 On 4 July of the same year, he began work on a commission for Cardinal Riario, an over-life-size statue of the Roman wine god "Bacchus".Upon completion, the work was rejected by the cardinal, and subsequently entered the collection of the banker Jacopo Galli, for his garden.In November 1497, the French ambassador to the Holy See, Cardinal Jean de Bilhères-Lagraulas, commissioned him to carve a "Pietà", a sculpture showing the Virgin Mary grieving over the body of Jesus.