rking, that he could never have enough of it, almost striving
after the impossible, and that rather from a desire for glory than
from any wish to accumulate gold, for he was more pleased to work well
at his profession than to acquire property.

Finally, Julius III having been elected Pope in the year 1550, and all
men thinking that work would be begun in earnest on the building of S.
Pietro, Mosca went off to Rome and sought to obtain at a fixed price
from the superintendents of that building the commission for some
capitals of marble, but more to accommodate Gian Domenico, his
son-in-law, than for any other reason. Now Giorgio Vasari, who always
bore love to Mosca, found him in Rome, whither he also had been
summoned to the service of the Pope, and he thought that without fail
he would have some work to offer him, for the reason that the old
Cardinal dal Monte, when he died, had left directions with his heirs
that a tomb of marble should be built for him in S. Pietro a Montorio,
and the above-named Pope Julius, his nephew and heir, had ordained
that this should be done, and had given the charge of the matter to
Vasari; and Giorgio wished that in that tomb Mosca should execute some
extraordinary work in carving. But, after Giorgio had made some models
for that tomb, the Pope discussed the whole matter with Michelagnolo
Buonarroti before he would make up his mind; whereupon Michelagnolo
told his Holiness that he should not involve himself with carvings,
saying that, although they enrich a work, they confuse the figures,
whereas squared work, when it is well done, is much more beautiful
than carving and is a better accompaniment for the figures, for the
reason that figures do not brook other carvings about them: and even
so did his Holiness order the work to be done. Wherefore Vasari was
not able to give Mosca anything to do in that work, and he was
dismissed; and the tomb was finished without any carvings, which made
it much better than it would have been with them.

Simone having then returned to Orvieto, arrangements were made to
erect after his designs, in the cross at the head of the church, two
great tabernacles of marble, works truly graceful, beautiful, and
well-proportioned, for one of which Raffaello da Montelupo made in
marble a nude Christ with the Cross on His shoulder in a niche, and
for the other Moschino made a S. Sebastian, likewise nude. Work being
then continued on the execution of the Apostles for the