rather creditor than debtor. Clement appears to have arranged matters
to some extent with the executors, and we have a hint of the new
arrangement in a letter by Michael Angelo to Fattucci,(134) dated
Florence, October 24, 1525:--

"MESSER GIOVAN FRANCESCO,--In reply to your last, the four statues
I have in hand are not yet finished, and much has still to be done
upon them. The four others, for rivers, are not begun, because the
marble was wanting, but now it has come. I do not tell you how
because there is no need. With regard to the affair of Julius, I
wish to make the Tomb like that of Pius in St. Peter's, as you
have written, and will do so little by little, now one piece and
now another, and will pay for it out of my own pocket, if I hold
my pension and my house, as you have written; that is to say, the
house where I lived yonder in Rome, with the marbles and movables
therein. So that I should not have to give to them, I mean to the
heirs of Julius, in order to be quit of the Tomb contract,
anything of what I have received hitherto, except the said Tomb,
completed, like that of Pius in Saint Peter's. Moreover, I
undertake to perform the work within a reasonable time, and to
finish the statues with my own hand." He now turns to his
annoyances at San Lorenzo: "And given my pension as was said, I
will never stop working for Pope Clement with what strength I
have, though that be little, for I am old. At the same time I must
not be slighted and affronted as I am now, for it weighs greatly
on my spirits, and has prevented me from doing what I wished to do
these many months; one cannot work at one thing with the hands,
and at another with the brain, and especially in marble. 'Tis said
here that these annoyances are meant to spur me on; but I maintain
that those are scurvy spurs that make a good steed jib. I have not
touched my pension during the last year, and struggle with
poverty. I am alone in my troubles, and have many of them, which
keep me more busy than my art, for I cannot keep a servant for
lack of means."

There is a kind letter from Michael Angelo to Sebastiano del Piombo that
belongs to this period, May 1525.(135) It refers to a picture by
Sebastiano, probably the portrait of Anton Francesco degli Albizzi,
referred to in letter cccxcvi.:--

"MY MOST DEAR SEBASTIANO,--Last evening our