his contracts, and disappointing the folk with whom he had lived on friendly terms ever since his first visit in 1505.  A letter from the Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici shows that great pressure was put upon him.  It runs thus:  “We have received yours, and shown it to our Lord the Pope.  Considering that all your doings are in favour of Carrara, you have caused his Holiness and us no small astonishment.  What we heard from Jacopo Salviati contradicts your opinion.  He went to examine the marble-quarries at Pietra Santa, and informed us that there are enormous quantities of stone, excellent in quality and easy to bring down.  This being the case, some suspicion has arisen in our minds that you, for your own interests, are too partial to the quarries of Carrara, and want to depreciate those of Pietra Santa.  This of a truth, would be wrong in you, considering the trust we have always reposed in your honesty.  Wherefore we inform you that, regardless of any other consideration, his Holiness wills that all the work to be done at S. Peter’s or S. Reparata, or on the facade of S. Lorenzo, shall be carried out with marbles supplied from Pietra Santa, and no others, for the reasons above written.  Moreover, we hear that they will cost less than those of Carrara; but, even should they cost more, his Holiness is firmly resolved to act as I have said, furthering the business of Pietra Santa for the public benefit of the city.  Look to it, then, that you carry out in detail all that we have ordered without fail; for if you do otherwise, it will be against the expressed wishes of his Holiness and ourselves, and we shall have good reason to be seriously wroth with you.  Our agent Domenico (Buoninsegni) is bidden to write to the same effect.  Reply to him how much money you want, and quickly, banishing from your mind every kind of obstinacy.”

Michelangelo began to work with his usual energy at roadmaking and quarrying.  What he learned of practical business as engineer, architect, master of works, and paymaster during these years among the Carrara mountains must have been of vast importance for his future work.  He was preparing himself to organise the fortifications of Florence and the Leonine City, and to crown S. Peter’s with the cupola.  Quarrying, as I have said, implied cutting out and rough-hewing blocks exactly of the right dimensions for certain portions of a building or a piece of statuary.  The master was therefore obliged to have his whole plan perfect in his head before he could venture to order marble.  Models, drawings made to scale, careful measurements, were necessary at each successive step.  Day and night Buonarroti was at work; in the saddle early in the morning, among stone-cutters and road-makers; in the evening, studying, projecting, calculating, settling up accounts by lamplight.

VI