The "Three Fates."

According to Kugler, the picture in the Pitti Palace, Florence, called the "Three Fates," and ascribed to Michael Angelo, was painted by Rosso Fiorentino.

The model for the picture is said to have been an old woman, who offered her son to fight for the city when Michael Angelo was conducting the defence of Florence, in 1529.

The same figure is represented in three different attitudes, and with such difference of expression that only the initiated can recognize the fact of its being the same person. In mythology the "Three Fates" (or the Moerae) are three sisters, daughters of Night, who exercise an influence over the destiny of man, his birth, life, and death. To express this influence, they are represented in art as weaving a web. Clotho spins, Lachesis holds, and Atropos cuts, the thread of life; or else Clotho holds the distaff, Lachesis draws out the thread, and Atropos with large shears is in the act of cutting it off. Such is the representation in the picture referred to above; but the strength of the picture lies in the keen, serene, implacable features of the three sisters, who so consciously control the destiny of man.