INTERVIEW WITH THE POPE. 31 of the Pope's grooms, who recognized him, and carried him to his Holiness. The Pope was at table in the Palace of the Sixteen. When he saw him, he said, with an indignant expression, 'You seem to have expected that we were going to look for you instead of you coming to us.' Michelangelo bent his knee, and raising his voice excused himself, explaining that he had acted with no malice, but from indignation, and that he could not endure being driven away as he had. been. The Pope kept his head down without any reply, and seemed much troubled. Then a Bishop, who was charged by Soderini to excuse Michelangelo and to present him, interposed, saying, 'Pardon him, your Holiness. He has sinned in ignorance. These painters are all like this.' The Pope answered hotly: "You fool to find fault, when I don't! You're an ass, to insult this man! Out of my sight; to the devil with you!' And as the Bishop did not move, he was put out by the domestics, with a shower of blows into the bargain. The Pope having discharged most of his anger upon the head of the Bishop, bade Michelangelo approach, gave him his pardon and benediction, and told him not to leave Bologna without his orders. A short time afterwards, he sent for him and ordered a statue of himself for the front of San Petronio. Michelangelo finished this, which was more than three times the size of life, in sixteen months. The Pope came to see the model of it before leaving Bologna, and the sculptor, at a loss what to put in the left hand, asked him if he would like a book. "What!" replied Julius, “ a book? -a sword! I am no book-worm; not I." Then he joked upon the bold movement of the right arm, and said smiling, "Is it a blessing or a curse which your statue is giving?" "Holy Father, it is threatening the people in case they are not good." This statue, for which Michelangelo received 1000 golden ducats from the Commune of Bologna, was placed over the grand entrance of San Petronio on the 21st Feb. 1508. It remained there till 1511, the time when the Bentivoglios came into Bologna, and the people broke it in a fury. The Duke Alfonso of Ferrara bought the pieces, and had them made into a piece of artillery which he called the "Julienne." The loss of the figure of this terrible Julius II. by Michelangelo is the more unfortunate, as this statue has left fewer traces than other works of the Florentine sculptor which have likewise perished. The head, however, had been spared; it weighed six hundred pounds, and the Duke Alfonso, who preserved it in his own room, used to say that he would not take its weight in gold for it. But it is not known what has become of it; it has probably perished like the rest. 1 IN OF JULIUS II.-SAN LORENZO- PAUL III.-THE MOSES -THE CAPTIVES THE SIXTINE-DIFFICULTIES-GENIUS AND STYLE-LEO X. A.D. 1508-A.D. 1521. N 1508 Michelangelo returned to Rome and resumed his work on the tomb, which had been interrupted by his quarrel with Julius and his flight from Rome. He was soon to give it up a second time. Bramante had persuaded the Pope that it was unlucky to build his own sepulchre. He advised him to employ Michelangelo in painting the chapel, which his uncle Sixtus IV. had built. So at the beginning of this year he put the first touch to that giant work of decoration which was destined to be his grandest achievement. We shall see how stoutly he resisted the importunity of Julius, yet with what ardour he entered into that stupendous undertaking, and with what rapidity he completed it, when once he had made up his mind to give way. First, however, since at the period to which we have come, most of the statues were blocked out or finished which now adorn the D tomb of Julius II. at San Pietro in Vincoli, and those still more numerous which formed part of the original design and which have been dispersed, I should like to give a general idea of this monument, so as not to come back to it again. I wish also to show through what a series of modifications the original design passed, and what troubles it brought upon the author. Vasari and Condivi do not quite agree in their description of the design for this monument, as it was conceived by Michelangelo and adopted by Julius II. I shall follow Condivi's account, which pretty well agrees with a drawing of it from Michelangelo's own hand, in the possession of Mariette, described by him, and at this moment forming part of the Florence collection. The tomb was to be isolated. On each of its faces were to be four slaves standing, chained to terminal columns, which supported the cornice, and in niches between these groups two figures of Victory trampling upon prostrate prisoners. Above the cornice which surmounted these decorations were to be eight sitting figures, two on each face, representing the Prophets and the Virtues. The Moses was to be one of these statues. The sarcophagus placed between them was surmounted by a pyramid, having at the apex an angel holding a globe. Vasari adds that there were to be in all more than forty figures without reckoning the children and other ornaments. According to him the cornice was only to support four figures: Active, and Contemplative Life, St. Paul and Moses. The sarcophagus was to be supported by two figures, which Condivi does not mention: Heaven, seeming to rejoice that the soul of Julius had gone to inhabit the eternal glory, and Earth weeping over the loss of the Pontiff. This ambitious design was not altered till 1513; but after the death of Julius, Cardinals Santiquatro and Aginense, and the Duke of |