Leo, I fancy, was always more than half-hearted about the facade.  He did not personally sympathise with Michelangelo’s character; and, seeing what his tastes were, it is impossible that he can have really appreciated the quality of his genius.  Giulio de’ Medici, afterwards Pope Clement VII., was more in sympathy with Buonarroti both as artist and as man.  To him we may with probability ascribe the impulse given at this moment to the project.  After several visits to Florence during the summer, and much correspondence with the Medici through their Roman agent, Michelangelo went finally, upon the 31st of August, to have the model completed under his own eyes by a workman in his native city.  It was carefully constructed of wood, showing the statuary in wax-relief.  Nearly four months were expended on this miniature.  The labour was lost, for not a vestige of it now remains.  Near the end of December he despatched his servant, Pietro Urbano, with the finished work to Rome.  On the 29th of that month, Urbano writes that he exposed the model in Messer Buoninsegni’s apartment, and that the Pope and Cardinal were very well pleased with it.  Buoninsegni wrote to the same effect, adding, however, that folk said it could never be finished in the sculptor’s lifetime, and suggesting that Michelangelo should hire assistants from Milan, where he, Buoninsegni, had seen excellent stonework in progress at the Duomo.

Some time in January 1518, Michelangelo travelled to Rome, conferred with Leo, and took the facade of S. Lorenzo on contract.  In February he returned by way of Florence to Carrara, where the quarry-masters were in open rebellion against him, and refused to carry out their contracts.  This forced him to go to Genoa, and hire ships there for the transport of his blocks.  Then the Carraresi corrupted the captains of these boats, and drove Michelangelo to Pisa (April 7), where he finally made an arrangement with a certain Francesco Peri to ship the marbles lying on the sea-shore at Carrara.

The reason of this revolt against him at Carrara may be briefly stated.  The Medici determined to begin working the old marble quarries of Pietra Santa, on the borders of the Florentine domain, and this naturally aroused the commercial jealousy of the folk at Carrara.  “Information,” says Condivi, “was sent to Pope Leo that marbles could be found in the high-lands above Pietra Santa, fully equal in quality and beauty to those of Carrara.  Michelangelo, having been sounded on the subject, chose to go on quarrying at Carrara rather than to take those belonging to the State of Florence.  This he did because he was befriended with the Marchese Alberigo, and lived on a good understanding with him.  The Pope wrote to Michelangelo, ordering him to repair to Pietra Santa, and see whether the information he had received from Florence was correct.  He did so, and ascertained that the marbles were very hard to work, and ill-adapted to their purpose; even had they been of the proper