In 1513 Julius II. died, and Michael Angelo resumed his work upon his mausoleum. The pope had mentioned it in his will, and his heirs wished it to be completed. At this time he probably worked upon the statue of Moses and upon the two chained youths. He devoted himself to the mausoleum during three years.
Leo X., who was now pope, demanded the services of Michael Angelo to erect a façade to the Church of San Lorenzo in Florence. The artist objected to this great work, and declared that he was bound to complete the tomb for which he had already received money. But Leo insisted upon his going to Florence. He had much trouble to get his marble from the quarries--the men were ill there. He was ill himself, and he passed a year of great anxiety and trouble, when there came word from Rome that the work must be given up; the building was postponed, and no payment was made to Michael Angelo! He was much disheartened, but returned to his work on the mausoleum.
About 1523, when, after many changes, Cardinal Medici was pope, the work at San Lorenzo was resumed. But in 1525 the pope again summoned Michael Angelo to Rome. The heirs of Julius were complaining of delay, but at last the pope insisted upon his great need of the artist, and again he was sent back to Florence, where the cupola of the new Sacristy to San Lorenzo was soon finished. Great political confusion now ensued, and little can be said of Michael Angelo as a sculptor until 1530, when he again resumed his work on the Sacristy.
He worked with the greatest industry and rapidity, and in a few months had nearly finished the four colossal figures which rest upon the sarcophagi of Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici. The pope was forced to command the sculptor to rest. His health was so broken by the sorrow which the political condition of Florence caused him, and by his anxiety about the mausoleum of Julius, that there was much danger of his killing himself with work and worry. He went to Rome, and matters were more satisfactorily arranged. He returned to Florence, and labored there until 1534, when Clement VII. died, and Michael Angelo left his work in San Lorenzo, never to resume it. Unfinished as these sculptures are, they make a grand part of the wonderful works of this great man. The statues of the two Medici and those of Morning, Evening, Day, and Night would be sufficient to establish the fame of an artist if he had done nothing more. (Fig. 107.)