There is a document in the archives,
proving that on October 5th, 1526 Bugiardini was paid twenty florins in
gold for his share of the work. He obtained some rank as a portrait
painter, in spite of his failure in that of Michelangelo; and had
commissions from many of the celebrities of Florence. It was in
original composition that his powers failed him. Messer Palla Rucellai
ordered a picture from him of the _Martyrdom of S. Catherine_,
which he began with the intention of making it a very fine work indeed.
He spent several years in representing the wheels, the lightnings and
fires in a sufficiently terrible aspect, but had to beg Michelangelo's
assistance in drawing the men who were to be killed by those heavenly
flames; his design was to have a row of soldiers in the foreground, all
knocked down in different attitudes. His friend took up the charcoal
and sketched in a splendid group of agonised nude figures; but these
were beyond his power to shade and colour, and Tribolo made him a set
of models in clay, in the attitudes given by Michelangelo, and from
these he finished the work; but the great master's hand was never
apparent in it.
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