Instead of saying "it was torn in pieces _by them_" he now printed "it was torn in pieces, _as hath been told elsewhere_." Now Bandinelli, Vasari's mortal enemy, and the scapegoat for all the sins of his generation among artists, died in 1559, and Vasari felt that he might safely defame his memory.

Accordingly he introduced a Life of Bandinelli into the second edition of his work, containing the following passage: "Baccio was in the habit of frequenting the place where the Cartoon stood more than any other artists, and had in his possession a false key; what follows happened at the time when Piero Soderini was deposed in 1512, and the Medici returned.

Well, then, while the palace was in tumult and confusion through this revolution, Baccio went alone, and tore the Cartoon into a thousand fragments.

Why he did so was not known; but some surmised that he wanted to keep certain pieces of it by him for his own use; some, that he wished to deprive young men of its advantages in study; some, that he was moved by affection for Lionardo da Vinci, who suffered much in reputation by this design; some, perhaps with sharper intuition, believed that the hatred he bore to Michelangelo inspired him to commit the act.

The loss of the Cartoon to the city was no slight one, and Baccio deserved the blame he got, for everybody called him envious and spiteful." This second version stands in glaring contradiction to the first, both as regards the date and the place where the Cartoon was destroyed.