8th of July; for on the 10th Michelangelo writes that it is done, but the clay is too hot for the result to be reported, and Bernardino left yesterday.  When the statue was uncovered, he was able to reassure his brother:  “My affair might have turned out much better, and also much worse.  At all events, the whole is there, so far as I can see; for it is not yet quite disengaged.  I shall want, I think, some months to work it up with file and hammer, because it has come out rough.  Well, well, there is much to thank God for; as I said, it might have been worse.”  On making further discoveries, he finds that the cast is far less bad than he expected; but the labour of cleaning it with polishing tools proved longer and more irksome than he expected:  “I am exceedingly anxious to get away home, for here I pass my life in huge discomfort and with extreme fatigue.  I work night and day, do nothing else; and the labour I am forced to undergo is such, that if I had to begin the whole thing over again, I do not think I could survive it.  Indeed, the undertaking has been one of enormous difficulty; and if it had been in the hand of another man, we should have fared but ill with it.  However, I believe that the prayers of some one have sustained and kept me in health, because all Bologna thought I should never bring it to a proper end.”  We can see that Michelangelo was not unpleased with the result; and the statue must have been finished soon after the New Year.  However, he could not leave Bologna.  On the 18th of February 1508 he writes to Buonarroto that he is kicking his heels, having received orders from the Pope to stay until the bronze was placed.  Three days later—­that is, upon the 21st of February—­the Pope’s portrait was hoisted to its pedestal above the great central door of S. Petronio.

It remained there rather less than three years.  When the Papal Legate fled from Bologna in 1511, and the party of the Bentivogli gained the upper hand, they threw the mighty mass of sculptured bronze, which had cost its maker so much trouble, to the ground.  That happened on the 30th of December.  The Bentivogli sent it to the Duke Alfonso d’Este of Ferrara, who was a famous engineer and gunsmith.  He kept the head intact, but cast a huge cannon out of part of the material, which took the name of La Giulia.  What became of the head is unknown.  It is said to have weighed 600 pounds.

So perished another of Michelangelo’s masterpieces; and all we know for certain about the statue is that Julius was seated, in full pontificals, with the triple tiara on his head, raising the right hand to bless, and holding the keys of S. Peter in the left.

Michelangelo reached Florence early in March.  On the 18th of that month he began again to occupy his house at Borgo Pinti, taking it this time on hire from the Operai del Duomo.  We may suppose, therefore, that he intended to recommence work on the Twelve Apostles.  A new project seems also to have been started by his friend Soderini—­that of making him erect a colossal statue of Hercules subduing Cacus opposite the David.  The Gonfalonier was in correspondence with the Marquis of Carrara on the 10th of May about a block of marble for this giant; but Michelangelo at that time had returned to Rome, and of the Cacus we shall hear more hereafter.