fancy strikes me that would be much better, but we should have to
make the figure ever so much larger. And it might be done, for a
tower is built up of pieces; and that is, that the head should
serve as campanile for San Lorenzo, which needs one badly. And the
bells hanging within, the sound clanging from the mouth, it would
seem that the said colossus were howling for mercy, and especially
on feast days, when they ring oftenest and with the largest bells.

"About the transport for the marbles for the above-mentioned
statue, so that no one shall know of it, meseems they should come
by night and well covered up, so that they may not be seen. There
will be danger at the gates, and we must provide for it somehow;
at the worst, we shall have San Gallo.(138)

"As to doing, or not doing, the things that are to do, and which
you say may stand over, it is better to let them be done by those
who will do them, for I have so much to do that I do not care to
undertake more. To me it will suffice if it be something worthy.

"I do not reply to all you say, for lo Spina comes shortly to
Rome, and will answer your letter by word of mouth, and more in
detail than I can with the pen.

"Your MICHAEL ANGELO, Sculptor, in Florence."

This letter had its desired effect, nothing more was heard of the
colossus.

The Sack of Rome in 1527 by the rabble of Germany and Spain, called the
Imperial army, naturally stopped all artistic work, for war is the worst
enemy of art. Clement was besieged in the Castle Saint Angelo for nine
months, and the Medici lost their power in Florence. The Cardinal of
Cortona, with the young princes Ippolito and Alessandro de' Medici, fled,
and Niccolo Capponi was elected President of the Popular Government.
Michael Angelo was in Florence all this time. A Ricordo given in Lettere,
p. 598, says: "I record how, some days ago, Piero di Filippo Gondi asked
to enter the new sacristy at San Lorenzo to hide there certain goods of
his because of the peril in which we now find ourselves. This evening of
the 29th of April, 1527, he has begun to bring in certain bundles. He says
they are linen of his sisters, and I, not to witness what he does, or
where he hides the stuff, have given him the key of the said sacristy this
said evening."

Upon July 2, 1528, Michael Angelo's favourite brother, Buonarroto, died of
the