friction
between them.

"One day," says Condivi, "the pope asked him when he would finish and
Michelangelo answered, according to his custom, 'When I can.' The pope,
who was irritable, struck him with his staff, saying, 'When I can, when
I can!' Michelangelo rushed home and began to make his preparations to
leave Rome. Luckily the pope sent hurriedly after him an amiable young
man named Accursio, who gave him five hundred ducats, soothed him as
well as he could and apologised for Julius II and Michelangelo accepted
the excuses. The next day, however, they began again and when the pope
threatened to have him thrown from his scaffolding Michelangelo had to
give way. He had the scaffolding removed and uncovered the ceiling
sooner than he had intended. 'That is why,' he said, 'that that work was
not carried on as far as I would have wished. The pope's impatience
prevented.'"

The first part of the paintings was finished on September 1st, 1510, and
the pope was able to see the four chief compositions of the ceiling
before his departure for Bologna. In January and February, 1511,
Michelangelo drew the cartoons for the "teste e faccie attorno di ditta
capella," the pictures for the corners and the lunettes, and the second
period of the work began. On August, 1511, Julius II celebrated mass in
the Sistine Chapel, "ut picturas novas ibidem noviter detectas videret";
and the entire work was finished in October, 1512. On October 31, 1512,
the Sistine Chapel was opened to the public.

Soon after, on February 21, 1513, Julius II died.

CHAPTER III

THE FAILURE OF THE GREAT PLANS

(1513-1534)

Michelangelo, freed from the Sistine Chapel, returned to sculpture and
to the great project which he had most at heart, the tomb of Julius
II.[29]

Julius II in his will had charged Cardinal d'Agen, Lionardo Grossi della
Rovere and the Prothonotary Lorenzo Pucci (later on Cardinal de Santi
Quatro) to continue the enterprise. He had stipulated that the monument
should not be executed in the colossal proportions which were originally
determined on. But it does not appear that his executors complied with
this request. Michelangelo writes in 1524 "at the death of Pope Julius
and the beginning of Leo's reign Aginensis (Cardinal d'Agen) wished to
enlarge the monument and to make the work more considerable than was my
first design and a contract was made."

The sixth of March, 1513, Michelangelo signed what was in effect a new
con