alace. The giant was to top the roof of the Medician Palace, with its
face turned in that direction and its back to the house of Luigi della
Stufa. Being so huge it would have to be constructed of separate pieces
fitted together. This project, evidently intended as a truly Florentine
insult to the house of Stufa, did not please Michael Angelo, and his
letter, of October 1525, in reply is an instance of his heavy, elephantine
humour:--

[Image #37]

LORENZO DE MEDICI, DUKE OF URBINO

THE NEW SACRISTY, SAN LORENZO, FLORENCE
(_By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence_)

"_To my dear friend_ MESSERE GIOVAN FRANCESCO, _priest of Saint
Mary of the Flower of Florence, in Rome._

"MESSER GIOVAN FRANCESCO,--If I had as much strength as I have had
pleasure from your last letter, I should expect to carry out, and
that quickly, all the things you write to me about, but as I have
not I will do what I can.

"About the colossus of forty braccia, of which you tell me, that
is to go, or rather to be erected, at the corner of the loggia of
the Medician garden, opposite the corner of Messer Luigi della
Stufa, I have thought of it not a little, as you told me, and it
seems to me that it would not do in that corner, for it would take
up too much of the roadway; but in the other corner, where the
barber's shop is, it would turn out much better according to my
way of thinking, because it has the piazza in front of it and
would not be so much in the way; and perhaps as they would not
allow the shop to be removed, for love of the income from it, I
have been thinking that the said figure might be in a sitting
position, and the seat high, the said work to be hollow within, as
is right when working in pieces, so that the barber's shop would
come underneath, and the rent would not be lost. And again, so
that the said shop may have wherewithal to dispose of its smoke as
it has now, it occurred to me to give the said statue a horn of
plenty in its hand, hollow within, which would serve for the
chimney. Then having the head of the said figure empty, like the
other members, of that also I believe we could make some use, for
there is here in the piazza a huckster, very much my friend, who
tells me in secret that it would make a very fine dovecot. Another