Another very singular idea occurred to his Holiness in the autumn of 1525.  He made Fattucci write that he wished to erect a colossal statue on the piazza of S. Lorenzo, opposite the Stufa Palace.  The giant was to surmount the roof of the Medicean Palace, with its face turned in that direction and its back to the house of Luigi della Stufa.  Being so huge, it would have to be composed of separate pieces fitted together.  Michelangelo speedily knocked this absurd plan on the head in a letter which gives a good conception of his dry and somewhat ponderous humour.

“About the Colossus of forty cubits, which you tell me is to go or to be placed at the corner of the loggia in the Medicean garden, opposite the corner of Messer Luigi della Stufa, I have meditated not a little, as you bade me.  In my opinion that is not the proper place for it, since it would take up too much room on the roadway.  I should prefer to put it at the other, where the barber’s shop is.  This would be far better in my judgment, since it has the square in front, and would not encumber the street.  There might be some difficulty about pulling down the shop, because of the rent.  So it has occurred to me that the statue might be carved in a sitting position; the Colossus would be so lofty that if we made it hollow inside, as indeed is the proper method for a thing which has to be put together from pieces, the shop might be enclosed within it, and the rent be saved.  And inasmuch as the shop has a chimney in its present state, I thought of placing a cornucopia in the statue’s hand, hollowed out for the smoke to pass through.  The head too would be hollow, like all the other members of the figure.  This might be turned to a useful purpose, according to the suggestion made me by a huckster on the square, who is my good friend.  He privily confided to me that it would make an excellent dovecote.  Then another fancy came into my head, which is still better, though the statue would have to be considerably heightened.  That, however, is quite feasible, since towers are built up of blocks; and then the head might serve as bell-tower to San Lorenzo, which is much in need of one.  Setting up the bells inside, and the sound booming through the mouth, it would seem as though the Colossus were crying mercy, and mostly upon feast-days, when peals are rung most often and with bigger bells.”

Nothing more is heard of this fantastic project; whence we may conclude that the irony of Michelangelo’s epistle drove it out of the Pope’s head.

CHAPTER IX

I