Behind these walls stands the earliest great statue he made: a who is drunk. The god leans off balance, a cup raised above his head and a gaze that settles on nothing, his body soft where a god ought to be hard. was twenty-one, and the man who commissioned the piece turned it down.
In these same rooms you'll find a bust of , the Roman who killed his ruler. Michelangelo began it after had been murdered by a relative, and he left it half-finished, which with subjects like this was rarely an accident.
His crooked nose, visible in every portrait, came from a fight he got into as a teenager with a fellow pupil while they were copying frescoes. We pass that very spot on our walk through .
A few steps further the square opens up, with its row of statues along the facade.
Sources. Story: Musei del Bargello (Bacco, Bruto di Michelangelo); Treccani (Michelangelo Buonarroti, opere giovanili) Photos: Michelangelo, Bacchus, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain
