Michelangelo takes the correspondence up again with Fattucci on November 6, 1526.

What he says at the beginning of the letter is significant.

He knows that the political difficulties in which Clement had become involved were sufficient to distract his mind, as Julius once said, from any interest in "stones small or big." Well, the letter starts thus: "I know that Spina wrote in these days past to Rome very hotly about my affairs with regard to the tomb of Julius.

If he blundered, seeing the times in which we live, I am to blame, for I prayed him urgently to write.

It is possible that the trouble of my soul made me say more than I ought.