kind, it would be difficult and costly to convey them to the sea.  A road of many miles would have to be made through the mountains with pick and crowbar, and along the plain on piles, since the ground there was marshy.  Michelangelo wrote all this to the Pope, who preferred, however, to believe the persons who had written to him from Florence.  So he ordered him to construct the road.”  The road, it may parenthetically be observed, was paid for by the wealthy Wool Corporation of Florence, who wished to revive this branch of Florentine industry.  “Michelangelo, carrying out the Pope’s commands, had the road laid down, and transported large quantities of marbles to the sea-shore.  Among these were five columns of the proper dimensions, one of which may be seen upon the Piazza di S. Lorenzo.  The other four, forasmuch as the Pope changed his mind and turned his thoughts elsewhere, are still lying on the sea-beach.  Now the Marquis of Carrara, deeming that Michelangelo had developed the quarries at Pietra Santa out of Florentine patriotism, became his enemy, and would not suffer him to return to Carrara, for certain blocks which had been excavated there:  all of which proved the source of great loss to Michelangelo.”

When the contract with Francesco Pellicia was cancelled, April 7, 1517, the project for developing the Florentine stone-quarries does not seem to have taken shape.  We must assume, therefore, that the motive for this step was the abandonment of the tomb.  The Ricordi show that Michelangelo was still buying marbles and visiting Carrara down to the end of February 1518.  His correspondence from Pietra Santa and Serravezza, where he lived when he was opening the Florentine quarries of Monte Altissimo, does not begin, with any certainty, until March 1518.  We have indeed one letter written to Girolamo del Bardella of Porto Venere upon the 6th of August, without date of year.  This was sent from Serravezza, and Milanesi, when he first made use of it, assigned it to 1517.  Gotti, following that indication, asserts that Michelangelo began his operations at Monte Altissimo in July 1517; but Milanesi afterwards changed his opinion, and assigned it to the year 1519.  I believe he was right, because the first letter, bearing a certain date from Pietra Santa, was written in March 1518 to Pietro Urbano.  It contains the account of Michelangelo’s difficulties with the Carraresi, and his journey to Genoa and Pisa.  We have, therefore, every reason to believe that he finally abandoned Carrara, for Pietra Santa at the end of February 1518.

Pietra Santa is a little city on the Tuscan seaboard; Serravezza is a still smaller fortress-town at the foot of the Carrara mountains.  Monte Altissimo rises above it; and on the flanks of that great hill lie the quarries Della Finocchiaja, which Michelangelo opened at the command of Pope Leo.  It was not without reluctance that Michelangelo departed from Carrara, offending the Marquis Malaspina, breaking