II

“Arriving then one morning at Bologna, and going to hear Mass at S. Petronio, there met him the Pope’s grooms of the stable, who immediately recognised him, and brought him into the presence of his Holiness, then at table in the Palace of the Sixteen.  When the Pope beheld him, his face clouded with anger, and he cried:  ’It was your duty to come to seek us, and you have waited till we came to seek you; meaning thereby that his Holiness having travelled to Bologna, which is much nearer to Florence than Rome, he had come to find him out.  Michelangelo knelt, and prayed for pardon in a loud voice, pleading in his excuse that he had not erred through forwardness, but through great distress of mind, having been unable to endure the expulsion he received.  The Pope remained holding his head low and answering nothing, evidently much agitated; when a certain prelate, sent by Cardinal Soderini to put in a good word for Michelangelo, came forward and said:  ’Your Holiness might overlook his fault; he did wrong through ignorance:  these painters, outside their art, are all like this.’  Thereupon the Pope answered in a fury:  ’It is you, not I, who are insulting him.  It is you, not he, who are the ignoramus and the rascal.  Get hence out of my sight, and bad luck to you!’ When the fellow did not move, he was cast forth by the servants, as Michelangelo used to relate, with good round kicks and thumpings.  So the Pope, having spent the surplus of his bile upon the bishop, took Michelangelo apart and pardoned him.  Not long afterwards he sent for him and said:  ’I wish you to make my statue on a large scale in bronze.  I mean to place it on the facade of San Petronio.’  When he went to Rome in course of time, he left 1000 ducats at the bank of Messer Antonmaria da Lignano for this purpose.  But before he did so Michelangelo had made the clay model.  Being in some doubt how to manage the left hand, after making the Pope give the benediction with the right, he asked Julius, who had come to see the statue, if he would like it to hold a book.  ‘What book?’ replied he:  ’a sword!  I know nothing about letters, not I.’  Jesting then about the right hand, which was vehement in action, he said with a smile to Michelangelo:  ‘That statue of yours, is it blessing or cursing?’ To which the sculptor replied:  ’Holy Father, it is threatening this people of Bologna if they are not prudent.’”

Michelangelo’s letter to Fattucci confirms Condivi’s narrative.  “When Pope Julius went to Bologna the first time, I was forced to go there with a rope round my neck to beg his pardon.  He ordered me to make his portrait in bronze, sitting, about seven cubits (14 feet) in height.  When he asked what it would cost, I answered that I thought I could cast it for 1000 ducats; but that this was not my trade, and that I did not wish to undertake it.  He answered:  ’Go to work; you shall cast it over and over again till it succeeds; and I will give you enough to satisfy your wishes.’  To put it briefly, I cast the statue twice; and at the end of two years, at Bologna, I found that I had four and a half ducats left.  I never received anything more for this job; and all the moneys I paid out during the said two years were the 1000 ducats with which I promised to cast it.  These were disbursed to me in instalments by Messer Antonio Maria da Legnano, a Bolognese.”