plague is breaking out there. "And I would
rather have you alive than my business settled. If I die before the
Pope, I shall not have to settle any troublesome affairs. If I live, I
am sure the Pope will settle them, if not now, at some other time. So
come back. I was with your mother yesterday, and advised her, in the
presence of Granacci and John the turner, to send for you home."

While in Rome Michelangelo conferred with Clement about the sacristy
and library at S. Lorenzo. For a year after his return to Florence he
worked steadily at the Medicean monuments, but not without severe
annoyances, as appears from the following to Fattucci: "The four
statues I have in hand are not yet finished, and much has still to be
done upon them. The four rivers are not begun, because the marble is
wanting, and yet it is here. I do not think it opportune to tell you
why. With regard to the affairs of Julius, I am well disposed to make
the tomb like that of Pius in S. Peter's, and will do so little by
little, now one piece and now another, and will pay for it out of my
own pocket, if I keep my pension and my house, as you promised me. I
mean, of course, the house at Rome, and the marbles and other things I
have there. So that, in fine, I should not have to restore to the
heirs of Julius, in order to be quit of the contract, anything which I
have hitherto received; the tomb itself, completed after the pattern
of that of Pius, sufficing for my full discharge. Moreover, I
undertake to perform the work within a reasonable time, and to finish
the statues with my own hand." He then turns to his present troubles
at Florence. The pension was in arrears, and busybodies annoyed him
with interferences of all sorts. "If my pension were paid, as was
arranged, I would never stop working for Pope Clement with all the
strength I have, small though that be, since I am old. At the same
time I must not be slighted and affronted as I am now, for such
treatment weighs greatly on my spirits. The petty spites I speak of
have prevented me from doing what I want to do these many months; one
cannot work at one thing with the hands, another with the brain,
especially in marble. 'Tis said here that these annoyances are meant
to spur me on; but I maintain that those are scurvy spurs which make a
good steed jib. I have not touched my pension during the past year,
and struggle with poverty. I am left in solitude to bear my troubles,
and have so many that they occu