owever much he wished to please his
friends and longed to end his days in peace at home. "I was set to
work upon S. Peter's against my will, and I have served now eight
years gratis, and with the utmost injury and discomfort to myself. Now
that the fabric has been pushed forward and there is money to spend,
and I am just upon the point of vaulting in the cupola, my departure
from Rome would be the ruin of the edifice, and for me a great
disgrace throughout all Christendom, and to my soul a grievous sin.
Pray ask his lordship to give me leave of absence till S. Peter's has
reached a point at which it cannot be altered in its main features.
Should I leave Rome earlier, I should be the cause of a great ruin, a
great disgrace, and a great sin." To the Duke he writes in 1557 that
his special reasons for not wishing to abandon S. Peter's were, first,
that the work would fall into the hands of thieves and rogues;
secondly, that it might probably be suspended altogether; thirdly,
that he owned property in Rome to the amount of several thousand
crowns, which, if he left without permission, would be lost; fourthly,
that he was suffering from several ailments. He also observed that the
work had just reached its most critical stage (i.e., the erection of
the cupola), and that to desert it at the present moment would be a
great disgrace.

The vaulting of the cupola had now indeed become the main
preoccupation of Michelangelo's life. Early in 1557 a serious illness
threatened his health, and several friends, including the Cardinal of
Carpi, Donato Giannotti, Tommaso Cavalieri, Francesco Bandini, and
Lottino, persuaded him that he ought to construct a large model, so
that the execution of this most important feature of the edifice might
not be impeded in the event of his death. It appears certain that up
to this date no models of his on anything like a large intelligible
scale had been provided for S. Peter's; and the only extant model
attributable to Michelangelo's own period is that of the cupola. This
may help to account for the fact that, while the cupola was finished
much as he intended, the rest of his scheme suffered a thorough and
injurious remodelling.

He wrote to his nephew Lionardo on the 13th of February 1557 about the
impossibility of meeting the Grand Duke's wishes and leaving Rome. "I
told his Lordship that I was obliged to attend to S. Peter's until I
could leave the work there at such a point that my plans would no