is keeping. _Bene Valeti_.

"This day, 22nd of July, 1508.

"YOURS,
"FRANCESCO GRANACCI.

"If you can employ me as above is said, I shall be willing to be
with you. Nothing more.

"GIOVANNI MICHI,
"San Lorenzo, Florence
"(Faithful service and honest man).

"Directed to the Excellent Master
Michael Angelo, Florence, at
St. Peter's, Sculptor, Rome.

"Given from the Bank of Baldassare in Campo di Fiore."

[Image #17]

THE EXPULSION

SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(_By permission of Messrs. Braun, Clement & Co., in. Dornach, Alsace_)

Neither Raffaellino del Garbo nor Giovanni Michi were employed, but the
next letter of Granacci, dated July 24, 1508, mentions Giuliano
Buggiardini and Jacopo L'Indaco, who were both tried. Vasari informs us
that Granacci, Jacopo di Sandro, and the elder Indaco, Agnolo di Donnino,
and Aristotile da Sangallo also accepted work. We have another proof that
the actual fresco painting did not begin at this period, in a document
preserved in the National Archives at Florence. Heath Wilson obtained
legal opinion that Michael Angelo must have been in Florence in person
when this deed was executed. It runs: "In the year of our Lord, 1508, on
the 11th day of August, Michael Angelo, the son of Ludovico Lionardo di
Buonarroto, cancelled his lawful claim upon the estate of his uncle
Francis by a deed drawn up by Ser Giovanni di Guasparre da Montevarchi,
Florentine notary, on the 27th of the month of July, 1508." Another
instance of Michael Angelo's generosity to his family. If Michael Angelo
at once proceeded to Rome, he and his assistants may have begun work
towards the end of August. During all this period we must notice how
troubled he was by the affairs of his family and his household
arrangements. Michael Angelo, while living like a poor man in Rome, sent
money to, and purchased land for, his family in Florence, and helped to
establish Buonarroto in business, but they were never satisfied, and his
letters to his father and Giovan Simon