these worries, I do nothing good. . . . I have been chained to this tomb the whole of my life. I have wasted all my youth in endeavouring to justify myself before Leo X. and Clement VII. I have been ruined by my too great conscientiousness. Thus did my fate ordain it! I see many men who have got together incomes of two to three thousand crowns, whilst I, after terrible efforts, have only succeeded in remaining poor. And they call me a thief! … Before men (I do not say before God) I consider myself an honest man. I have never deceived any one. . . . I am not a thief: I am a Florentine citizen, of noble birth, and the son of an honourable man. . . . When I have to defend myself against scoundrels I become, in the end, insane! . . . "[1]
In order to indemnify his adversaries he completed the statues representing "Active Life" and "Contemplative Life" with his own hand, although he was not forced to do so by his contract.
So, at last, in January 1545 the monument to Julius II. was inaugurated at San Pietro in Vincoli. What remained of the fine primitive plan? Only the statue of Moses, which became the centre of it, after having formerly been but one of its details. It was the caricature of a great project.
However, it was finished. Michael Angelo was delivered from the nightmare which had troubled the whole of his life.
- ↑ Letter to an unknown “Monsignore” (October 1542). ("Letters," Milanesi’s edition, cdxxxv).
