the 29th of August.  We have a letter written on that day to Giovanni Spina:  “After I left you yesterday, I went back thinking over my affairs; and, seeing that the Pope has set his heart on S. Lorenzo, and how he urgently requires my service, and has appointed me a good provision in order that I may serve him with more convenience and speed; seeing also that not to accept it keeps me back, and that I have no good excuse for not serving his Holiness; I have changed my mind, and whereas I hitherto refused, I now demand it (i.e., the salary), considering this far wiser, and for more reasons than I care to write; and, more especially, I mean to return to the house you took for me at S. Lorenzo, and settle down there like an honest man:  inasmuch as it sets gossip going, and does me great damage not to go back there.”  From a Ricordo dated October 19, 1524, we learn in fact that he then drew his full pay for eight months.

IV

Since Michelangelo was now engaged upon the Medicean tombs at S. Lorenzo, it will be well to give some account of the several plans he made before deciding on the final scheme, which he partially executed.  We may assume, I think, that the sacristy, as regards its general form and dimensions, faithfully represents the first plan approved by Clement.  This follows from the rapidity and regularity with which the structure was completed.  But then came the question of filling it with sarcophagi and statues.  As early as November 28, 1520, Giulio de’ Medici, at that time Cardinal, wrote from the Villa Magliana. to Buonarroti, addressing him thus:  “Spectabilis vir, amice noster charissime.”  He says that he is pleased with the design for the chapel, and with the notion of placing the four tombs in the middle.  Then he proceeds to make some sensible remarks upon the difficulty of getting these huge masses of statuary into the space provided for them.  Michelangelo, as Heath Wilson has pointed out, very slowly acquired the sense of proportion on which technical architecture depends.  His early sketches only show a feeling for mass and picturesque effect, and a strong inclination to subordinate the building to sculpture.

It may be questioned who were the four Medici for whom these tombs were intended.  Cambi, in a passage quoted above, writing at the end of March 1520(?), says that two were raised for Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, and Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, and that the Cardinal meant one to be for himself.  The fourth he does not speak about.  It has been conjectured that Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother Giuliano, fathers respectively of Leo and of Clement, were to occupy two of the sarcophagi; and also, with greater probability, that the two Popes, Leo and Clement, were associated with the Dukes.