t just quoted is
interesting in several respects. The boldness of the beginning makes
one comprehend how Michelangelo was terrible even to Popes:--

"Most Blessed Father,--Inasmuch as intermediates are often the cause
of grave misunderstandings, I have summoned up courage to write
without their aid to your Holiness about the tombs at S. Lorenzo. I
repeat, I know not which is preferable, the evil that does good, or
the good that hurts. I am certain, mad and wicked as I may be, that if
I had been allowed to go on as I had begun, all the marbles needed for
the work would have been in Florence to-day, and properly blocked out,
with less cost than has been expended on them up to this date; and
they would have been superb, as are the others I have brought here."

After this he entreats Clement to give him full authority in carrying
out the work, and not to put superiors over him. Michelangelo, we
know, was extremely impatient of control and interference; and we
shall see, within a short time, how excessively the watching and
spying of busybodies worried and disturbed his spirits.

But these were not his only sources of annoyance. The heirs of Pope
Julius, perceiving that Michelangelo's time and energy were wholly
absorbed at S. Lorenzo, began to threaten him with a lawsuit. Clement,
wanting apparently to mediate between the litigants, ordered Fattucci
to obtain a report from the sculptor, with a full account of how
matters stood. This evoked the long and interesting document which has
been so often cited. There is no doubt whatever that Michelangelo
acutely felt the justice of the Duke of Urbino's grievances against
him. He was broken-hearted at seeming to be wanting in his sense of
honour and duty. People, he says, accused him of putting the money
which had been paid for the tomb out at usury, "living meanwhile at
Florence and amusing himself." It also hurt him deeply to be
distracted from the cherished project of his early manhood in order to
superintend works for which he had no enthusiasm, and which lay
outside his sphere of operation.

It may, indeed, be said that during these years Michelangelo lived in
a perpetual state of uneasiness and anxiety about the tomb of Julius.
As far back as 1518 the Cardinal Leonardo Grosso, Bishop of Agen, and
one of Julius's executors, found it necessary to hearten him with
frequent letters of encouragement. In one of these, after commending
his zeal in extracting marbles and carrying