When Giambattista Busini wrote that interesting series of letters to
Benedetto Varchi from which the latter drew important materials for
his annals of the siege, he noted this fact. "Envy must always be
reckoned as of some account in republics, especially when the nobles
form a considerable element, as in ours: for they were angry, among
other matters, to see a Carducci made Gonfalonier, Michelangelo a
member of the Nine, a Cei or a Giugni elected to the Ten."

Michelangelo had scarcely been chosen to control the general scheme
for fortifying Florence, when the Signory began to consider the
advisability of strengthening the citadels of Pisa and Livorno, and
erecting lines along the Arno. Their commissary at Pisa wrote urging
the necessity of Buonarroti's presence on the spot. In addition to
other pressing needs, the Arno, when in flood, threatened the ancient
fortress of the city. Accordingly we find that Michelangelo went to
Pisa on the 5th of June, and that he stayed there over the 13th,
returning to Florence perhaps upon the 17th of the month. The
commissary, who spent several days in conferring with him and in
visiting the banks of the Arno, was perturbed in mind because
Michelangelo refused to exchange the inn where he alighted for an
apartment in the official residence. This is very characteristic of
the artist. We shall soon find him, at Ferrara, refusing to quit his
hostelry for the Duke's palace, and, at Venice, hiring a remote
lodging on the Giudecca in order to avoid the hospitality of S. Mark.

An important part of Michelangelo's plan for the fortification of
Florence was to erect bastions covering the hill of S. Miniato. Any
one who stands upon the ruined tower of the church there will see at a
glance that S. Miniato is the key to the position for a beleaguering
force; and "if the enemy once obtained possession of the hill, he
would become immediately master of the town." It must, I think, have
been at this spot that Buonarroti was working before he received the
appointment of controller-general of the works. Yet he found some
difficulty in persuading the rulers of the state that his plan was the
right one. Busini, using information supplied by Michelangelo himself
at Rome in 1549, speaks as follows: "Whatever the reason may have
been, Niccolo Capponi, while he was Gonfalonier, would not allow the
hill of S. Miniato to be fortified, and Michelangelo, who is a man of
absolute veracity, tells me that he ha