, cartoons,
models, silver, etc., and a watch to be kept that nothing was taken in
the first confusion. All that had to do with the construction of St.
Peter's or the sacristy or the Laurentian library was to be put
carefully aside.

Weakened as he was, Michelangelo still worked. Since 1562 he had hardly
written at all himself, and Daniele da Volterra did most of his
correspondence, but he never relinquished his chisel. On February 12,
1564, he spent the whole day standing at work on his Pieta, and on the
fourteenth, although he was seized with fever, he rode out on horseback
into the country in the rain, and would not consent to stay in his bed
until the sixteenth.

On the eighteenth of February he died in full consciousness, with
Daniele da Volterra and his faithful friend Tommaso dei Cavalieri beside
him.

Giunto e gia 'l corso della vita mia
Con tempestoso mar per fragil barca
Al comus porto....[118]

Cosmo de' Medici was at once notified by his ambassador, and the next
day the governor of Rome made an inventory of Michelangelo's property
in the presence of Pier Luigi Gaeta and Cavalieri. There was much less
than had been expected, for he had burned almost all his drawings. They
found a chest containing seven or eight thousand crowns and a trunk
closed and sealed and full of papers, and also three statues, the
unfinished Pieta,[119] a figure of Saint Peter just begun, and a little
unfinished figure of Christ bearing the cross in the style of that in
the Minerva, and yet different. There were besides ten cartoons as
follows:

1. The plan of St. Peter's.

2. The facade of a palace(a small cartoon).

3. A window of St. Peter's.

4. The old plan for St. Peter's, after a drawing of San Gallo's.

5. Three sketches of little figures.

6. Windows.

7. A Pieta, merely sketched. A composition of nine figures.

8. Three large figures and two _putti_.

9. Large figure (a study of an apostle for the figure of Saint Peter).

10. Farewell of Christ to his mother, drawn for Cardinal Morone.[120]

This last drawing was given to Cavalieri as Michelangelo had wished. The
rest went to Lionardo, who reached Rome three days after his uncle's
death, and who acquired also some little sketches which Michelangelo had
given to Michele Alberti and Jacopo del Duca--an annunciation and a
prayer at Gethsemane. These show how much the thought of the gospel
filled Michelangelo's mind.[121]

On February 19th Michel