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He had these conveyed by stealth from the hospital into the convent of Santo Spirito, where he had a cell and there he worked, alone. He was concentrated, mentally and emotionally, upon himself. The only remark he made after the blow from Torregiano was, "You will be remembered only as the man who broke my nose!"

Angelo drew superior designs, created new art-ideas, was more clever in all his undertakings than any other pupil even ahead of his master; and almost at once Ghirlandajo became furiously jealous. This enmity between pupil and master was the beginning of Angelo's many misfortunes. One day he got into a dispute with a fellow student, Torregiano, who broke his nose.

The sarcophagus of Nelson was designed and executed for Cardinal Wolsey by the famous Torregiano, and was intended to contain the body of Henry VIII. in the tomb-house at Windsor.

Among the most ancient heads is a medallion of Henry VII. by Torregiano, the peppery and gifted Florentine who executed the marvelous chapel in Westminster Abbey and broke the nose of Michael Angelo. English art or rather art in England may be said to date from him.

Of the interesting monuments and carvings contained in it, the most beautiful is the celebrated bronze figure by Torregiano on the tomb of the king and queen, which was designed during their lives. Torregiano was born in 1470, and died in 1522, so he is not quite a mediæval figure, but in connection with his wonderful work we must consider his career a moment.

This proved nearly true, since Torregiano was banished, and murdered by the Spanish Inquisition. All sorts of anecdotes have floated through the centuries concerning this man and his work. For example, he made a statue of a sleeping cupid, which was buried in the ground for a time that it might assume the appearance of age, and pass for an antique.

Orders from a great distance were sometimes sent to the Florentine Masters of Wood, the choir stalls in Cambridge, in King's College Chapel, were executed by them, in spite of the fact that Torregiano alluded to them as "beasts of English." An early French wood carver was Girard d'Orleans, who, in 1379, carved for Charles V. "ung tableau de boys de quatre pieces."

He was constantly interfering with Michelangelo, with whom he was a student in Florence, and on one memorable occasion they came to blows: and that was the day when "Torregiano struck Michelangelo on the nose with his fist, using such terrible violence and crushing that feature in such a manner that the proper form could never be restored to it, and Michelangelo had his nose flattened by that blow all his life."

The young man, then not quite sixteen, had hitherto occupied himself chiefly in drawing; but now, fired by the beauties he beheld around him, and by the example and success of a fellow-pupil, Torregiano, he set himself to model in clay, and at length to copy in marble what was before him; but, as was natural in a character and genius so steeped in individuality, his copies became not so much imitations of form as original embodyings of the leading idea.

So Torregiano fled from the Medicean wrath which would have descended upon him. After a short career as a soldier, impatient at not being rapidly promoted, he returned to his old profession of a sculptor. He went to England, where, says Vasari, "he executed many works in marble, bronze, and wood, for the king." The chief of these was the striking tomb of Henry VII. and the queen.