"What should have been the most prestigious commission of his career, Pope Julius II's free-standing tomb with some 40 figures, to be located in St. Peter's, became, in Michelangelo's own words, the 'tragedy of the tomb'.

"Julius died in 1513, the contract was redrawn several times over the following years with ever-diminishing funding, other demands were made on Michelangelo by successive popes, and the project was finally cobbled together in 1545, a shadow of its original conception in S. Pietro in Vincoli. The tomb is now principally famous for the colossal figure of Moses (c. 1515), one of Michelangelo's greatest sculptures. Two slave figures, The Dying Slave and The Rebellious Slave (c. 1513), intended for the largest of the schemes for the tomb, are now in the Louvre in Paris, and four unfinished slaves, from an intermediate stage when the tomb had been only slightly reduced, are now in the Accademia in Florence. The four unfinished slaves reveal eloquently Michelangelo's sculptural process: the figure would be outlined on the front of the marble block and then Michelangelo would work steadily inwards from this one side, in his own words 'liberating the figure imprisoned in the marble'."