Figure 4
sonnets, turning his sheets around and around while
scribbling fragments of verse in every corner of the page.
(I also hadn���t expected that he would write a quatrain
about God���s perfect plan in a spot where a horse���s rear
end bled through from the other side.) I discovered [Figure 3] that he was a teacher���and not, perhaps, a very
patient one, as is evidenced on a sheet where he has
produced two exquisite Madonnas for a pupil to copy.
But the barely visible traces of the student work are terrible, a fact not lost on the Master, who has written, ���Draw
Antonio, draw Antonio, and stop wasting time.���
I learned that Michelangelo was something of a health
nut: that Vatican manuscript ends with three pages in
his own hand copying a recipe for eye medication, which
is not a trivial matter for an artist. And (this pleased me
especially) he was also something of a food maven [FigHYLAND
