Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/401

1564] his passion for gigantic works, began by employing him to construct a colossal monument for his own tomb. This huge structure was to stand in the tribune of St. Peter's, and was to be adorned with countless statues and reliefs, illustrating the Pope's triumphs. But this elaborate project was never carried out. The Tragedy of the Tomb, as Condivi calls it, dragged its weary course through forty years, and embittered Michelangelo's whole life. The Pope sent him to quarry marbles at Carrara, and took a childish delight in counting the cart-loads of masonic blocks which reached the Vatican. He paid constant visits to the sculptor's shop, gave him a house to live in, and loaded him with favours. But whether his thoughts were absorbed by his new campaign against Bologna, or whether, as Michelangelo firmly believed, his mind was poisoned by the jealous intrigues of Bramante, he soon grew tired of this scheme, and treated the artist with neglect. One day Michelangelo, being in urgent need of money, asked to see His Holiness, and was turned away by a groom. "Tell the Pope," he exclaimed, "that the next time he wants me, he will find me elsewhere." That evening he left Rome for Florence, and neither the Pope's commands, nor the prayers of his friends, could induce him to return. Julius sent no less than three papal briefs to the Signory, demanding that Michelangelo should be given up to him, and it was not until the Gonfaloniere told the artist that the city could not go to war on his account, that he consented to obey the Pope's summons. In November, 1506, he joined the pontiff at Bologna, and spent the next year in making a bronze statue of His Holiness,