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His correspondence from Pietra Santa and Serravezza, where he lived when he was opening the Florentine quarries of Monte Altissimo, does not begin, with any certainty, until March 1518. We have indeed one letter written to Girolamo del Bardella of Porto Venere upon the 6th of August, without date of year.
"Now Pope Leo, perhaps, to carry out more quickly the above-mentioned façade of San Lorenzo than according to the agreement he made with me, and I consenting, sets me free, and for all the above-said money that I have received, are counted the road that I have made to Pietra Santa, and the marbles that were quarried there and rough-hewn as may be seen to-day; and he declares himself content and satisfied with me, as is said, about all the money received for the said façade of San Lorenzo, and every other work that I have had to do for him until this tenth day of March, 1519; and so he leaves me my freedom, and not obliged to render account to any one for anything that I have had to do for him or with others for him."
Up-stairs familiar names such as Domenichino, Bassano, Cortona, Crespi, Bellino, Pietra della Vecchia, Allori, Veronese, Maratta, Guido Reni, Romano need not detain us. The catalogue numbers of the Italian school go as high as 628. The Titians, however, are the glory of the Prado. The Spanish school begins at 629, ends at 1,029.
The stone is the grey pietra serena of Fiesole, and Donatello has plentifully, but not too plentifully, lightened it with gold, which is exactly what all artists who used this medium for sculpture should have done. By a pleasant tactful touch the designer of the modern Donatello monument in S. Lorenzo has followed the master's lead.
It is said that certain bits of valuable stone, like jasper, were exhibited in marble settings, like "precious stones in a ring." There were other French pavements, of the eleventh century, which were similar in their construction, in which terra cotta was employed for the reds. "Pietra Dura" was a mosaic laid upon either a thick wood or a marble foundation.
Lapis lazuli, malachite, and jasper were used largely, as well as bloodstones, onyx, and Rosso Antico. In Florentine Pietra Dura work, the inlay of two hard and equally cut materials reached its climax. Arnolfo del Cambio, who built the Cathedral of Sta.
While Michelangelo was residing at Pietra Santa in 1518, his old friend and fellow-worker, Pietro Rosselli, wrote to him from Rome, asking his advice about a tabernacle of marble which Pietro Soderini had ordered. It was to contain the head of S. John the Baptist, and to be placed in the Church of the Convent of S. Silvestro.
It may be true, and on the other hand it may have been the invention of some mischievous Venetian wag wishing to get a laugh out of the inquisitive Somerset pedestrian, whose leg was, I take it, invitingly pullable. "Near to this stone," he says, referring to the Pietra del Bando, "is another memorable thing to be observed.
The alternation of white marble surfaces and mouldings with pietra serena pilasters, cornices, and arches, defines the structural design, and gives a grave but agreeable sense of variety. Finally, the recess behind the altar adds lightness and space to what would otherwise have been a box.
On the other hand, he retained, by making it an entr'acte, the Ballet des Furies. This was taken from a ballet, Don Giovanni o il convitato de pietra, which was performed at Vienna in 1761. This passage was used as the accompaniment to Don Juan's descent into Hell, surrounded by his band of demons.
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