from your last that his Holiness our Lord wishes that I should furnish the design for the library.  I have received no information, and do not know where it is to be erected.  It is true that Stefano talked to me about the scheme, but I paid no heed.  When he returns from Carrara I will inquire, and will do all that is in my power, albeit architecture is not my profession.”  There is something pathetic in this reiterated assertion that his real art was sculpture.  At the same time Clement wished to provide for him for life.  He first proposed that Buonarroti should promise not to marry, and should enter into minor orders.  This would have enabled him to enjoy some ecclesiastical benefice, but it would also have handed him over firmly bound to the service of the Pope.  Circumstances already hampered him enough, and Michelangelo, who chose to remain his own master, refused.  As Berni wrote:  “Voleva far da se, non comandato.”  As an alternative, a pension was suggested.  It appears that he only asked for fifteen ducats a month, and that his friend Pietro Gondi had proposed twenty-five ducats.  Fattucci, on the 13th of January 1524, rebuked him in affectionate terms for his want of pluck, informing him that “Jacopo Salviati has given orders that Spina should be instructed to pay you a monthly provision of fifty ducats.”  Moreover, all the disbursements made for the work at S. Lorenzo were to be provided by the same agent in Florence, and to pass through Michelangelo’s hands.  A house was assigned him, free of rent, at S. Lorenzo, in order that he might be near his work.  Henceforth he was in almost weekly correspondence with Giovanni Spina on affairs of business, sending in accounts and drawing money by means of his then trusted servant, Stefano, the miniaturist.

That Stefano did not always behave himself according to his master’s wishes appears from the following characteristic letter addressed by Michelangelo to his friend Pietro Gondi:  “The poor man, who is ungrateful, has a nature of this sort, that if you help him in his needs, he says that what you gave him came out of superfluities; if you put him in the way of doing work for his own good, he says you were obliged, and set him to do it because you were incapable; and all the benefits which he received he ascribes to the necessities of the benefactor.  But when everybody can see that you acted out of pure benevolence, the ingrate waits until you make some public mistake, which gives him the opportunity of maligning his benefactor and winning credence, in order to free himself from the obligation under which he lies.  This has invariably happened in my case.  No one ever entered into relations with me—­I speak of workmen—­to whom I did not do good with all my heart.  Afterwards, some trick of temper, or some madness, which they say is in my nature, which hurts nobody except myself, gives them an excuse for speaking evil of me and calumniating my character.  Such is the reward of all honest men.”