Lanzi says that Lorenzo the Magnificent, desirous of encouraging the statuary art, then on the decline in his country, had collected in his gardens many antique marbles, which he committed to the care of Bertoldo. He requested Ghirlandaio to send him a talented young man, to be educated there, and he sent him Michael Angelo, then a youth of sixteen. Lorenzo was so pleased with his genius that he took him into his palace, rather as a relative than a dependent, placing him at the same table with his own sons, with Poliziano and other learned men who graced his residence. During the four years that he remained there, he laid the foundation of all his acquirements. THE CARTOON OF PISA. According to Condivi, Michael Angelo devoted twelve years to the study of anatomy, with great injury to his health, and this course “determined his style, his practice, and his glory.” His perfect knowledge of the human body was best shown in his famous Cartoon of the Battle of Pisa, prepared in competition with Leonardo da Vinci, in the saloon of the public palace at Florence. Angelo did not rest satisfied with representing the Florentines, cased in armor, and mingling with their enemies in deadly combat; but choosing the moment of the attack upon the van, while bathing in the river Arno, he seized the opportunity of representing many naked figures, as they rushed to arms from the water, by which he was enabled to introduce a prodigious variety of foreshortenings, and attitudes the most energetic--in a word, the highest perfection of his peculiar excellence. Cellini observes of this work, that “when Michael Angelo painted in the chapel of Julius II., he did not reach half that dignity;” and Vasari says that “all the artists who studied and designed after this cartoon, became eminent.” This sublime production has perished, and report, though not authenticated, accuses Baccio Bandinelli of having destroyed it, either that others might not derive advantage from its study, or, because of his partiality to Vinci and his hatred to Buonarotti he wished to remove a subject of comparison that might exalt the reputation of the latter above that of the former. MICHAEL ANGELO’S LAST JUDGMENT.