My whole youth and manhood have been lost, tied down to this tomb....

I see multitudes with incomes of 2000 or 3000 crowns lying in bed, while I with all my immense labour toil to grow poor....

I am not a thief and usurer, but a citizen of Florence, noble, the son of an honest man, and do not come from Cagli." (These and similar outbursts of indignant passion scattered up and down the epistle, show to what extent the sculptor's irritable nature had been exasperated by calumnious reports.

As he openly declares, he is being driven mad by pin-pricks.

Then follows the detailed history of his dealings with Julius, which, as I have already made copious use of it, may here be given in outline.) "In the first year of his pontificate, Julius commissioned me to make his tomb, and I stayed eight months at Carrara quarrying marbles and sending them to the Piazza of S.Peter's, where I had my lodgings behind S.Caterina.Afterwards the Pope decided not to build his tomb during his lifetime, and set me down to painting.