Part 9 (1/2)

To the same

_From_ ROME (_Oct 1509_)

”BUONARROTO,-I hear by your last how that all are well, and how Lodovico has another office It all pleases e him to accept it if it will allow him to return when necessary to his post in Florence I a by the end of next week, that is, the part of it I began; and when I have uncovered it I believe I shall receive et leave to come to you for a month I do not knohether it will be, but I need it for I am not very well I have no time to write more I will tell you what happens

”MICHAEL ANGELO, Sculptor, in Roe 23]

THE DELPHIC SIBYL

SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME (_Reproduced by per D Anderson, Rome_)

The as exposed to view upon Noveest possible estimate of tielo took four hundred and sixty-torking days to paint it The more probable, in fact, al the fresco, assee it, is from the time his assistants left him, about New Year's Day 1509, to November 1 in the sa days As the plaster could only be painted on whilst e can tell, by the s, how est and most prominent, as well as one of the finest and most finished, the Adas only The lines of the junctions of the plasterthe collar bone, and one across the junction of the body and the thighs There is also a division all round the figure, an inch or so frohly finished head and neck were painted in one day; the stupendous torso and ars, finished in every detail, in a third

Such power of work and of finish is utterly inconceivable to any artist of to-day Some will even excuse the i that they had only three or four sittings

Condivi asserts, and Vasari follows him, that the part uncovered in Nove at the large door of entrance and ending in the middle But Albertini states in his _Mirabilia Urbis_(115) that the upper portion of the whole vaulted roof had been uncovered when he saw it in 1509, and this statement is corroborated by the work itself There is a distinct enlargeh the series of the Creation and the Athletes to the Prophets and Sibyls, and again froe door, to those near the altar wall So it may have been the complete work on the flat part of the vault that was shown to the world, including the story of the Creation and Fall of Man; and it was not, therefore, so very unreasonable of Bramante to propose that Raphael should continue the work, for he probably did not know of Michael Angelo's intention of co the promise of the Redeemer by his prophets and sibyls upon the curved surface of the vaulting Michael Angelo was naturally indignant at his action, but Julius, who probably was the only elo's scheather fro the painting of the vault was not put up on Septee 24]

THE PROPHET JOEL

SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME (_By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence_)

_To_ LODOVICO DI BUONARROTA SIMONI, _in Florence_

_From_ ROME, _September 7, 1510_

”DEAREST FATHER,-I have received your last, and hear with the greatest anxiety that Buonarroto is ill; therefore, as soon as you see this, go to the Spedalingo(116) and ive you fifty or an hundred ducats; you s necessary be provided in good time, and that there be no lack ofto receive froive o on with the other part ofme any orders I have written him a letter I do not knoill follow I should have come to you immediately on the receipt of your last, but if I left without perry, and I should lose all that I ought to have

Nevertheless, let me know immediately if Buonarroto should still be very bad, because if you think I ought to come I will ride post and be with you in two days, for men are worth more than money

Let me know at once, for I am very anxious

”On the 7th day of September

”Your MICHAEL ANGELO, Sculptor, in Ro note tells of the end of the work:

”I have finished the Chapel which I painted The Pope is very well satisfied, but other things do not happen as I wished Lay blame on the times, which are unfavourable to art” It is a note by Michael Angelo in the Buonarroto manuscripts of the British Museum, but undated It is probably of October 1512, and marks the close of this period of enormous work The decoration of the Sistine Chapel now consisted, firstly, on the flat of the vault, of Michael Angelo's history of the Creation and the Fall of Man, of the Punishment of the Flood, and the Second Entry of Sin into the World; secondly, on the pendentives, of the Prophets and Sibyls proclai of a Redee the arches of the s and the arches on the two end walls Those on the altar wall are now covered by angels bearing the instrureat fresco of the Last Judgelo thirty years afterwards At Oxford there are two drawings after these two destroyed frescoes of the Ancestors of Christ series Fourthly, at the four corners the four great Deliverances of the Chosen People, emblems of the Redeures of the Popes by Sandro Botticelli and others; these are still in existence, except the three that were on the wall of the high altar, now occupied by the Last Judgment