In those days Michelagnolo wrote to Vasari, to the effect that, Julius III. being dead, and Marcellus being elected in his place, the faction adverse to himself was beginning to torment him anew. The Duke hearing this, and being displeased by those proceedings, made Giorgio write to Michelagnolo, bidding him leave Rome and come to Florence, where his Excellency would ask nothing more from him than*" occasional advice respecting his buildings and other works of art, but was ready to grant him whatever he might desire without wishing him to lay a hand upon anything.[1] Messer Leonardo Marinozzi, private secretary to the Duke, was also' the bearer of a letter to that effect from his Excellency, as well as of one from Vasari. But Marcellus having died, and Pope Paul lY. being elected High Pontiff, Michelagnolo, who had gone to kiss the feet of the new Pope, had received the most amicable offers from His Holiness; and desiring to see the completion of San Pietro, while he also thought himself bound in a certain sort to that employment, the master wrote to the Duke, excusing himself for that he could not then enter his service; and to Vasari he sent the following words;—
“Messer Giorgio, my dear Friend,—I call God to witness how much against my will it was that I was put into the Fabric of San Pietro ten years since by Paul III.; had they subsequently continued to work at that edifice, as they then did, I should have now brought it to such a state that I might be permitted to think of returning home; but for want of money the work has been retarded, and that at a time when the most laborious and difficult part of it has come to be executed: insomuch, that to abandon it now would be no other than a great shame and sin, whereby I should lose the reward of all those toils which for the love of God I have endured for the last ten years. I make you this discourse in reply to your letter, and because I have a letter from the Duke which makes me not a little to marvel that his Lordship should write with so much kindness;[2] thank God and his Excellency so much as I may and can.
