posing to have the antique Statues of the Vatican restored, Michelagnolo favoured the Milanese sculptor, Gruglielmo della Porta, a youth of great promise, who had been recommended to him by Fra Bastiano, and with whom Michelagnolo was himself much pleased; he presented him to Pope Paul, therefore, from whom Guglielmo received a commission to restore two of the Statues in question,[1] and Michelagnolo afterwards caused the office of the leaden seal to be conferred on Della Porta, who continued the restoration of the statues also, as we now see them in the palace; but, forgetful of all these benefits, Fra Guglielmo subsequently became one of the master’s most eager opponents.
The death of Pope Paul took place in the year 1549, v/hen Julius III. was elected High Pontiff; and Cardinal Farnese then commissioned Fra Guglielmo to construct a vast Sepulchre for his kinsman Paul III. That artist proposed to erect it under the first arch of the new Church beneath the Tribune.[2] But this interfered with the plans of the architect, and was in effect not the proper place for the Tomb; wherefore, Michelagnolo judiciously advised that it should not be constructed there; this caused Fra Guglielmo, who thought our artist acted from envious motives, to conceive a bitter hatred against him, but time has proved Michelagnolo right, and the fault was all wdtli Guglielmo, who, having the opportunity for producing a fine work, failed to make use of it, as I shall mention further elsewhere, and can here plainly show. For it chanced that in the year 1550, I had gone to Rome by order of Pope Julius III., there to enter the service of that Pontiff, and the more gladly as I could thus be near Michelagnolo, when I took part in the council held respecting that matter of the Tomb, which Michelagnolo wished to have placed within one of those niches, where now stands the Column of the Possessed, and which was indeed its proper position. I had also laboured to secure from Pope Julius the selection of
- ↑ Among the statues thus restored was the Hercules of Glicon, so well known as the “Farnese Hercules,” the legs of which he executed so well, that when the antique legs were discovered (in 1560) Michael Angelo would not suffer them to replace those of Guglielmo, and they were deposited in a room of the Vatican.
- ↑ For details which cannot here find place, the reader who shall desire such, may consult Bricolani, Descrizione della sacrosanta Basilica Vaticana, p. 60.
