Moses was commissioned by Pope Julius II as part of his tomb, which should have been by far the largest tomb ever constructed for a pope in St Peter’s Basilica. The original tomb commission in 1505 included nearly 50 large sculptures — if completed, Moses would have sat at the corner on an upper level almost 4 m (over 12 ft) higher than he is seated now.
Julius II died in 1513, around the time Michelangelo worked on Moses, and was interned in St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City — his grave is now just marked by an epitaph on a simple marble slab. His funerary monument in San Pietro in Vincoli, a church traditionally patronized by the Della Rovere family from which Julius II came, was completed in its far simpler form in 1545.