2/62 Michael Angelo obeyed at once this time. We have a good account by his own hand of what happened when he arrived in Rome, his famous letter to Fattucci, written sixteen years later. I tell you that I estimate that I could demand payment and interest on it, to receive money rather than give it. For when he sent for me to Florence, I believe it was in the second year of his Pontificate, I had begun to decorate the half of the Sala del Consiglio of Florence, that is to paint it. I was to have had three thousand ducats for it, and the cartoon was already completed, as was well known to all Florence, so that they seemed to me half earned. |