us III, but the money was lacking.[100] In 1559 the Florentines
took up the idea again and decided to put a church of a new plan on the
old foundations, and their procurators, Francesco Bandini, Uberto
Ubaldini and Tommaso de' Bardi, asked Michelangelo to take charge of it
in spite of his duties at St. Peter's. Cosmo de' Medici himself wrote a
most flattering letter begging him to accept, and Michelangelo answered
the duke that he "considered his wish an order" and had already shown
the Florentine deputies several drawings, of which they had chosen the
one which he considered the best.[101] "I am sorry," he added, "to be
now so old and so little alive that I can not do all I would or all that
is my duty to your lordship and the people. Nevertheless I will make the
effort by directing everything from my house to accomplish what your
lordship desires."[102]

In spite of his age he began with the same enthusiasm with which he had
undertaken the unlucky facade of S. Lorenzo. He told the commission that
if they carried out his plans "neither the Greeks nor the Romans would
have done anything like it." "Words," says Vasari, "of a kind that never
came from the mouth of Michelangelo before or after, for he was
extremely modest."

[Illustration: DAWN

Figure from the Tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici.

Chapel of the Medici in San Lorenzo, Florence (1524-1526 and 1530-1534)]

The Florentines accepted his plans without change and gave the execution
of them to Tiberio Calcagni.

"Michelangelo," says Vasari, "explained his project to Tiberio so that
he could make a clear and accurate drawing of it. He gave him the
profiles of the interior and exterior and made him a model in wax.
Tiberio in ten days finished a model two feet high, and as it pleased
all the people another model was made in wood which is now in the
Consulate. It is a work of such rare art that there never was seen a
church so beautiful, so rich and with such variety of fancy." The
building was commenced and five thousand crowns spent; then the money
gave out and the work stopped, to Michelangelo's most profound
disappointment. Not only was the church not built, but the model
disappeared with all the plans. This was the last artistic
disappointment of his life.[103]

He could no longer paint, but he still continued to work at his
sculpture from a sort of physical need. Vasari says that "his genius and
strength could not live without creation." He attacked a block of m