Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/282

270 bitter enemy of Michelagnolo, although the latter was so little to blame.

Other marbles, besides the columns above-named, were subsequently procured at Serravezza, where they have been now lying more than thirty years; but Duke Cosimo has given orders for the completion of the road, of which there are still two miles to make, over ground very difficult to manage, when the transport of marbles is in question; but there is also another quarry, which was discovered at that time by Michelagnolo, and which yields excellent marble, proper for the completion of many a noble undertaking. He has likewise found a mountain of excessively hard and very beautiful vari-coloured marble in the same place of Serravezza, and situate beneath Stazema, a villa constructed amidst those hills, where Duke Cosimo has formed a paved road more than four miles long, for the purpose of bringing the marbles to the sea-shore.

But to return to Michelagnolo, who had now again repaired to Florence. Losing much time, first in one thing and then in another, he made a model, among other things, for those projecting and grated windows with which are furnished the rooms at the angle of the Palace, in one of which Giovanni da Udine executed the paintings and stucco-work which are so much and so deservedly extolled.

He also caused blinds, in perforated copper, to be made by the goldsmith Piloto, but after his own designs, and very admirable they certainly are. Michelagnolo consumed many years, as we have said, in the excavation of marbles; it is true that he prepared models in wax and other requisites for the great undertakings with which he was engaged at the same time, but the execution of these was delayed until the monies, appropriated by the Pontiff for that purpose, had been expended in the wars of Lombardy; and at the death of Leo the works thus remained incomplete, nothing having been accomplished but the foundations of the Fa9ade, and the transport of a great column from Carrara to the Piazza di San Lorenzo.

The death of Pope Leo X. completely astounded the arts and artists, both in Rome and Florence; and while Adrian VI. ruled, Michelagnolo employed himself in the lastnamed city with the Sepulchre of Julius. But when Adrian