The "Moses," originally intended for one of the angles of the upper course, is now placed at the level of the eye in the centre of the reduced monument. The prophet supposed to have just found the Israelites worshipping the golden calf, sits heavily bearded and draped, his head raised and turned to the left, his right arm grasping the tables of the law—an incarnation of majestic indigna tion and menace. The work, except in one or two places, is of the utmost finish. The "Slaves" at the Louvre are youthful male figures of equally perfect execution, nude but for the band which passes over the breast of one and the right leg of the other. One, with his left hand raised to his head, his eyes almost closed, seems succumbing to the agonies of death ; the other, with his arms bound behind his back, looks upward still hopelessly struggling. All three of these figures were finished between 1513 and 1516.
By 1516 Michelangelo's evil star was again in the ascendant. Julius II. had been succeeded on the papal throne by Cardinal Giovanni dei Medici under the title of Leo X. The Medici, too, had about the same time re-established their sway in Florence. The consequence to him of the rise to power of the Medici was a fresh interruption of his cherished work on the tomb of Julius. Leo X. and his kinsmen were full of a new scheme for the adorn ment of the facade of their own family church of San Lorenzo in Florence. Michelangelo offered his services for the new façade.
They were eagerly accepted, although for a moment the idea had been entertained of entrusting the work to Leonardo da Vinci. The heirs of Julius at the request of Leo allowed their three years'-old contract to be cancelled in favour of another, whereby the scale and sculptured decorations of the Julian monument were again to be reduced. Michelangelo soon produced for the San Lorenzo façade a design of combined sculpture and architecture as splendid and ambitious in its way as had been that for the original monument of Julius. The contract was signed in January 1518, and the artist went to Carrara to superintend the excavation of the marbles.
When all was well in progress there under his own eye, reasons of state induced the Medici and the Florentine magistracy to bid him resort instead to certain new quarries at Pietrasanta, near Serravalle in the territory of Florence. Hither Michelangelo ac cordingly had to transfer the scene of his labours. Presently he found himself so impeded and enraged by the mechanical diffi culties of raising and transporting the marbles, and by the dis loyalty and incompetence of those with whom he had to deal, that he was fain to throw up the commission altogether. The contracts for the façade of San Lorenzo were rescinded in March 1518, and the whole magnificent scheme came to nothing. Michel angelo then returned to Florence, where proposals of work poured in on him from many quarters. The king of France desired something from his hand. The authorities of Bologna wanted him to design a facade for their church of St. Petronius; those of Genoa to cast a statue in bronze of their great commander, Andrea Doria. Cardinal Grimani begged hard for any picture or statue he might have to spare. Lastly his friend and partisan Sebastian del Piombo at Rome besought him on Raphael's death to return at once to Rome, and take out of the hands of the dead master's pupils the work of painting still remaining to be done in the Vatican chambers. Michelangelo complied with none of these requests. All that we certainly know of his doing between 1518 and 1522 is the blocking out in the rough of four more of the "Slaves" for the tomb of Julius, and carrying out a com mission, which he had received from three citizens of Rome as early as 1514, for a statue of the risen Christ. The roughed-out "Slaves" now stand in the Academy of Fine Arts, Florence; the Christ, practically finished t'y the master but with the last touches added by pupils, stands in the church, for which it was destined, of Sta. Maria sopra Minerva at Rome.