be ready to unsheathe at the least suspicion of offence; for this reason there is more to learn about artists, their work, and their career, in the reports of the criminal courts, than in any other set of contemporary documents.

To illustrate this point, so characteristic of artist life in Rome in the sixteenth century, I translate from the original

minutes of the Notaro dei Malefizii the following particulars concerning the murder of one of Michelangelo's friends and fellow workers, Bartolomeo Baronino.

Born at Casal Monferrato, Baronino had come to Rome quite young, in search of fame and fortune; and fortune must have been ready to smile upon him, as we find him Sotto-maestro delle Strade at twenty-five years of age, general contractor for the paving of the streets at thirty-one, a protégé of Paul III at thirty-three, his adviser in the famous meeting of Busseto in 1543, when he received from the Emperor Charles V himself the insignia of count palatine, and assistant to Michelangelo in the works of the Farnese palace in 1549.

After the death of Paul III, Julius III entrusted Baronino with the superintendence of the building of the Villa Giulia, in which Michelangelo himself, Bartolomeo Ammannati, Giorgio Vasari, and Giacomo Barrozzi da Vignola also took a leading share.

The fate that befell Baronino towards sunset on the 4th day of September, 1554, is best told by an eye-witness, Genesio Bersano, from Piacenza, in the evidence given at the inquest held at the deathbed of the victim.

"This afternoon, an hour before sunset, Baronino and I, having taken supper in the hostelry adjoining his vineyard, came to the fountain at the corner of the Via Flaminia, where we were joined by Riccio, the head gardener, and other workmen. On parting company, past the church of San Giacomo degli Incurabili, and just while we were rounding the corner of the house of the Provveditori di Castello, I heard footsteps behind us, as if some one was making haste to overtake us. There were two men; the taller of the two caught Baronino by the right arm and struck him with a poniard on the left side. I ran to the

assistance of my friend, crying, 'You traitor!' but at that moment the accomplice caused me to trip and fall headlong on the pavement, while the wounded man was seeking shelter in the house opposite, the door of which happened to stand ajar. The murderers ran away in the direction of the Piazza dell' Ortaccio [now called di Monte d' Oro]. We had seen both of them while eating in the hostelry by the Villa Giulia; in fact I remember that on leaving the place Baronino wished them a good appetite, a greeting which I believe they left unanswered. Yes, I could easily recognize the murderer from his black beard and heavy brows, but not his accomplice."

The officer tried to question the dying man at once, but he received no answer. The second attempt, on the following morning, was more successful. Baronino said that he had certainly recognized in both his murderers the men he had greeted in leaving the hostelry; both, however, were unknown to him. "I am not aware," he said, "of any enemy or rival, but I cannot help suspecting Giovanni Antonio, the antiquarian, who has been haunting the Villa Giulia of late, in the hope of selling some of his marbles to his Holiness. I know him to be a bad man, and badly prejudiced against me, as if I had been influencing the Pope not to listen to his proposals."

Giovanni Antonio Stampa, the suspected antiquarian, was subjected to the torture, without eliciting from him any acknowledgment of guilt. Suspicion fell also on Giacomo Barrozzi da Vignola; but if the police of Julius III did not succeed in bringing the crime home to any one at the time it was committed, it would be useless for us to investigate the matter further, after such a lapse of time. Baronino's bust has been placed among those of eminent Italians in the Protomotheca of the Capitol.

In describing Michelangelo's transformation of the central hall of the baths of Diocletian into the church of the Madonna degli Angeli, Vasari says that the great master did not disdain occasionally to undertake works of minor importance, such as now fall into the domain of industrial art. He furnished, in fact, the design for the ciborium of the Blessed Sacrament in the same church, cast in metal by Giacomo del Duca and inlaid with precious stones by Giovanni Bernardi da Castel Bolognese. This beautiful object, known by the name of "Ciborio Farnesiano," because it was designed and cast at the expense of Cardinal Alessandro, is now exhibited in the Museo Nazionale at Naples, but without the intaglios and the small columns of lapis lazuli, stolen, I believe, at the time of the first French invasion. Vasari could have mentioned other productions of the goldsmith's art, made from the designs of Michelangelo. Such was the dinner service described in a despatch (July 4, 1537) of Girolamo Staccoli to the duke of Urbino, whose interests he represented in Rome. The original sketch of the central piece, showing an oval vase with masks and festoons round the body, and a figure in full relief on the cover, found its way into the Fountaine collection, and later (1884) into that of Sir J. C. Robinson. We do not know whether this beautiful service is still in existence, or whether it disap

THE FALL OF PHAETHON INTO THE RIVER ERIDANUS From a cartoon by Michelangelo, engraved by Béatrizet