Buoninsegna replied that the
Cardinal expressed the highest satisfaction at "the great heart he had for
conducting the work of the facade." The friendly relations of Michael
Angelo with the natives of Carrara continued until the Pope obliged him to
leave their quarries and open up those of Pietra Santa, in Tuscan
territory, by which act Michael Angelo lost much time. He had positively
to make roads down the mountains and over the marshes before he could get
a single block to the river. The Marquis of Carrara became his enemy, and
the contracts with the people of Carrara caused him much annoyance and
great loss. The orders from Rome were peremptory and had to be
obeyed.(122) Ten years of the best of Michael Angelo's working life were
wasted; the numberless delays of this period, and the delays over the Tomb
of Julius, positively seem to have changed the character of the artist
from a man of action to a man of thought. Possibly advancing age had
something to do with it; but the fact remains that the man who executed
the bronze statue of Julius in two years, and painted the vault of the
Sistine in less than three years, took seven years to finish the Last
Judgment, which covers a surface about one-third the extent of the vault,
and also is in a much more favourable position for painting.
There is a document shown in the rooms of the State Archives at the Uffizi
that belongs to this period; it is a memorial addressed by the Florentine
Academy to Pope Leo X.
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