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Buonarroto, born in 1477, had been put to the cloth-trade, and was serving under the Strozzi in their warehouse at the Porta Rossa. He was a worthless fellow, and gave his eldest brother much trouble. Sigismondo, born in 1481, took to soldiering; but at the age of forty he settled down upon the paternal farm at Settignano, and annoyed his brother by sinking into the condition of a common peasant.
The progress was fast enough, one would have thought, even for that exacting Pontiff; for although the whole work consists, on counting heads, of some three hundred and ninety-four figures, the majority ten feet high; the prophets and sibyls, twelve in number, would be eighteen feet high if they stood up; yet by the following letters to his brother Buonarroto, of October 1509, we know he had finished the first half, consisting probably of some two hundred figures, even then; or assuming that he began to paint when the assistants were dismissed in January 1509, he worked at the rate of about a figure a day.
This master’s leave of absence was signed on May 15, 1507. Just before the casting Michael Angelo wrote to Buonarroto:— "To BUONARROTO DI LODOVICO SIMONI, in Florence, at the Shop of LORENZO STROZZI, Wool Merchant, in Porta Rossa, Florence. "BUONARROTO,—I have received yours by the hand of Master Bernardo, who has arrived; by it I hear all are well except Giovansimone, who has not yet recovered.
Take no notice of him. Tell Buonarroto that I will reply to him another time. "The day twenty 7 of January. "MICHAEL ANGELO, in Rome." Buggiardini appears to have fared better than L’Indaco. He painted a portrait of Michael Angelo with a towel tied round his head like a turban, now in the Casa Buonarroti, at Florence.
"BUONARROTO,—I have written the letter to Filipo Strozzi; see if you like it and give it to him. If it is not well, I know he will hold me excused, for it is not my profession; enough if it serves its purpose.
The first block of marble was found to be faulty, so another one had to be carved. The work was not completed until 1521. It is now in the Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva at Rome. In 1515 Michael Angelo was still at work on the Tomb, but apprehensive of interruption from Pope Leo. To BUONARROTO DI LODOVICO SIMONI, in Florence.
"BUONARROTO,—My affairs might have turned out much better and also much worse; at any rate, all of it is there as far as I can make out, for it is not yet all uncovered. I estimate that it will take some months to chase, for it has come out with a bad surface; all the same, we must thank God! for, as I say, it might have been worse.
After several letters describing his labours, he writes, ultimately, to the same:— "BUONARROTO,—I marvel you write to me so seldom. I am sure you have much more time to write to me than I to write to you, so let me hear often how things go. I understand by your last how, with good reason, you wish me to return soon.
Another witness reports: "Those sermons caused such terror, alarm, sobbing, and tears, that every one passed through the streets without speaking, more dead than alive." One of the earliest extant letters of Michelangelo, written from Rome in 1497 to his brother Buonarroto, reveals a vivid interest in Savonarola.
Let me tell you not to run after money, but only look for virtue and good name." Lionardo married Cassandra Ridolfi in the year 1553, and the first child born of this marriage was a boy, by Michael Angelo’s wish he was named Buonarroto. "I shall be very pleased if the name of Buonarroto does not die out of our family, it having lasted three hundred years with us."
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