Michelangelo was apprenticed first to Domenico Ghirlandaio, but Vasari stresses the importance of his time studying in the household of Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent, the garden of which was 'filled with antiquities and lavishly decorated with ancient paintings, all of which had been collected there for their beauty as well as for study and pleasure'. Michelangelo also spent many months copying the work of Masaccio in the Carmine Church while he was attached to the Medici household ( Vasari, Le Vite, Testo VI.3). The study of ancient sculpture, including the Laocoon, the Apollo Belvedere, and the Torso of the Vatican, led to the perfection of the third phase of art in which Michelangelo produced sculptures 'clearly superior to all those of the ancients' ( Vasari, Le Vite, Testo IV.7).