Michelangelo's friend Cardinal Leonardo Grosso writes to him from Rome, on Michelangelo's depression at the course of the suit against him by the heirs of Pope Julius II regarding the incompletion of the Pope's tomb:

I am also told that you have declined your pension, which seems to me mere madness, and that you have thrown the house up, and do not work. Friend and gossip, let me tell you that you have plenty of enemies, who speak their worst; also that the Pope and Pucci and Jacopo Salviati are your friends, and have plighted their troth to you. It is unworthy of you to break your word to them, especially in an affair of honour. Leave the matter of the tomb to those who wish you well, and who are able to set you free without the least encumbrance, and take care you do not come short in the Pope's work. Die first. And take the pension, for they give it with willing heart.