The first weeks of his residence in Rome are said to have been spent in inactivity, until at last Julius proposed to erect a huge monument of marble for his own tomb.
Thus began the second and longest period of Michelangelo's art-industry.

Henceforth he was destined to labour for a series of Popes, following their whims with distracted energies and a lamentable waste of time.

The incompleteness which marks so much of his performance was due to the rapid succession of these imperious masters, each in turn careless about the schemes of his predecessor, and bent on using the artist's genius for his own profit.

It is true that nowhere but in Rome could Michelangelo have received commissions on so vast a scale.

Nevertheless we cannot but regret the fate which drove him to consume years of hampered industry upon what Condivi calls "the tragedy of Julius's tomb," upon quarrying and road-making for Leo X., upon the abortive plans at S.Lorenzo, and upon architectural and engineering works, which were not strictly within his province.