The few remaining drawings of Michelangiolo demonstrate how little he painted. Conscious of his superiority in sculpture, he seems to have dreaded appearing as a second or a third-rate painter. The majority of his compositions that have reached our time, like those of Vinci, are mere outlines; and therefore, though many cabinets are rich in his drawings, none can boast the possession of his paintings. The cartoon of the battle of Pisa, prepared for a competition with Vinci in the saloon of the public palace at Florence, is said to have been a wonderful production in this species of art. Mariette supposes, in the letter above quoted, that the example of Vinci paved the way for this great undertaking, which he confesses surpassed the original. Michelangiolo did not rest satisfied with representing the Florentines cased in armour, and mingling with their enemies; but choosing the moment of the attack upon their 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, attitudes the most energetic, in a word, the highest perfection of his peculiar excellences. Cellini observes in the thirteenth chapter of his life, that when Michelangiolo "painted the chapel of Pope Julius, he reached not half that dignity;" and Vasari adds, that "all the artists who studied and designed after this cartoon, became eminent;" among these he reckons the best Florentine artists of the second epoch, from the time of Frate, and to them he joined Raffaello d'Urbino. This is a point of critical disquisition not yet sufficiently cleared up, though much has been written both for and against the opinion of Vasari. I am not of the number of those who suppose that the labours of Bonarruoti had no influence on the style of Raffaello, because it appears dissimilar. It would seem to me an act of injustice to this divine genius, to imagine that profiting as he did by the finest productions of the art, he neglected those sources of information. I therefore firmly believe, that Raffaello likewise studied Michelangiolo, which he himself appears to acknowledge, as I shall afterwards relate. I cannot, however, grant to Vasari that he saw this cartoon on his first short visit to Florence.[144]