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Updated: June 28, 2025
"He remained," says Condivi, "in continual alarm; because the Duke, a young man, as is known to every one, of ferocious and revengeful temper, hated him exceedingly. There is no doubt that, but for the Pope's protection, he would have been removed from this world.
Now began what Condivi called "The Tragedy of the Tomb"; the phrase is so apt that we imagine he must have got it from Michael Angelo himself. Julius appears to have appreciated his artist from the first; both were what the Italians call uomini terribili, men whose brains worked with furious energy, grand and formidable in their imaginations.
It seems to have been his habit, as Condivi and Cellini report, to send a finished statue forth with some sign-manual of roughness in the final touches. That gave his work the signature of the sharp tools he had employed upon it.
"It is true," continues Condivi, "that I have heard him say he was not suffered to complete the work according to his wish.
Condivi says that "Francesco's influence, combined with the continual craving of his nature, made him at last abandon literary studies. This brought the boy into disfavour with his father and uncles, who often used to beat him severely; for, being insensible to the excellence and nobility of Art, they thought it shameful to give her shelter in their house.
The Medici determined to begin working the old marble quarries of Pietra Santa, on the borders of the Florentine domain, and this naturally aroused the commercial jealousy of the folk at Carrara. "Information," says Condivi, "was sent to Pope Leo that marbles could be found in the high-lands above Pietra Santa, fully equal in quality and beauty to those of Carrara.
After the death of Clement the new Pope, Paul III., Farnese, sent for him and requested him to enter his service, as Condivi tells us.
It is commonly believed, on the faith of a sentence in Condivi, that Bramante, when he dissuaded Julius from building the tomb in his own lifetime, suggested the painting of the Sistine Chapel. We are told that he proposed Michelangelo for this work, hoping his genius would be hampered by a task for which he was not fitted.
Neither Vasari nor Condivi speaks about them, although it is certain that Michelangelo was held bound to his contract during several years.
Condivi tells us that from painting so long in a strained attitude, gazing up at the vault, he lost for some time the power of reading except when he lifted the paper above his head and raised his eyes. Vasari corroborates the narrative from his own experience in the vast halls of the Medicean palace.
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