Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/255

Rh Clement, and that Pontiff caused it to be placed in his Guardaroba, where it still remains.

Now in the time of Pope Leo X. there had been a block of marble excavated at Carrara, together with those for the fa£ade of San Lorenzo in Florence, which block was nine braccia and a half high, with a width at the lower end of five braccia. In that piece of marble Michelagnolo Buonarroti had intended to execute a colossal figure of Hercules slaying Cacus, and this he proposed to place on the Piazza beside the colossal figure of David, which had previously been sculptured by his hand, choosing those subjects because both the David and Hercules were devices belonging to the palace. Buonarroti had prepared several designs and made models of different kinds for this work, and had moreover sought to obtain the favour of Pope Leo X. and of the Cardinal Griulio de’ Medici, declaring that in the David there was much that deserved censure, because the sculptor Maestro Andrea, who had first sketched the statue, had spoiled it in doing so. The death of Pope Leo had nevertheless caused the fa9ade of San Lorenzo to remain unfinished, and the piece of marble in question was also left unclaimed and without use.

At a later period, and when Pope Clement conceived a wish to avail himself of Michelagnolo’s services for the tombs of the great men belonging to the house of Medici, which he desired to have erected in the chapel of San Lorenzo, it became needful that other marbles should be provided, and all the accounts relating to the cost of these excavations were kept by Domenico Boninsegni, who was superintendent of that department. By this Domenico, then, a proposal was made to Michelagnolo, to the end that they, joining company secretly, should make common cause, for their own profit, with respect to the stone-work required for the Sacristy of San Lorenzo. But Michelagnolo excusing himself, and not enduring to have his art degraded by being rendered a means of defrauding the Pontiff, Domenico concieved so bitter a hatred against him, that he ever afterwards did his utmost to humiliate and injure him, opposing himself to all his plans, but always with the utmost secrecy. He con-