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 façade." 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 to a man of thought. Possibly advancing age had something to do with it; but the fact remains that the man who executed the bronze statue of Julius in two years, and painted the vault of the Sistine in less than three years, took seven years to finish the Last Judgment, which covers a surface about one-third [pg 184]the extent of the vault, and also is in a much more favourable position for painting.
There is a document shown in the rooms of the State Archives at the Uffizi that belongs to this period; it is a memorial addressed by the Florentine Academy to Pope Leo X., asking him to authorise the translation of the bones of Dante from Ravenna, where they still rest under "the little cupola, more neat than solemn," to Florence. It is dated October 20, 1518. All but one of the signatures appended are written in Latin; that one is as follows:—"I, Michael Angelo, the sculptor, pray the like of your Holiness, offering my services to the divine poet for the erection of a befitting sepulchre to him in some honour-place in this city." Michael Angelo's devotion to Dante was well known to his contemporaries; he is known to have filled a book with drawings to illustrate the "Divina Com media"; this volume perished at sea, whilst in the possession of the sculptor Antonio Montanti, who was shipwrecked on a journey from Leghorn to Rome.
On April 17, 1517, Michael Angelo bought some ground in the Via Mozza, now Via San Zanobi, Florence, from the Chapter of Santa Maria del Fiore, to build a workshop for finishing his marbles; the purchase was completed on November 24, 1518. This studio remained in his possession until his death. He describes it to Lionardo di Compago, the saddle-maker, as an excellent workshop, where twenty statues can be set up together.
Meanwhile he went on working at Pietra Santa for the façade. In August 1518, he writes:—--
ONE OF THE ANCESTORS OF CHRIST, OVER THE WINDOW INSCRIBED "ASA"