These general remarks, he adds, apply to Stefano, whom he placed in a position of trust and responsibility, in order to assist him.  “What I do is done for his good, because I have undertaken to benefit the man, and cannot abandon him; but let him not imagine or say that I am doing it because of my necessities, for, God be praised, I do not stand in need of men.”  He then begs Gondi to discover what Stefano’s real mind is.  This is a matter of great importance to him for several reasons, and especially for this:  “If I omitted to justify myself, and were to put another in his place, I should be published among the Piagnoni for the biggest traitor who ever lived, even though I were in the right.”

We conclude, then, that Michelangelo thought of dismissing Stefano, but feared lest he should get into trouble with the powerful political party, followers of Savonarola, who bore the name of Piagnoni at Florence.  Gondi must have patched the quarrel up, for we still find Stefano’s name in the Ricordi down to April 4, 1524.  Shortly after that date, Antonio Mini seems to have taken his place as Michelangelo’s right-hand man of business.  These details are not so insignificant as they appear.  They enable us to infer that the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo may have been walled and roofed in before the end of April 1524; for, in an undated letter to Pope Clement, Michelangelo says that Stefano has finished the lantern, and that it is universally admired.  With regard to this lantern, folk told him that he would make it better than Brunelleschi’s.  “Different perhaps, but better, no!” he answered.  The letter to Clement just quoted is interesting in several respects.  The boldness of the beginning makes one comprehend how Michelangelo was terrible even to Popes:—­

“Most Blessed Father,—­Inasmuch as intermediates are often the cause of grave misunderstandings, I have summoned up courage to write without their aid to your Holiness about the tombs at S. Lorenzo.  I repeat, I know not which is preferable, the evil that does good, or the good that hurts.  I am certain, mad and wicked as I may be, that if I had been allowed to go on as I had begun, all the marbles needed for the work would have been in Florence to-day, and properly blocked out, with less cost than has been expended on them up to this date; and they would have been superb, as are the others I have brought here.”

After this he entreats Clement to give him full authority in carrying out the work, and not to put superiors over him.  Michelangelo, we know, was extremely impatient of control and interference; and we shall see, within a short time, how excessively the watching and spying of busybodies worried and disturbed his spirits.