evidently preferred this method.  It must have sometimes enabled the artist to make large profits; but the nature of the contract prevents his biographer from forming even a vague estimate of their amount.  According to Condivi, he received 3000 ducats for the Sistine vault, working at his own costs.  According to his own statement, several hundred ducats were owing at the end of the affair.  It seems certain that Julius II. died in Michelangelo’s debt, and that the various contracts for his tomb were a source of loss rather than of gain.

Such large undertakings as the sacristy and library of S. Lorenzo were probably agreed for on the contract system.  But although there exist plenty of memoranda recording Michelangelo’s disbursements at various times for various portions of these works, we can strike no balance showing an approximate calculation of his profits.  What renders the matter still more perplexing is, that very few of Michelangelo’s contracts were fulfilled according to the original intention of the parties.  For one reason or another they had to be altered and accommodated to circumstances.

It is clear that, later on in life, he received money for drawings, for architectural work, and for models, the execution of which he bound himself to superintend.  Cardinal Grimani wrote saying he would pay the artist’s own price for a design he had requested.  Vasari observes that the sketches he gave away were worth thousands of crowns.  We know that he was offered a handsome salary for the superintendence of S. Peter’s, which he magnanimously and piously declined to touch.  But what we cannot arrive at is even a rough valuation of the sums he earned in these branches of employment.

Again, we know that he was promised a yearly salary from Clement VII., and one more handsome from Paul III.  But the former was paid irregularly, and half of the latter depended on the profits of a ferry, which eventually failed him altogether.  In each of these cases, then, the same circumstances of vagueness and uncertainty throw doubt on all investigation, and render a conjectural estimate impossible.  Moreover, there remain no documents to prove what he may have gained, directly or indirectly, from succeeding Pontiffs.  That he felt the loss of Paul III., as a generous patron, is proved by a letter written on the occasion of his death; and Vasari hints that the Pope had been munificent in largesses bestowed upon him.  But of these occasional presents and emoluments we have no accurate information; and we are unable to state what he derived from Pius IV., who was certainly one of his best friends and greatest admirers.

At his death in Rome he left cash amounting to something under 9000 crowns.  But, since he died intestate, we have no will to guide us as to the extent and nature of his whole estate.  Nor, so far as I am aware, has the return of his property, which Lionardo Buonarroti may possibly have furnished to the state of Florence, been yet brought to light.