Francis of Valois, King of France, tried to get him by many devices, giving instructions that, whenever he chose to travel, 3000 crowns should be told out to him in Rome.  The Signory of Venice sent Bruciolo to Rome with an invitation to their city, offering a pension of 600 crowns if he would settle there.  They attached no conditions to this offer, only desiring that he should honour the republic with his presence, and stipulating that whatever he might do in their service should be paid as though he were not in receipt of a fixed income.  These are not ordinary occurrences, or such as happen every day, but strange and out of common usage; nor are they wont to befall any but men of singular and transcendent ability, as was Homer, for whom many cities strove in rivalry, each desirous of acquiring him and making him its own.

“The reigning Pope, Julius III., holds him in no less esteem than the princes I have mentioned.  This sovereign, distinguished for rare taste and judgment, loves and promotes all arts and sciences, but is most particularly devoted to painting, sculpture, and architecture, as may be clearly seen in the buildings which his Holiness has erected in the Vatican and the Belvedere, and is now raising at his Villa Giulia (a monument worthy of a lofty and generous nature, as indeed his own is), where he has gathered together so many ancient and modern statues, such a variety of the finest pictures, precious columns, works in stucco, wall-painting, and every kind of decoration, of the which I must reserve a more extended account for some future occasion, since it deserves a particular study, and has not yet reached completion.  This Pope has not used the services of Michelangelo for any active work, out of regard for his advanced age.  He is fully alive to his greatness, and appreciates it, but refrains from adding burdens beyond those which Michelangelo himself desires; and this regard, in my opinion, confers more honour on him than any of the great under-takings which former pontiffs exacted from his genius.  It is true that his Holiness almost always consults him on works of painting or of architecture he may have in progress, and very often sends the artists to confer with him at his own house.  I regret, and his Holiness also regrets, that a certain natural shyness, or shall I say respect or reverence, which some folk call pride, prevents him from having recourse to the benevolence, goodness, and liberality of such a pontiff, and one so much his friend.  For the Pope, as I first heard from the Most Rev. Monsignor of Forli, his Master of the Chamber, has often observed that, were this possible, he, would gladly give some of his own years and his own blood to add to Michelangelo’s life, to the end that the world should not so soon be robbed of such a man.  And this, when I had access to his Holiness, I heard with my own ears from his mouth.  Moreover, if he happens to survive him, as seems reasonable in the course of nature, he has a mind to embalm him and keep him ever near to his own person, so that his body in death shall be as everlasting as his works.  This he said to Michelangelo himself at the commencement of his reign, in the presence of many persons.  I know not what could be more honourable to Michelangelo than such words, or a greater proof of the high account in which he is held by his Holiness.