More than this we do not know about the first project.  We have no contracts and no sketches that can be referred to the date 1505.  Much confusion has been introduced into the matter under consideration by the attempt to reconcile Condivi’s description with the drawing I have just alluded to.  Heath Wilson even used that drawing to impugn Condivi’s accuracy with regard to the number of the captives, and the seated figures on the platform.  The drawing in question, as we shall presently see, is of great importance for the subsequent history of the monument; and I believe that it to some extent preserves the general aspect which the tomb, as first designed, was intended to present.  Two points about it, however, prevent our taking it as a true guide to Michelangelo’s original conception.  One is that it is clearly only part of a larger scheme of composition.  The other is that it shows a sarcophagus, not supported by angels, but posed upon the platform.  Moreover, it corresponds to the declaration appended in 1513 by Michelangelo to the first extant document we possess about the tomb.

Julius died in February 1513, leaving, it is said, to his executors directions that his sepulchre should not be carried out upon the first colossal plan.  If he did so, they seem at the beginning of their trust to have disregarded his intentions.  Michelangelo expressly states in one of his letters that the Cardinal of Agen wished to proceed with the tomb, but on a larger scale.  A deed dated May 6, 1513, was signed, at the end of which Michelangelo specified the details of the new design.  It differed from the former in many important respects, but most of all in the fact that now the structure was to be attached to the wall of the church.  I cannot do better than translate Michelangelo’s specifications.  They run as follows:  “Let it be known to all men that I, Michelangelo, sculptor of Florence, undertake to execute the sepulchre of Pope Julius in marble, on the commission of the Cardinal of Agens and the Datary (Pucci), who, after his death, have been appointed to complete this work, for the sum of 16,500 golden ducats of the Camera; and the composition of the said sepulchre is to be in the form ensuing:  A rectangle visible from three of its sides, the fourth of which is attached to the wall and cannot be seen.  The front face, that is, the head of this rectangle, shall be twenty palms in breadth and fourteen in height, the other two, running up against the wall, shall be thirty-five palms long and likewise fourteen palms in height.  Each of these three sides shall contain two tabernacles, resting on a basement which shall run round the said space, and shall be adorned with pilasters, architrave, frieze, and cornice, as appears in the little wooden model.  In each of the said six tabernacles will be placed two figures about one palm taller than life (i.e., 6-3/4 feet), twelve in all; and in front of each pilaster which flanks a tabernacle shall stand a figure of similar size,