Spedalingo, on account. I wait for the money. No more.

"On the 16th day of June, 1515.

"MICHAEL ANGELO, in Rome."(121)

So now, besides the Moses and the Captives in marble, the panels in relief
were, perhaps, ready for casting. The lower portions of the architectural
base, now in San Pietro in Vincula, were also probably finished. Half the
period spent by Michael Angelo in quarrying and road-making for Pope Leo
would have sufficed for the completion of the Tomb, which would then have
been a monument of Michael Angelo's power as a sculptor, fit to rank with
the monument of his power as a painter in the Sistine Chapel: a monument
containing four figures, equal in execution and size to the Moses, twelve
figures like the Slaves, altogether some forty statues and numerous bronze
bas-reliefs besides. It is a great misfortune that we have no bronze
bas-reliefs by Michael Angelo, for all his works prove that his genius
would have been well expressed in this art.

[Image #33]

ONE OF THE ANCESTORS OF CHRIST, OVER THE WINDOW INSCRIBED "IORAM"

(_Reproduced by permission from a photograph by Sig. D. Anderson, Rome_)

The early years of the Pontificate of Leo X. were wasted over the project
for the facade of San Lorenzo. Michael Angelo was continually at Carrara.
In a letter, dated May 8, 1517, to Domenico Buoninsegna, Michael Angelo
writes with enthusiasm about his new scheme, and undertakes to carry it
out for 35,000 golden ducats in six years. Buoninsegna replied that the
Cardinal expressed the highest satisfaction at "the great heart he had for
conducting the work of the facade." The friendly relations of Michael
Angelo with the natives of Carrara continued until the Pope obliged him to
leave their quarries and open up those of Pietra Santa, in Tuscan
territory, by which act Michael Angelo lost much time. He had positively
to make roads down the mountains and over the marshes before he could get
a single block to the river. The Marquis of Carrara became his enemy, and
the contracts with the people of Carrara caused him much annoyance and
great loss. The orders from Rome were peremptory and had to be
obeyed.(122) Ten years of the best of Michael Angelo's working life were
wasted; the numberless delays of this period, and the delays over the Tomb
of Julius, positively seem to have changed the character of the artist
from a man of action t