Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 4.djvu/264

256 of its ornaments during the time of the siege. To Baccio Bandinelli the Pope caused one hundr''Ed. Flor.''ns of gold to be given with a letter of recommendation, to the end that, having returned to Florence, he should complete the work of the colossal statue.

While Baccio was still in Bologna, the Cardinal Doria having heard that he was about to leave the court, came to seek him, and with loud outcries, abusive words, and violent menaces, reproached the sculptor for having broken his promise and failed in his duty, inasmuch as that he had neglected to complete the statue of Prince Doria, and had left it in Carrara merely sketched, although he had received flve hundred scudi of the price thereof; the Cardinal added that if Andrea could get Baccio into his hands, he would certainly make him pay for his misconduct at the galleys. The artist excused himself humbly and with gentle words, declaring that he had been impeded by a just and sufficient cause, but that he had a block of marble in Florence of the same dimensions with that from which he had designed to form the figure in question, which he would at once proceed to finish, and, that done, would immediately send it to Genoa. He found means in short to defend himself so well, and said so much, that he contrived to escape unhurt from the presence of the Cardinal.

Having returned to Florence, Baccio instantly set hand to the pedestal of the Giant, and working at the figure himself without intermission, he completed it entirely in the year 1534; but the Duke Alessandro, influenced by the unfavourable disposition of the citizens, did not take measures for having it erected on the Piazza.

The Pope had by that time been several months returned to Pome, and desiring to have a sepulchral monument constructed in the church of the Minerva in that city for Pope Leo as well as one for himself, Baccio, seizing the occasion, repaired thither, where Pope Clement determined that he should erect those tombs, after he had completed the placing of the colossal figure on the Piazza. Thereupon his Holiness wrote to Duke Alessandro, whom he urged to give Baccio the desired opportunity for erecting the figure of Hercules in its place; when an enclosure of planks was at