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You will not see them bearing a Madonna
Of Cimabue to the church in triumph,
But tearing down the statue of a Pope
To cast it into cannon. Who are they
That bring complaints against me?

JULIUS.
Deputies
Of the commissioners; and they complain
Of insufficient light in the Three Chapels.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Your Holiness, the insufficient light
Is somewhere else, and not in the Three Chapels.
Who are the deputies that make complaint?

JULIUS.
The Cardinals Salviati and Marcello,
Here present.

MICHAEL ANGELO, rising.
With permission, Monsignori,
What is it ye complain of?

CARDINAL MARCELLO,
We regret
You have departed from Bramante's plan,
And from San Gallo's.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Since the ancient time
No greater architect has lived on earth
Than Lazzari Bramante. His design,
Without confusion, simple, clear, well-lighted.
Merits all praise, and to depart from it
Would be departing from the truth. San Gallo,
Building about with columns, took all light
Out of this plan; left in the choir dark corners
For infinite ribaldries, and lurking places
For rogues and robbers; so that when the church
Was shut at night, not five and twenty men
Could find them out. It was San Gallo, then,
That left the church in darkness, and not I.

CARDINAL MARCELLO.
Excuse me; but in each of the Three Chapels
Is but a single window.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
Monsignore,
Perhaps you do not know that in the vaulting
Above there are to go three other windows.

CARDINAL SALVIATI.
How should we know? You never told us of it.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
I neither am obliged, nor will I be,
To tell your Eminence or any other
What I intend or ought to do. Your office
Is to provide the means, and see that thieves
Do not lay hands upon them. The designs
Must all be left to me.

CARDINAL MARCELLO.
Sir architect,
You do forget yourself, to speak thus rudely
In presence of his Holiness, and to us
Who are his cardinals.