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Julius was one of the most active and vigorous rulers the earth has known.  He had positive ideas on many subjects and like Napoleon “could do the thinking for a world.”

The first work he laid out for Michelangelo was a tomb, three stories high, with walls eighteen feet thick at the base, surrounded with numerous bas-reliefs and thirty heroic statues.  It was to be a monument on the order of those worked out by the great Rameses, only incorporating the talent of Greece with that of ancient and modern Rome.

Michelangelo spent nearly a year at the Carrara quarries, getting out materials and making plans for forwarding the scheme.  But gradually it came over him that the question of economy, which was deeply rooted in the mind of Julius, forbade the completion of such a gigantic and costly work.  Had Julius given Michelangelo “carte-blanche” orders on the treasury, and not meddled with the plans, this surpassing piece of architecture might have found form.  But the fiery Julius, aged seventy-four, was influenced by the architect Bramante to demand from Michelangelo a bill of expense and definite explanation as to details.

Very shortly after, Michelangelo quit work and sent a note to the Pope to the effect that the tomb was in the mountain of Carrara, with many beautiful statues, and if he wanted them he had better look for some one to get them out.  As for himself, his address was Florence.

The Pope sent couriers after him, one after another until five had been dispatched, but neither pleading, bribes nor threats could induce him to return.

As the scientist constructs the extinct animal from a thigh-bone, so we can guess the grandeur of what the tomb might have been from the single sample that has come down to us.  The one piece of work that was completed for this tomb is the statue of “Moses.”  If the reputation of Michelangelo rested upon nothing else than this statue, it would be sufficient for undying fame.  The “Moses” probably is better known than any other piece of Michelangelo’s work.  Copies of it exist in all important galleries; there are casts of it in fifty different museums in America, and pictures of it are numberless.  There it stands in the otherwise obscure church of Saint Pietro in Vincolo today, one hand grasping the flowing beard, and the other sustaining the tables of the law—­majesty, strength, wisdom beaming in every line.  As Mr. Symonds has said, “It reveals the power of Pope Julius and Michelangelo fused into a Jove.”

And so the messengers and messages were in vain, and even when the Pope sent an order to the Gonfaloniere Soderini, the actual ruler of Florence, to return the artist on pain of displeasure, the matter still rested—­Michelangelo said he was neither culprit nor slave, and would live where he wished.

At length the matter got so serious that it threatened the political peace of Florence, and in the goodly company of cardinals, bishops and chief citizens, Michelangelo was induced to go to Bologna and make peace with the Pope.