ABSTRACT
The first block for the group of twelve Apostles that Michelangelo contracted to carve in 1503 arrived in Florence when he was in the midst of his Cascina cartoon. In 1505 Pope Julius II della Rovere commanded Michelangelo to come to Rome, an event that permanently changed his career - for the worse. Julius II operated as a patron on a scale and on a level of quality that make him equal to the artists we associate with him: Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo. Michelangelo was apparently recommended to the Pope by Giuliano da Sangallo, a close friend of Michelangelo's and a distinguished architect who had worked for Delia Rovere when he was a cardinal. But it is even possible that Julius had been following Michelangelo's career for some time, since he had been archbishop when Michelangelo came to Bologna in 1494. The unusual tomb of Sixtus IV had been finished by Antonio Pollaiuolo just before Michelangelo's first visit to Rome.
