"When the pope changed his mind and the boats arrived with the marble from Carrara I had to pay the charge of transport myself. And as at this same time the stone-cutters who had come from Florence for the tomb also arrived at Rome and I had had the house which Julius had given me behind S. Caterina prepared for them, I found myself without money and greatly embarrassed. I urged the pope as strongly as I could to continue the construction of the tomb and then one morning when I wished to talk with him about it he had me put out by a groom."
Then it was that the famous flight to Florence took place. Michelangelo, outraged by this affront, took horse and fled from Rome and refused to return in spite of the messengers which the pope sent after him. The indignity of the affront was not, by his own account, the only reason for his flight. In a letter to Giuliano da San Gallo he implies that his life was in danger from Bramante's threats.
"That was not the only reason for my leaving. There was still another which I would rather not speak about. It is enough to say that it made me think that if I stayed in Rome that town would more likely be my tomb than that of the pope. And that was the reason for my sudden departure."
Nothing justifies us in believing that Bramante had thought of having recourse to a crime, but it was enough that Michelangelo believed him to be capable of it and, in one of those accesses of sudden terror which contrast so strangely with the stubborn boldness of his genius, he ran away. Moreover, Bramante understood perfectly how to terrorise his rivals and to make life near him impossible for them. Only a little while after Michelangelo Giuliano da San Gallo, who was Bramante's last rival at St. Peter's, also had to flee.
There was, however, still another reason for the sudden departure of Michelangelo, and though he himself has taken good care to say nothing about it, I am surprised that the historians have not brought it out more clearly. Michelangelo fled on the seventeenth of April, 1506. On the eighteenth of April there took place the solemn ceremony of the laying of the first stone of St. Peter's. This is the true reason for his sudden withdrawal; he did not want to be present at the triumph of his enemy.[{32}]
He had hardly left before Bramante so arranged matters that he could not come back. He ruined his work and his fortunes.
"That affair," writes Michelangelo, "caused me a loss of more than a thousand ducats. When I left Rome there arose a great riot because of the shame put upon the pope, and almost all the blocks of marble which I had on the square of St. Peter's were taken from me, especially the smaller pieces, which made it necessary for me later on to begin the whole work over again."
Nevertheless Julius II was furious at the revolt of his sculptor and sent letter after letter to the Signory of Florence where Michelangelo had betaken himself. The Signory, anxious not to compromise themselves, tried to persuade Michelangelo to take once more the road to Rome, but he would do nothing of the kind. He had tranquilly taken up his work on the cartoon of The Battle, the Twelve Apostles for the cathedral and the Madonna of Bruges, and he stubbornly persisted in his unwillingness to return. He proposed his own terms and pretended to be working on the tomb of Julius II at Florence. When, toward the end of August, 1506, Julius II went to war with Perugia and Bologna and grew more importunate in his demands Michelangelo had the idea of expatriating[{33}] himself. He thought of going to Turkey, where the Sultan, through the Franciscans, invited him to come to Constantinople and build a bridge at Pera.[25]