a stroke of sheer
audacity, unparalleled in the history of any previous pontiff. Ten
days afterwards we find him again renewing negotiations with the
Signory for the extradition of Michelangelo.

II

"Arriving then one morning at Bologna, and going to hear Mass at S.
Petronio, there met him the Pope's grooms of the stable, who
immediately recognised him, and brought him into the presence of his
Holiness, then at table in the Palace of the Sixteen. When the Pope
beheld him, his face clouded with anger, and he cried: 'It was your
duty to come to seek us, and you have waited till we came to seek you;
meaning thereby that his Holiness having travelled to Bologna, which
is much nearer to Florence than Rome, he had come to find him out.
Michelangelo knelt, and prayed for pardon in a loud voice, pleading in
his excuse that he had not erred through forwardness, but through
great distress of mind, having been unable to endure the expulsion he
received. The Pope remained holding his head low and answering
nothing, evidently much agitated; when a certain prelate, sent by
Cardinal Soderini to put in a good word for Michelangelo, came forward
and said: 'Your Holiness might overlook his fault; he did wrong
through ignorance: these painters, outside their art, are all like
this.' Thereupon the Pope answered in a fury: 'It is you, not I, who
are insulting him. It is you, not he, who are the ignoramus and the
rascal. Get hence out of my sight, and bad luck to you!' When the
fellow did not move, he was cast forth by the servants, as
Michelangelo used to relate, with good round kicks and thumpings. So
the Pope, having spent the surplus of his bile upon the bishop, took
Michelangelo apart and pardoned him. Not long afterwards he sent for
him and said: 'I wish you to make my statue on a large scale in
bronze. I mean to place it on the facade of San Petronio.' When he
went to Rome in course of time, he left 1000 ducats at the bank of
Messer Antonmaria da Lignano for this purpose. But before he did so
Michelangelo had made the clay model. Being in some doubt how to
manage the left hand, after making the Pope give the benediction with
the right, he asked Julius, who had come to see the statue, if he
would like it to hold a book. 'What book?' replied he: 'a sword! I
know nothing about letters, not I.' Jesting then about the right hand,
which was vehement in action, he said with a smile to Michelangelo:
'That statue of yours, is it blessin