agnolo could not rest without doing
something; and, since he was not able to paint, he set to work on a
piece of marble, intending to carve from it four figures in the round
and larger than life, including a Dead Christ, for his own delight and
to pass the time, and because, as he used to say, the exercise of the
hammer kept him healthy in body. This Christ, taken down from the
Cross, is supported by Our Lady, by Nicodemus, who bends down and
assists her, planted firmly on his feet in a forceful attitude, and by
one of the Maries, who also gives her aid, perceiving that the Mother,
overcome by grief, is failing in strength and not able to uphold Him.
Nor is there anywhere to be seen a dead form equal to that of Christ,
who, sinking with the limbs hanging limp, lies in an attitude wholly
different, not only from that of any other work by Michelagnolo, but
from that of any other figure that was ever made. A laborious work is
this, a rare achievement in a single stone, and truly divine; but,
as will be related hereafter, it remained unfinished, and suffered
many misfortunes, although Michelagnolo had intended that it should
serve to adorn his own tomb, at the foot of that altar where he
thought to place it.

It happened in the year 1546 that Antonio da San Gallo died;
whereupon, there being now no one to direct the building of S. Pietro,
many suggestions were made by the superintendents to the Pope as to
who should have it. Finally his Holiness, inspired, I believe, by God,
resolved to send for Michelagnolo. But he, when asked to take
Antonio's place, refused it, saying, in order to avoid such a burden,
that architecture was not his proper art; and in the end, entreaties
not availing, the Pope commanded that he should accept it, whereupon,
to his great displeasure and against his wish, he was forced to
undertake that enterprise. And one day among others that he went to S.
Pietro to see the wooden model that San Gallo had made, and to examine
the building, he found there the whole San Gallo faction, who,
crowding before Michelagnolo, said to him in the best terms at their
command that they rejoiced that the charge of the building was to be
his, and that the model was a field where there would never be any
want of pasture. "You speak the truth," answered Michelagnolo, meaning
to infer, as he declared to a friend, that it was good for sheep and
oxen, who knew nothing of art. And afterwards he used to say publicly
that San Ga