be a means of
giving completion to that church. This proposal pleased Messer Bindo,
and, being very intimate with the Pope, he urged it warmly upon him,
demonstrating that it would be well that the chapel and the tombs
which his Holiness was having executed for the Montorio should be
placed in the Church of S. Giovanni de' Fiorentini; adding that the
result would be that with this occasion and this spur the Florentine
colony would undertake such expenditure that the church would receive
its completion, and, if his Holiness were to build the principal
chapel, the other merchants would build six chapels, and then little
by little all the rest. Whereupon the Pope changed his mind, and,
although the model for the work was already made and the price
arranged, went to the Montorio and sent for Michelagnolo, to whom
Vasari was writing every day, receiving answers from him according to
the opportunities presented in the course of affairs. Michelagnolo
then wrote to Vasari, on the first day of August in 1550, of the
change that the Pope had made; and these are his words, written in his
own hand:

ROME.

"MY DEAR MESSER GIORGIO,

"With regard to the founding of the work at S. Pietro a Montorio, and
how the Pope would not listen to a word, I wrote you nothing, knowing
that you are kept informed by your man here. Now I must tell you what
has happened, which is as follows. Yesterday morning the Pope, having
gone to the said Montorio, sent for me. I met him on the bridge, on
his way back, and had a long conversation with him about the tombs
allotted to you; and in the end he told me that he was resolved that
he would not place those tombs on that mount, but in the Church of the
Florentines. He sought from me my opinion and also designs, and I
encouraged him not a little, considering that by this means the said
church would be finished. Respecting your three letters received, I
have no pen wherewith to answer to such exalted matters, but if I
should rejoice to be in some sort what you make me, I should rejoice
for no other reason save that you might have a servant who might be
worth something. But I do not marvel that you, who restore dead men to
life, should lengthen the life of the living, or rather, that you
should steal from death for an unlimited period those barely alive. To
cut this short, such as I am, I am wholly yours,

"M