but which could not be displayed in the smaller monument in San Pietro in Vincoli. Firstly, there is one of the statues of Victory nearly finished, which stands now in the council. chamber of the Signory, then the two wonderful Captives which the Louvre is fortunate enough to possess. These last are among the finest of Michelangelo's works, and there is, to my thinking, some evidence of their being those which were blocked out during his stay in Carrara, in the first outburst of his enthusiasm, long before the Monument had caused him so much anxiety and vexation. One of these figures is by no means perfect, but the other has that delicate finish which he used to put to his early works. For loftiness of style, boldness and grace of outline, suppleness and power of model, and for idealism of character, it will ever take its place among the most finished productions of the chisel. These two works were first given by Michelangelo to Roberto Strozzi, who had received him in his house, and tended him in illness; they were brought into France, and Francis I. made a present of them to Marshal Montmorency, who put them in his castle at Écouen. They were conveyed afterwards to Poitou by Richelieu; then they were taken to his house in the Faubourg du Roule, and put up for sale in 1793, and Lenoir purchased them for the Museum of French Monuments. They are now in one of the rooms devoted to the sculptures of the Renaissance.

Now I must go back and take up the course of events at the point where I digressed, in order to dwell upon a work which, notwithstanding its importance, has occupied too large a place in the life of Michelangelo. On his return from Bologna, at the beginning of 1508, he found Julius II. by no means cold in his feeling towards him, but preoccupied with new schemes. He talked about his tomb no longer,

1

BEGINS WORK IN THE SIXTINE.

39 but entirely about the rebuilding of St. Peter's, which he had put into Bramante's hands. Raphael was at this time beginning the frescoes in the Hall of the Signory, and the two biographers of Michelangelo, whose evidence upon this point must, it is true, be received with caution, agree in declaring that the architect of St. Peter's was jealous of the superiority of the Florentine sculptor. He was afraid that he would discover the mistakes which had been made in the new buildings and the malpractices of which he was not perhaps guiltless. In the hope, therefore, of compromising and ruining him by employing him on works to which he was not accustomed, he induced the Pope to entrust Michelangelo with the vault-paintings of the chapel which had been built under Sixtus IV. Julius caught at the idea. Buonarroti was summoned and ordered to begin at once. He had done no fresco work since the time of his apprenticeship with Ghirlandaio, and knew that it was not an easy thing to paint a vault. He excused himself, and proposed Raphael, saying that he was nothing but a sculptor and should fail in such a work. The Pope was inflexible, and on the 10th of May, 1508, Michelangelo began this vault, perhaps the most prodigious monument of human genius on record. Julius had ordered Bramante to construct the necessary scaffolding, but he set about it so clumsily that Michelangelo was obliged to dispense with his assistance and to do everything for himself. He summoned some of his old fellow-pupils from Florence, not, as Vasari, under the most strange misconception, asserts, because he knew nothing about the method of fresco-painting, which was familiar to all artists of that period, but because his fellow-workmen were more accustomed to it than himself, and he wanted assistance in so important a work. He was, however, so dissatisfied with

their style, that he destroyed all they had done, and, if we may believe his biographer, shut himself up in the chapel. without any assistant, grinding his own colours and preparing his own plaster. Thither he went at daybreak and never left till nightfall, sometimes even sleeping in his clothes. upon the scaffolding, only allowing himself one light meal at the end of the day, and permitting no one a sight of what he was doing. Scarcely had he begun than unforeseen difficulties arose, which were on the point of making him give up the work entirely. The colours, even before they were dry, were covered with a mould, and he could not discover the cause. He went back to the Pope disheartened: "I warned your Holiness," he said, "that painting was not my art. All I have done is lost, and if you do not believe me, send some one to see it." Julius sent Giuliano da San Gallo, who saw that the misfortune was owing to the quality of the Roman lime, and that Michelangelo used his plaster too damp. Buonarroti resumed his work with the utmost eagerness, and in twenty months the first half was completed without another mishap.

The mystery in which Michelangelo shrouded himself had excited general curiosity. The objections of the painter had not prevented Julius from coming to see him several times, and, despite his great age, he had mounted right up to the platform by a bolt-ladder and with the help of Michelangelo's hand. He would wait no longer. He would have everybody share in his admiration without more delay. It was of no use for Michelangelo to object that the scaffolding would have to be rebuilt, and that he had not put the last touch to his work: the Pope would not hear a word, and the chapel was open to the public on All Saints' Day, November the 1st, 1509. "All Rome,"