him to use greater dispatch; so that, singly, and in the short space of twenty months, he contrived to finish the vast portion that was still left. I have said singly, for such was the delicacy of his taste, that no one else could satisfy him; and as, in sculpture, he made with his own hands every auger, file, and chisel that he used; so, in painting, "he not only mixed the grounds and made the other necessary preparations and implements, but even ground his colours himself, not caring to trust to apprentices and assistants." It is here that we behold those august and finely varied figures of the Prophets and Sibyls, whose style, Lomazzo-an impartial judge, because of a different school-pronounces to be, in his opinion, "the best the world has ever seen." Here, indeed, the dignified air that pervades their features-the solemn majesty that beams in their eyes—the singular and unusual disposition of the drapery—and the very attitudes, whether representing rest or motion, all announce a race of mortals to whom the Deity vouchsafes to reveal the future, or whose mouths utter what he inspires. Nor did he display less skill in his pictures of the Creation of the World, the Deluge, the Judith, and the others in the different compartments of that vast ceiling. All is variety and ingenuity in the drapery, the foreshortenings, and the attitudes; all is novelty in the composition and the design. He who contemplates the historical pieces executed by Sandro and his associates on the walls, and then, raising his eyes to the ceiling, beholds M. Angeloche sopra gli altri come aquila vola-" soaring on eagle wing above them all," can hardly be persuaded that one who was unpractised in painting, could, in this his first essay, so far have outstripped the greatest of the old masters, and thus have opened a new career to the moderns.

In the succeeding pontificates, M. Angelo, entirely taken up with sculpture and architectural works, almost wholly renounced the pencil; till at length Paul III. prevailed upon him to resume Clement VII, had conceived the idea of getting him to re

it.

present, in the Sistine Chapel, two other grand historical pieces -the Fall of the Angels, over the entrance; and the Last Judgment, on the opposite façade, over the altar. M. Angelo had even prepared designs for a Last Judgment, and Paul III., who was aware of the circumstance, compelled, or rather besought him to set about the work; for he went in person to M. Angelo's residence, accompanied by no less than ten cardinals -an honour unparalleled in the annals of art. At the suggestion of Sebastiano del Piombo, the Pope was anxious to have the picture painted in oils: but this point he could not carry, M. Angelo having replied, that he would not execute it except in fresco, and that oil-painting was occupation fit only for women and idlers, or such as had plenty of time on their hands. Causing the plaster, therefore, prepared by Fra Sebastiano, to be pulled down, and substituting a rough-cast more to his mind, he spent eight years upon the work, and exhibited it to the public in 1541. If he could not altogether equal his own expectations in the frescos on the ceiling, nor retouch them here and there, as he could have wished, after they were dry, in this immense painting he had a fair opportunity of satisfying himself, and displaying his extraordinary powers to his heart's He contrived to people the whole of this vast space; covering it with a multitudinous assemblage of figures, awakened by the sound of the last trump-crowds of angels and of devils, of the elect and the condemned-some rising up from the tomb, others already risen-some soaring to the mansions of the blessed, others hurried away to the place of torment.

content.

There have not been wanting those, as Bottari observes, who, on comparing this picture with those of other artists, have sought to depreciate it; remarking how much its author might have improved it in expression, colouring, composition, and elegance of contour. Notwithstanding this, however, Lomazzo, Felibien, and others, have not failed to acknowledge his supremacy in that particular branch of art, in which it was, in all his

works, and more especially in this of the Last Judgment, the object of his ambition to attain it. The subject itself seemed not so much to have been selected by him, as to have been expressly made for him. To a genius so vast, and so deeply versed in delineating the human figure, no subject could be better adapted than the general resurrection; to an artist who delighted in the terrible, no story better suited than the terrors of the day of judgment. In every other accomplishment of art he found himself anticipated by Raphael; he saw that this was the only one in which he could expect to come off triumphant; and perhaps, too, he was not without a hope that posterity might award the palm to him, should they find him to have been foremost in the most arduous walk of art. His confidant, Vasari, who coincided in his views, seems to give some intimation of this in two passages of his "Life of Michael Angelo." He informs us, that, intent on the great object of art-the delineation of the human figure-he neglected the graces of colouring, and the attractions of fanciful and novel conceits;" and observes, on another occasion, that, "neither landscapes, trees, nor edifices, are to be found in his works; nor do we meet with much variety, or many of the adventitious charms of painting, for to these he never paid any attention; as if, conscious of his mighty powers, he would not deign to stoop to these more trivial matters." I cannot suppose M. Angelo chargeable with such senseless arrogance, or such indifference to his own improvement in an art, which, embracing every object in nature, cannot be confined to one solitary branch of it-as the delineation of the human figure; nor to one single character-as the awful style in which that artist excelled. I am rather disposed to think, that, perceiving his peculiar aptitude for this style, he did not choose to attempt any other. Here he proceeded, as in his own proper sphere, and, what one cannot defend, would not keep within bounds, or submit to any control. This Last Judgment was filled with such a crowd of naked figures, that the work had

Out of regard for

well nigh been defaced in consequence of it. the decency of the Sanctuary, Paul IV. intended to have had it covered with whitewash, and was hardly diverted from his purpose by the correction of its more glaring indelicacies; some drapery having been introduced here and there by Daniel of Volterra, to whom the Romans, with their usual love of sarcasm, from that circumstance applied the new-coined epithet of Brachettone, or the "Breeches-maker."

Other improvements have been suggested by different critics, both with regard to keeping and composition. Thus M. Angelo has been censured for confounding together sacred and profane history; the Angels of the Apocalypse and the Stygian Ferryman; Christ, the Universal Judge, and Minos, who assigns his proper station to each of the damned. To this profanation he also added satire; investing Minos with the features of a certain master of the ceremonies, who, with a view to prejudice the Pope, had pronounced this picture fitter for a bagnio than a church. In matters of this sort, M. Angelo must not be proposed as a pattern. Scannelli, in his "Microcosm," (p. 6,) has expressed a wish that there had been greater variety in the proportions of the different figures, and that their muscularity had also been made to vary with their age: although, by a manifest anachronism, he fathers this piece of criticism on Da Vinci, who died in 1519. Albani, as quoted by Malvasia, (tom. ii. p. 254,) says, that "Had M. Angelo seen the works of Raphael, he would have known how to represent the spectators that surround the judgment-seat of Christ in a better manner than he has done;" where I know not whether it is the composition or the perspective that displeases him: this, however, I know, that he, too, is guilty of an anachronism, in thus supposing the Last Judgment to have been executed before Raphael went to Rome.

Moreover, I must not omit to notice that Albani failed not to do justice to M. Angelo's distinguished merit; not imitating the

fashion of the present day, in admitting only three great luminaries of art, but adding Bonarruoti as a fourth, who, in his opinion, surpassed Raphael, Correggio, and Titian, in sublimity and anatomical accuracy. (Malvasia, ii. 254.) And here we may observe, that M. Angelo, when he was so disposed, knew how to acquit himself with credit in those branches of the art in which those others are supreme. It is a commonly received opinion, that he had no taste for beauty or grace; and yet the Eve of the Sistine Chapel, who, at her creation, turns round to offer up her thanksgivings to her Maker, is made to do it with an air so lovely and engaging, that it would do no discredit to a follower of Raphael himself. So captivated was Annibal Caracci, not only with the Eve, but with many other of the naked figures on this grand ceiling, that he proposed them to himself as models of art, and even preferred them to those of the Last Judgment, which, according to Bellori, appeared to him too anatomical. In chiaroscuro he may have fallen short of the exquisite skill and softness of Correggio: the pictures at the Vatican have, however, a force and relief, to which a just tribute was paid by that eminent connoisseur, Renfesthein, who, in passing from the Sistine Chapel to the Sala of the Farnese palace, failed not to point out to those strangers, to whom he acted as guide and preceptor at the same time, how greatly the Caracci themselves were surpassed in this respect by Bonarruoti. Dolce, in his " Dialogue on Painting," pronounces a less favourable opinion of his colouring; as might, indeed, be expected from one who was prepossessed in favour of Titian and the Venetian school. Yet no one can deny, that M. Angelo's colouring in the above-mentioned chapel is admirably adapted to the design; and the same was most probably the case with the two historical pieces in the Pauline Chapel-the Crucifixion of St. Peter, and the Conversion of St. Paul-though time has impaired them too much to allow us to give a decisive opinion on the subject.