The imagination of the subject grew more intimate and energetic.

Losing patience then at last, he took a hammer and began to break the group up.

Indeed, the right arm of the Mary shows a fracture.

The left arm of the Christ is mutilated in several places.
One of the nipples has been repaired, and the hand of the Madonna resting on the breast above it is cracked across.

It would have been difficult to reduce the whole huge block to fragments; and when the work of destruction had advanced so far, Michelangelo's servant Antonio, the successor to Urbino, begged the remnants from his master.
Tiberio Calcagni was a good friend of Buonarroti's at this time.