One of the lads who worked there made a pen-drawing of some women, clothed, from a design of Ghirlandajo.

Michelangelo took up the paper, and with a broader nib corrected the outline of a female figure, so as to bring it into perfect truth to life.

Wonderful it was to see the difference of the two styles, and to note the judgment and ability of a mere boy, so spirited and bold, who had the courage to chastise his master's handiwork! This drawing I now preserve as a precious relique, since it was given me by Granacci, that it might take a place in my Book of Original Designs, together with others presented to me by Michelangelo.

In the year 1550, when I was in Rome, I Giorgio showed it to Michelangelo, who recognised it immediately, and was pleased to see it again, observing modestly that he knew more about the art when he was a child than now in his old age.
"It happened then that Domenico was engaged upon the great Chapel of S.Maria Novella; and being absent one day, Michelangelo set himself to draw from nature the whole scaffolding, with some easels and all the appurtenances of the art, and a few of the young men at work there.

When Domenico returned and saw the drawing, he exclaimed: 'This fellow knows more about it than I do,' and remained quite stupefied by the new style and the new method of imitation, which a boy of years so tender had received as a gift from heaven." Both Condivi and Vasari relate that, during his apprenticeship to Ghirlandajo, Michelangelo demonstrated his technical ability by producing perfect copies of ancient drawings, executing the facsimile with consummate truth of line, and then dirtying the paper so as to pass it off as the original of some old master.