Rome,[1] but the latter, doubting what this eagerness of the Pope might portend, entertained, as it is said, some intention of going to Constantinople, there to serve the Grand Seigneur, who sought to engage him, by means of certain Franciscan Monks, for the purpose of constructing a bridge to connect Constantinople with Pera. But the Gonfaloniere labouring to induce Michelagnolo to repair to the Pope instead, and the master still refusing, Soderini at length prevailed on him to do so by investing him with the character of Ambassador from the Florentine Republic,[2] and recommending him also to the care of his brother, the Cardinal Soderini, whom he charged to introduce Michelagnolo to His Holiness; he then sent the artist to Bologna, in which city Pope Julius had already arrived from Rome.
But there are some who ascribe Michelagnolo s departure from Rome, and his disputes with the Pope, to the following cause.[3] The artist would never suffer any one to see his works while in progress, but he suspected that his people sometimes permitted strangers to inspect them in his absence, and one day when the Pope, having bribed Michelagnolo’s assistants, was entering the Chapel of his uncle Pope Sixtus, which he was causing our artist to paint, as will be related hereafter, the latter, who had that day hidden himself, because suspicious of his young men as we have said, rushed upon him with a plank of the scaffolding,[4] and not perceiving whom it was that he was turning out, drove His Holiness forth in a fury. Let it suffice, however, that for one cause or another, Michelagnolo fell into discord with the Pope, and then, beginning to fear for his safety, departed from Rome as we have said.
Arrived at Bologna, his feet were scarcely out of the stirrups before he was conducted by the servants of the
- ↑ One of these will be found in the third volume of the Lettere Pittoriche, published by Bottari, and from a letter of Soderini’s cited by Gaye, Carteggio, &c., this would appear to have been the only one written.
- ↑ The letters of Soderini, as cited by Gaye, do not mention the sending of Michael Angelo to Rome as ambassador, but recommended him as the dear fellow citizen of the writer, very warmly, to the good offices of the Cardinal.
- ↑ In his first edition, Vasari assigns the following as the only cause. That given above appears first in the second editions of our author’s work.
- ↑ He threw down a plank from the scaffolding rather, by way of startling the intruder.—Bottari.
