The paradox implied in this diversion of our hero from the path he ought to have pursued may be explained in three ways. First, he had already come to be regarded as a man of unique ability, from whom everything could be demanded. Next, it was usual for the masters of the Renaissance, from Leo Battista Alberti down to Raffaello da Urbino and Lionardo da Vinci, to undertake all kinds of technical work intrusted to their care by patrons. Finally, Michelangelo, though he knew that sculpture was his goddess, and never neglected her first claim upon his genius, felt in him that burning ambition for greatness, that desire to wrestle with all forms of beauty and all depths of science, which tempted him to transcend the limits of a single art and try his powers in neighbour regions. He was a man born to aim at all, to dare all, to embrace all, to leave his personality deep-trenched on all the provinces of art he chose to traverse.
The whole of 1516 and 1517 elapsed before Leo's plans regarding S. Lorenzo took a definite shape. Yet we cannot help imagining that when Michelangelo cancelled his first contract with the executors of Julius, and adopted a reduced plan for the monument, he was acting under Papal pressure. This was done at Rome in July, and much against the will of both parties. Still it does not appear that any one contemplated the abandonment of the scheme; for Buonarroti bound himself to perform his new contract within the space of nine years, and to engage "in no work of great importance which should interfere with its fulfilment." He spent a large part of the year 1516 at Carrara, quarrying marbles, and even hired the house of a certain Francesco Pelliccia in that town. On the 1st of November he signed an agreement with the same Pelliccia involving the purchase of a vast amount of marble, whereby the said Pelliccia undertook to bring down four statues of 4-1/2 cubits each and fifteen of 4-1/4 cubits from the quarries where they were being rough-hewn. It was the custom to block out columns, statues, &c., on the spot where the stone had been excavated, in order, probably, to save weight when hauling. Thus the blocks arrived at the sea-shore with rudely adumbrated outlines of the shape they were destined to assume under the artist's chisel. It has generally been assumed that the nineteen figures in question were intended for the tomb. What makes this not quite certain, however, is that the contract of July specifies a greatly reduced quantity and scale of statues. Therefore they may have been intended for the façade. Anyhow, the contract above-mentioned with Francesco Pelliccia was cancelled on the 7th of April following, for reasons which will presently appear.