The duel between Michelangelo and the sect opened in 1547.  A letter written by a friend in Florence on the 14th of May proves that his antagonists had then good hopes of crushing him.  Giovan Francesco Ughi begins by saying that he has been silent because he had nothing special to report.  “But now Jacopo del Conte has come here with the wife of Nanni di Baccio Bigio, alleging that he has brought her because Nanni is so occupied at S. Peter’s.  Among other things, he says that Nanni means to make a model for the building which will knock yours to nothing.  He declares that what you are about is mad and babyish.  He means to fling it all down, since he has quite as much credit with the Pope as you have.  You throw oceans of money away and work by night, so that nobody may see what you are doing.  You follow in the footsteps of a Spaniard, having no knowledge of your own about the art of building, and he less than nothing.  Nanni stays there in your despite:  you did everything to get him removed; but the Pope keeps him, being convinced that nothing good can be done without him.”  After this Ughi goes on to relate how Michelangelo’s enemies are spreading all kinds of reports against his honour and good fame, criticising the cornice of the Palazzo Farnese, and hoping that its weight will drag the walls down.  At the end he adds, that although he knows one ought not to write about such matters, yet the man’s “insolence and blackguardly shamelessness of speech” compel him to put his friend on his guard against such calumnies.

After the receipt of this letter, Michelangelo sent it to one of the Superintendents of the Fabric, on whose sympathy he could reckon, with the following indorsement in his own handwriting:  “Messer Bartolommeo (Ferrantino), please read this letter, and take thought who the two rascals are who, lying thus about what I did at the Palazzo Farnese, are now lying in the matter of the information they are laying before the deputies of S. Peter’s.  It comes upon me in return for the kindness I have shown them.  But what else can one expect from a couple of the basest scoundrelly villains?”

Nanni di Baccio Bigio had, as it seems, good friends at court in Rome.  He was an open enemy of Michelangelo, who, nevertheless, found it difficult to shake him off.  In the history of S. Peter’s the man’s name will frequently occur.

Three years elapsed.  Paul III. died, and Michelangelo wrote to his nephew Lionardo on the occasion:  “It is true that I have suffered great sorrow, and not less loss, by the Pope’s death.  I received benefits from his Holiness, and hoped for more and better.  God willed it so, and we must have patience.  His passage from this life was beautiful, in full possession of his faculties up to the last word.  God have mercy on his soul.”  The Cardinal Giovan Maria Ciocchi, of Monte San Savino, was elected to succeed Paul, and took the title of Julius III.  This change of masters was duly noted