the boy's stay in the studio came to an end. Fortunately his friend Granacci had already interested the great patron, Lorenzo de' Medici, in the young Buonarotti and he was now invited to join the band of youths of talent who made the Medici's palace their home.

In Lorenzo's palace young Michael Angelo was very happy. He was fond of the Medici's sons, boys nearly his own age; like almost all the rest of Florence he worshiped the citizen-prince whose one desire seemed to be that Florence should be beautiful; and he was happiest of all in the chance to study his own beloved art.

In May of each year Lorenzo gave a pageant, and the spring in which Michael Angelo came to the palace Lorenzo placed the carnival in charge of the boy's friend, Francesco Granacci. Day by day the boys planned for the great procession. At noon they were free from their teachers, and then they would scatter to the gardens.

One such May noon, when the sun was hot, a group of them ran out from the palace, and threw themselves on the grass in the shade of a row of poplars. They were all absorbed in the one subject; their tongues could scarcely keep pace with their nimble fancies.

"What shalt thou go as, Paolo?" said one. "I heard Messer Lorenzo say that thou shouldst be something marvelously fine; but what can be so fine as Romulus in a Roman triumph?"

"I am to be the thrice-gifted Apollo, dressed as your Athenians saw him, with harp and bow, and the crown of laurel on my head. That will be a sight for thee, Ludovico mio, and for the pretty eyes of thy Bianca also." Paolo laughed as one who well knew the value of his yellow locks and blue eyes in a land of brown and black. "What art thou to be in Messer Lorenzo's coming pageant, Michael?"

The young Michael, a slim, black-haired youth, was lying on his back, his head resting in his hands, his eyes watching the circling flight of some pigeons.

"I?" he said dreamily. "Oh, I have given little thought to that, I shall be whatever Francesco wishes; he knows what is needed better than any one else."

As he spoke a tall youth came into the garden and sat down in the middle of the group. He had curious, smiling eyes, and hands that were fine and pointed like a woman's. He answered all questions easily, telling each what part he was to play in the triumphal procession of Paulus Æmilius that was to dazzle the good people of Florence on the morrow. He had become chief favorite in the little court of young people that the Medici loved to have about him, and his remarkable talent for detail had made him the leader in all entertainments.

The boy Michael listened for a time to the flowing words of young Granacci, then rose and wandered to where some stone-masons had lately been at work. He stopped in front of a block of marble that was gradually taking the form of the mask of a faun.

Near the block stood an antique mask, a garden ornament, and this the boy studied for a few moments before he picked up one of the mason's deserted tools and began to cut the stone himself.

The gay chatter under the poplars went on, but the boy with the chisel, lost in thought, his heavy brows bent into a bow, chipped and cut, forgetful of everything else. A half hour passed, and a long shadow fell across the marble. Michael looked up to see his patron, Lorenzo, standing beside him. The boy glanced from the fine, keen face of the Medici to the marble mask of the old faun in front of him.

"Well, sirrah," said Lorenzo, half seriously, half in jest, "what wilt thou be up to next?"

"Jacopó, one of the builders, gave me a stone," answered the boy, "and told me I might do what I would with it. Yonder is my copy, the old figure there."

"But," said Lorenzo, critically, "your faun is old, and yet you have given him all his teeth; you should have known in a face as aged as that some of the teeth are wanting."

"True," said the young sculptor, and taking his chisel, with a few strokes he made such a gap in the mouth as no master could have improved.

The Medici watched, and when the change was made, broke into laughter. "Right, boy!" he cried. "'Tis perfect; Praxiteles himself could not have bettered that!" Then, with a quizzical smile, he looked the youth over. "I knew thou wert a painter; and now a sculptor; what will thy clever hand be doing next?"

"Bearing arms in your worship's cause, an' the saints be good!" exclaimed the boy, his deep eyes, full of admiration, on his patron's face.

"Ah," said Lorenzo, "so? Well, perhaps the day will come. Florence is like a rose-bed, but I cannot cure the city as I would of thorns." He fell into thought, then roused again. "But thou, young Michael Angelo, dost know what a time I had to make thy father let thee be a painter, and now thou addest to thy sins and cuttest in marble. Where will be the end of thy infamy?"

The boy caught the gleam in his friend's eyes, and his serious face broke into smiles.

"In Rome, Signor Lorenzo, in the Holy Father's house. There I shall go some day."

"And why to Rome?"

"Every one goes to Rome; thy marvelous pageants are Roman; art lives there."

"Yes," mused Lorenzo, "Rome on its hills is still the Eternal City. And yet in those far days to come I doubt if thou wilt be as happy as in Lorenzo's gardens. How sayest thou, boy?"

"I know not," was the answer. "Only I know that I shall go."

The laughter of the other boys came to their ears, and Lorenzo turned. "Thy faun is done; to-morrow will I speak with Poliziano of our new sculptor. What is Granacci saying over there? Come with me and listen." So, the prince's arm resting affectionately on the boy's shoulder, they crossed the garden to the noisy group.

Life was gay then in Florence. Lorenzo de' Medici was ruling the turbulent city by keeping it occupied with merrymaking, by beautifying its squares with priceless treasures, by helping its poor but ambitious children to win their heart's desires, by mingling with the citizens at all times, and writing them ballads to sing, and giving them masques to act. His house was open to the great men of Italy; on his entertainments he lavished his wealth, set no bounds to the means he gave Granacci and the others to make the pageants gorgeous, and superintended everything with his own wonderfully keen eye for beauty.

The triumphal procession of Paulus Æmilius on the morrow after the little scene in the gardens was an all-day revel. The good folk of Florence left their shops and homes and lined the streets, and for hours floats drawn by prancing horses and picturing great scenes in Roman history passed before the delighted people's eyes. Among the warriors, the heroes, the nymphs and fauns, they recognized their neighbors' children or their own sons and daughters; they were all parcel of it; it was their own triumph as well as Rome's. Girls sang and danced and smiled, boys posed and cheered and played heroic parts, the whole youth of the city spent the day in fairy-land.

Chief among the boys was the little group of artists who were studying in Lorenzo's mansion, and chief among these Granacci, who was Master of the Revels, Paolo Tornabuoni, who made a wonderful Apollo, seated on a golden globe playing upon a lyre, and the dark-browed Michael Angelo, clad in a tunic, one of the noble youth of early Rome. His father, Ludovico Buonarotti, and his mother, Francesca, were in the crowd that watched him pass.

"Yonder he goes," cried the proud mother; "dost see thy son, Ludovico?" But her husband scowled; he had little use for a son of his who had rather be painter than merchant.

A year of happiness passed for the boys in the Medici gardens, and then the skies of Florence darkened. A monk from San Marco named Savonarola raised his voice to shame the gay people of their extravagance, and his bitter tongue sought out Lorenzo the Magnificent as chief offender. The boy Michael Angelo went to hear Savonarola preach, and came away heavy of mind and heart. He heard the beautiful things of the world assailed as sinful,