had to commission the sculptor, Federigo Frizzi, to finish
the work. With his customary honesty he offered to make an entirely new
statue for Metello Varj, who had ordered the work from him, but Varj
declined. Michelangelo was so ashamed of the Christ of the Minerva that
when the statue was unveiled in December, 1521, Lionardo Sellajo, one of
his friends in Rome, took great care that everyone should know that it
was not by Michelangelo, but that he had simply retouched it.

[39] After the death of Leo X on December 1, 1521, and during all the
pontificate of Adrian VI, who died on September 23, 1523, Cardinal
Giulio de' Medici had put a "mute" on all his undertakings. It is
probable that during that year's respite (1522-23) Michelangelo was able
to take up again the tomb of Julius II, and that he worked at the
admirable Victory of the Bargello and at the scarcely blocked-in figures
of the Boboli Grotto.

[40] Fifty crowns. Michelangelo only asked for fifteen.

[41] He was fifty years old. In 1517, when he was forty-two, in a letter
to Domenico Buoninsegni he called himself "old." In 1523 in a letter to
Cardinal Domenico Grimani, he emphasised the lessening of his strength
through age. "If I work a day," he says, "I must rest for four."

[42] Thode pretends that Michelangelo did not take this seriously and
that the letter which follows is "ironisch und humorvolle." Full of
humor, yes, but I do not think it ironical. If there is any trace of
irony it is rather on the side of the pope, who might have been making
fun of Michelangelo's naivete and of his well-known tendency to grow
enthusiastic over any new undertaking, particularly the most fantastic
ones. In fact after frequent exchanges of letters in October and
November, 1525, Fattucci, a friend of Michelangelo, warned him secretly
in December that "the Colossus was only a joke." Michelangelo had not
suspected any malice in this scheme and had already pictured in his mind
the bizarre Colossus to which he gave a frankly popular character,
monstrous and comic, like one of Aristo's giants.

[43] The block of marble abandoned by Michelangelo was taken a little
while afterward by his jealous rival, Bandinelli, who made from it a
Hercules and Cacus which to-day still stands on the Piazza della
Signoria.

[44] Until then Michelangelo had given his services gratuitously to his
country.

[45] It was for him that Michelangelo some time after this made his
painting of Leda,