This proves that he must have pushed the various operations connected with the tomb vigorously forward, employing numerous workpeople, and ordering supplies of marble.

In fact, the greater part of what remains to us of the unfinished monument may be ascribed to this period of comparatively uninterrupted labour.

Michelangelo had his workshop in the Macello de' Corvi, but we know very little about the details of his life there.

His correspondence happens to be singularly scanty between the years 1513 and 1516.

One letter, however, written in May 1518, to the Capitano of Cortona throws a ray of light upon this barren tract of time, and introduces an artist of eminence, whose intellectual affinity to Michelangelo will always remain a matter of interest.