even and mouldings in marble and bronze, but few were commenced, as we shall see when we come to speak of that later period of Michelangelo's life to which they belong. Within four months of his first interview with the Pope, Michelangelo started for Carrara, where he spent eight months in superintending the extraction of marbles, in blocking out certain figures intended for this monument, and in planning a colossal work like that proposed by Dinocrates to Alexander the Great.* One of the Carrara mountain-peaks was to be shaped into a gigantic figure, which could be seen far out at sea, but what it was to have represented we do not know. Anxious to return home, he abandoned the idea as soon as he was no longer needed at the quarries, and after spending a few days at Florence continued his journey to Rome, which he reached late in the month of November.† His one desire was to begin the monument as soon as possible, and in order that he might do so the Pope gave him a house in the immediate neighbourhood of the Vatican,-too near, as it proved, for a long continuance of their friendly relations. To find himself subject to a visit from Julius, whenever the whim seized him to cross the bridge which had been built between the Vatican and his studio, must have been intolerable to one who loved privacy and was unaccustomed to work under supervision. This we suspect was one of the causes of the catastrophe which the Pope might have foreseen, had he known the nature of the man with whom he had to deal. Michelangelo does not, however, allude to it in the letter which he wrote to Giuliano di Sangallo after he reached Florence, the following extract from which shows, among other things, that the Pope had begun to count the cost of those. great blocks of marble lying in the square behind St. Peter's, "whose number seemed to the people sufficient for the building of a temple rather than a tomb." "Talking at table with a jeweller and a master of the ceremonies, I heard that the Pope had said that he would not spend another bajocco upon big stones or little stones. Astonished at this, I determined before leaving Rome to ask for a part of the money needed for the continuation of my *This architect wished to fashion Mount Athos into a statue. Condivi, op. cit. p. 18. work. When I did so, his Holiness sent me word to come again on Monday, and so I did, and also on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. At last on Friday the door was shut in my face by an attendant who said that he knew me very well, but that he must obey orders. . . . This, however, was not the only cause of my departure; there was also another reason, which I do not wish to mention.' This reason doubtless was .... that Julius had changed his mind about the monument, and had proposed to Michelangelo to decorate the Sistine Chapel. with frescos. Both Vasari and Condivi tell us that this was brought about by Bramante, with the desire to ruin Michelangelo and thus bring Raphael forward. They say that he told his Holiness that he would hasten his death by building his own monument,† and advised him to employ Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, hoping that he would fail in the attempt and thereby lose all favour at the Vatican. From these charges Bramante cannot be altogether exonerated, for it is evident that he had some hand in the matter, from the testimony of Pietro Roselli, who, writing to Michelangelo, tells him that Bramante, being told by the Pope in his presence that Sangallo was to be sent to Florence to bring him back, replied, "It will be of no use, for I have heard him say several times that he would not paint the chapel as the Pope had ordered him to do," adding, "In my opinion Michelangelo is afraid to try his hand at a work which is out of his line." This," writes Roselli, "I denied, and told the Pope that I would stake my head that you had never said a word to Bramante on the subject." It is clear that, for some reason or other, Bramante placed himself in Michelangelo's way, prevented him from doing what he had set his heart upon, and turned his powers in a direction in which most men would have said they were likely to be wasted. If this was his object we cannot characterize his spirit as other than malignant, and yet we have reason to be grateful to him, for had he done otherwise the *Letter CCCXLIII., Milanesi, op. cit. p. 377. 66 + Michelangelo undoubtedly alludes to the Pope's acceptance of this idea, and his subsequent ange of plan, in the lines of a sonnet addressed to him, "Lo, thou hast lent thine ear to fables still, world would have lost the sublime frescos of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, for which the monument to Julius would have been but a poor compensation. It was on a Saturday in the month of May, 1506, that Michelangelo, who had paid for the last shipment of marbles from Carrara out of his own pocket, took the road to Florence, angry at the ill-treatment which he had received, and fully determined henceforward to leave the Pope to shift for him. self. Pursued and overtaken by a messenger who used every argument to induce him to return, he kept on his way, and it was perhaps well for him that Julius had other rebels to deal with, and plans for their reduction to turn over in his mind while his anger was at white heat, else the towers of Florence, like those of Perugia and Bologna, might have shaken with the sound of his cannon. His demands that the fugitive should be immediately sent back were so imperious, and his menaces so violent, that Soderini was really alarmed as to the consequences of delayed compliance. "You have dared," he said to Michelangelo, "to treat the Pope in a way the king of France would not have done, and as we are not inclined to risk our independence and go to war on your account, you had better make up your mind to obey." Answering one of the papal briefs on the subject, he writes, "Michelangelo the sculptor is so frightened † that, notwithstanding the promise Gaye, Carteggio, vol. ii. p. 83. The sonnet, written as if from Rome about this time, certainly does not show much personal fear, and is so very plain-spoken about abuses at the Court of Rome, that if the Pope, to whom it is addressed, had seen it, it may be doubted whether he would have ever consented to pardon the writer. It is signed, "Your Michelangelo in Turkey," where our sculptor, having been invited by the Sultan to superintend the building of a bridge between Pera and Constantinople, seriously thought of taking refuge in case Soderini should turn him out of Florence. "Here helms and swords are made of chalices: The blood of Christ is sold so much the quart: His cross and thorns are spears and shields and short : Must be the time ere even his patience cease. Nay let him come no more to raise the fear For Rome still slays and sells him at the court, of forgiveness conveyed to him in this brief, he will not return unless you send us a signed letter promising him security and immunity." That the Gonfaloniere was frightened there is no doubt, but Michelangelo was not a man to be intimidated by threats, though, as Soderini wrote to his brother, the Cardinal of Volterra, "if you speak kindly to him and treat him affectionately, you can do anything you please with him." After three months spent in working upon his unfinished cartoon at Florence, he consented to go to Bologna “with a halter round his neck," to use his own words, "to ask pardon of the Pope," not because he was afraid to refuse, but that he did not wish to bring trouble upon his friends and fellowcitizens; that he wished to return to Rome as soon as possible; and, lastly, because his Holiness had sent him word by the Cardinal of Pavia, in a letter addressed to the Signory of Florence, that "he would receive him kindly and set him to work immediately." As Perugia and Bologna had submitted to the Pope after his bold march from Rome, Michelangelo had every reason to hope that he should find him in a comparatively amiable frame of mind when, after an absence of eleven years, he re-entered the gates of Bologna, at the latter end of November, 1506. He was recognized by one of the Pope's servants while attending mass at the Cathedral of St. Petronius, and conducted to the palace where Julius had taken up his residence. After the irritation which showed itself in the first words addressed to him had spent itself upon a meddling Monsignore, who proffered an unasked excuse for the culprit, the papal brow relaxed its frown, and the papal eyes once more. looked kindly on the repentant fugitive, who was needed for the realization of a new project. This was to make a colossal bronze statue of the Pope, which, seated above the great door of St. Petronius,* would perpetually remind the Bolognese of Seeing that work and gain are gone: while he When the blest banner leads to nought but ill ? " See The Sonnets of Michelangelo and Campanella, translated by J. Addington Symonds, p. 34. London, 1878. In a letter to his brother Buonarroti, Michelangelo thus records a their absent master. The clay model, which was immediately begun, was nearly finished before the 22nd of February, when Julius, alarmed at the movements of Louis XII. of France who was preparing to make a descent into Italy to reduce insurgent Genoa to obedience, left Bologna for Rome. His last words to Michelangelo about the statue are characteristic of the man. Questioned as to whether the left hand of the figure should hold a book, the right being raised in a menacing attitude, he replied, "Rather a sword, for I am no reader." At the end of April, when the figure was ready to be cast in bronze, Michelangelo seems suddenly to have remembered that, as he knew nothing of the processes of the font, he could not go on without the assistance of a skilled workman. He accordingly wrote to Florence for Maestro Bernardino d'Antonio, a master of artillery in the service of the Florentine Republic, much renowned as a bronze-caster, who after obtaining the necessary permission, joined him at Bologna towards the end of May. A month later an attempt was made to cast the figure, but as he says in a letter to his brother, "either on account of the ignorance or misfortune of Bernardino it has failed. Half the bronze has stuck in the furnace, which must be taken to pieces in order to get it out. When this is done, all will go well I trust, but not without great annoyance, fatigue, and expense. So great was my faith in Bernardino that I was ready to believe that he could have cast the statue without fire; not that I mean to say that he is not a skilful artist, or that he did not do his best, but those who work are liable to fail, and he has failed, not only to my injury but to his own, for he is blamed in such a fashion that he hardly dares to raise his eyes in Bologna."* The second casting succeeded much better, though even this seems to have been less perfect than might have been hoped, visit of the Pope to his studio on the 29th of January :--" On Friday evening at 21 o'clock (sic) Pope Julius came to the house where I am working and stayed about half an hour while I was at work; he then gave me his blessing and went away. He seemed pleased with what I am doing. For this it seems to me we have reason to thank God: so do I pray for you, and ask you to pray for me." Letter L. Milanesi, Lettere, p. 65. In another letter, No. LI., to the same he records a second visit on the 1st of February, 1507. *Letter LXIII., Milanesi, op. cit. p. 79. Dated July 6 T |