Michelangelo pointed out that it was an easy thing enough to erect piers by placing brick on brick, but that to fashion a column like one of these taxed all the resources of art." On the 18th of April 1506, Julius performed the ceremony of laying the foundation-stone of the new S.Peter's.

The place chosen was the great sustaining pier of the dome, near which the altar of S.Veronica now stands.

A deep pit had been excavated, into which the aged Pope descended fearlessly, only shouting to the crowd above that they should stand back and not endanger the falling in of the earth above him.

Coins and medals were duly deposited in a vase, over which a ponderous block of marble was lowered, while Julius, bareheaded, sprinkled the stone with holy water and gave the pontifical benediction.

On the same day he wrote a letter to Henry VII.