"That," adds Michelangelo, "is the same as calling me the biggest blackguard; and so I should be, if I wanted to get back what had been already paid.

But let your Lordship think what you like about it, I am bound to get the money, and so I swear." The remainder of the autograph is torn and illegible; it seems to wind up with a threat.
The records of this period are so scanty that every detail acquires a certain importance for Michelangelo's biographer.

By a deed executed on the 14th of June 1514, we find that he contracted to make a figure of Christ in marble, "life-sized, naked, erect, with a cross in his arms, and in such attitude as shall seem best to Michelangelo." The persons who ordered the statue were Bernardo Cencio (a Canon of S.
Peter's), Mario Scappucci, and Metello Varj dei Porcari, a Roman of ancient blood.

They undertook to pay 200 golden ducats for the work; and Michelangelo promised to finish it within the space of four years, when it was to be placed in the Church of S.Maria sopra Minerva.
Metello Varj, though mentioned last in the contract, seems to have been the man who practically gave the commission, and to whom Michelangelo was finally responsible for its performance.

He began to hew it from a block, and discovered black veins in the working.