“The Pope, however, stuck to his opinion; and one day he visited Michelangelo at his house, attended by eight or ten Cardinals.  He first of all inspected the cartoon prepared in Clement’s reign for the great work of the Sistine; then the statues for the tomb, and everything in detail.  The most reverend Cardinal of Mantua, standing before the statue of Moses, cried out:  ’That piece alone is sufficient to do honour to the monument of Julius.’  Pope Paul, having gone through the whole workshop, renewed his request that Michelangelo should enter his service; and when the latter still resisted, he clinched the matter by saying:  ’I will provide that the Duke of Urbino shall be satisfied with three statues from your hand, and the remaining three shall be assigned to some other sculptor.’  Accordingly, he settled on the terms of a new contract with the agents of the Duke, which were confirmed by his Excellency, who did not care to displeasure the Pope.  Michelangelo, albeit he was now relieved from the obligation of paying for the three statues, preferred to take this cost upon himself, and deposited 1580 ducats for the purpose.  And so the Tragedy of the Tomb came at last to an end.  This may now be seen at S. Pietro ad Vincula; and though, truth to tell, it is but a mutilated and botched-up remnant of Michelangelo’s original design, the monument is still the finest to be found in Rome, and perhaps elsewhere in the world, if only for the three statues finished by the hand of the great master.”

II

In this account, Condivi, has condensed the events of seven years.  The third and last contract with the heirs of Julius was not ratified until the autumn of 1542, nor was the tomb erected much before the year 1550.  We shall see that the tragedy still cost its hero many anxious days during this period.

Paul III., having obtained his object, issued a brief, whereby he appointed Michelangelo chief architect, sculptor, and painter at the Vatican.  The instrument is dated September 1, 1535, and the terms with which it describes the master’s eminence in the three arts are highly flattering.  Allusion is directly made to the fresco of the Last Judgment, which may therefore have been begun about this date.  Michelangelo was enrolled as member of the Pontifical household, with a permanent pension of 1200 golden crowns, to be raised in part on the revenues accruing from a ferry across the Po at Piacenza.  He did not, however, obtain possession of this ferry until 1537, and the benefice proved so unremunerative that it was exchanged for a little post in the Chancery at Rimini.