We regret that Michelangelo could not carry out a work so congenial to his talent as this ideal portrait of the mighty Signer Capitano would have been; but we may console ourselves by reflecting that even his energies were not equal to all tasks imposed upon him.

The real matter for lamentation is that they suffered so much waste in the service of vacillating Popes.
To the year 1523 belongs, in all probability, the last extant letter which Michelangelo wrote to his father.

Lodovico was dissatisfied with a contract which had been drawn up on the 16th of June in that year, and by which a certain sum of money, belonging to the dowry of his late wife, was settled in reversion upon his eldest son.

Michelangelo explains the tenor of the deed, and then breaks forth into the, following bitter and ironical invective: "If my life is a nuisance to you, you have found the means of protecting yourself, and will inherit the key of that treasure which you say that I possess.

And you will be acting rightly; for all Florence knows how mighty rich you were, and how I always robbed you, and deserve to be chastised.