Michael Angelo Buonarroti

ult. He was the best friend Michael Angelo ever had, notwithstanding their bickerings, and he understood him as no one ever did

said Michael Angelo thinks good, for the price of two hundred gold ducats of the Camera, to be paid in this manner, that is to say: At the present time one hundred and fifty gold ducats of the Camera, and the remainder, that is fifty similar ducats, the said Messeri Mario and Metello delli Vari promise to pay when [pg 181]the work is finished. As soon as the said Michael Angelo begins to work on the said figure, which he promises to place in the Minerva in what

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f the Fratelli A

he real patron to whom Michael Angelo was responsible. The first block of marble was found to be faulty, so another on

at work on the Tomb, but apprehen

i Lodovico Simo

because I must make a great effort this summer to finish my work quickly, because I expect [pg 182]soon to have to enter the Pope's service. And for this I have bought perhaps twenty thousands of bronze for casting certain figures. I must have money; so when you see this arrange with the Spedalingo to have it paid over to me; and if you are able to arrange wit

th day of

Angelo, i

for Pope Leo would have sufficed for the completion of the Tomb, which would then have been a monument of Michael Angelo's power as a sculptor, fit to rank with the monument of his power as a painter in the Sistine Chapel: a monument containing four figures, equal in execution and s

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on from a photograph by

inued until the Pope obliged him to leave their quarries and open up those of Pietra Santa, in Tuscan territory, by which act Michael Angelo lost much time. He had positively to make roads down the mountains and over the marshes before he could get a single block to the river. The Marquis of Carrara became his enemy, and the contracts with the people of Carrara caused him much annoyance and great loss. The orders from Rome were peremptory and had to be obeyed.122 Ten years of the best of Michael Angelo's working life were wasted; the numberle

olemn," to Florence. It is dated October 20, 1518. All but one of the signatures appended are written in Latin; that one is as follows:-"I, Michael Angelo, the sculptor, pray the like of your Holiness, offering my services to the divine poet for the erection of a befitting sepulchre to him in some honour-place i

e, to build a workshop for finishing his marbles; the purchase was completed on November 24, 1518. This studio remained in his possession unt

t Pietra Santa for the fa?ade.

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be very patient until the mountains are tamed and the men are mastered. Then we shall get on more quickly. Enough, what I have p

e is told in a Ricordo in the Ar

road that I have made to Pietra Santa, and the marbles that were quarried there and rough-hewn as may be seen to-day; and he declares himself content and satisfied with me, as is said, about all the money received for the said fa?ade of San L

give Michael Angelo at Carrara news of Sebastiano and the art world of Rome, They often relate to designs that Sebastiano wished to get from Michael Angelo in o

speaking of his own brother, almost with tears in his eyes; for he has told me that you were brou

xception to the remark, for Sebastia

er, for you do not appear to me terrible except only in art-that is to say, the greatest master that has ever been; so it seems to me if I am in erro

t faithfu

, Painter

e Bonarotis, the most wort

ed quietly at Florence, possibly engaged upon the marbles for the Tomb of Julius II. About the same time, at

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uarry marbles for the tombs which are to be placed in the new sacristy at San Lorenzo. "And there I stayed about twenty days and made out drawings to scale, and measured models in c

ter it had arrived at Rome, Sebastiano says of Pietro: "Firstly, you sent him to Rome with the statue, to finish and erect it. What he did and did not do you know; but I must let you understand that wherever he has worked he has maimed it. Chiefly, he has shortened the [pg 188]right foot, and it is plainly seen that he has cut off the toes. He has shortened the fingers of the hands, too, more especially those of the one which holds the cross, the right; Frizzi says, it seems to have been worked by a cake-maker, not carved in marble. It looks as if it had been made by one who worked in dough, it is so stunted. I do not understand these things, not knowing the manner of working in marble; but I can very well tell you that those fingers look to me very stumpy. I can tell you, too, that it is easy to see he has been working on the beard. I believe a baby would have had more discre

ch attached to Vari, he offered to make a new statue, but the courtly [pg 189]Roman replied that he was entirely satisfied with the one he had received. He regarded it and esteemed it as a thing of gold, an

he master. The arms and torso, and, as Sebastiano justly says, the knees, are very splendid, and if the spoiled head and extremities were broken away the fragment, that is to say, the part really executed by the master, would be as famous as many a fine work of Greece

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