, and that it shall be the most
beautiful work in marble which Rome to-day can show, and that no master of
our days shall be able to produce a better. And similarly I promise the
said Michael Angelo that the Most Reverend Cardinal will disburse the
payments as written above; and in good faith, I, Jacopo Gallo, have made
the present writing with my own hand, according to date of year, month,
and day, as above."(76)

Jacopo's boast and promise were justified, for even now there is no finer
complete work of sculpture in the whole of Rome than the Pieta at St.
Peter's. It is said that Michael Angelo overheard certain Lombards ascribe
the Pieta to their own sculptor, Cristoforo Solari, called "Il Gobbo." He
therefore carved his name upon the belt of the Madonna's robe. He never
signed any other work. Nothing closes the great period of the fifteenth
century so fitly as the Pieta of Michael Angelo, prophesying at the same
time the power of the art of the sixteenth.

CHAPTER III

THE DAVID AND THE CARTOON OF PISA

Family affairs recalled Michael Angelo to Florence in the spring of 1501.
He returned full of honours gained in Rome, and took up his position as
the first sculptor of the day. His next commission came from Cardinal
Francesco Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius III. A contract was signed on
June 5, 1501, by which Michael Angelo agreed to complete some fifteen
statues of male saints within the time of three years, for the Piccolomini
Chapel, in the Duomo of Siena. A Saint Francis was begun by Piero
Torrigiano, and may have been finished by Michael Angelo. The rest of the
four works that were the outcome of this commission can have had nothing
to do with the chisel of the sculptor of the Madonna della Febbre and the
David. Michael Angelo must have merely contracted to supply them, as the
master sculptor of a sculptor's yard, possibly furnishing the designs
himself. There is a drawing at the British Museum of a bearded saint,
cowled and holding a book in his left hand, which may be a design for one
of these inferior works.

[Image #5]

DAVID

THE ACADEMY, FLORENCE
(_By permission of the Fratelli Alinari Florence_)

[Image #6]

DAVID

IN THE PIAZZA
(_By permission of th