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 and the Philistines—the latter to be wrought out of a block of marble which had been rough-hewn already for another purpose by Baccio Bandinelli. Soon, however, he was called to help in defending the city itself from danger. Clement and his enemy Charles V. having become reconciled, both alike were now bent on bringing Florence again under the rule of the Medici. In view of the approaching siege, Michelangelo was appointed engineer-in-chief of the fortifications. He spent the early summer of 1529 in strengthening the defences of San Miniato; from July to September he was absent on a diplomatic mission to Ferrara and Venice. Returning in the middle of the latter month, he found the cause of Florence hopeless from internal treachery and from the overwhelming strength of her enemies. One of his dark seizures overcame him, and he departed again suddenly for Venice. There for a while he remained, negotiating for a future residence in France. Then, while the siege was still in progress, he returned once more to Florence; but in the final death-struggle of her liberties he bore no part. When in 1530 the city submitted to her conquerors, no mercy was shown to most of those who had taken part in her defence. Michelangelo believed himself in danger with the rest, but on the intervention of Baccio Valori he was presently taken back into favour and employment by Pope Clement. For four years more he continued to work at intervals on the completion of the Medici monuments, with the help from 1532 of Giovanni Montorsoli and other pupils, and on the building of the Laurentian library. In 1531 he suffered a severe illness; in 1532 he made a long stay at Rome, and entered upon yet another contract for the completion of the Julian monument, to be reduced now to a still more shrunken scale and to be placed not in St Peter’s but in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli. In the autumn of 1534 he left Florence for good. What remained to be done in the Medici chapel was done by pupils, and the chapel was not finally opened to view until 1545.

Michelangelo had fully purposed, as soon as he could get free of his task on the Medici tombs, to devote all his powers to the completion of the Julian monument in accordance with the new contract of 1532. But his intention was again frustrated. Pope Clement insisted that he must complete his decorations of the Sixtine Chapel by painting anew the great end wall above the altar, adorned until then by frescoes of Perugino. The subject chosen was the Last judgment; and Michelangelo began to prepare sketches. In the autumn of 1534, in his sixtieth year, he settled finally, and for the remainder of his life, at Rome. Immediately afterwards Clement died, and was succeeded by a Farnese under the title of Paul III. Even more than his predecessor, Paul insisted on claiming the main services of Michelangelo for himself, and forced him to let all other engagements drift. For the first seven years after the artist’s return to Rome, his time was principally taken up with the painting of the colossal and multitudinous “Last Judgment.” This being completed in 1541, he was next compelled to undertake two more great frescoes—one of the Conversion of Paul and another of the Martyrdom of Peter—in a new chapel which the pope had caused to be built in the Vatican, and named after himself—Capella Paolina.

The fresco of the “Last judgment” in the Sixtine Chapel is probably the most famous single picture in the world. In it Michelangelo shows more than ever the omnipotence of his artistic science, and the fiery daring of his conceptions. But the work, so far as its deplorably deteriorated condition admits comparison, is hardly comparable in the qualities of colour and decorative effect to the earlier and, far more nobly inspired frescoes of the ceiling. It is to these and not to the “Last judgment” that the student must turn if he would realize what is best and greatest in the art of Michelangelo.

The frescoes of the Pauline Chapel are on their part so injured as to be hardly susceptible of useful study or criticism. In their ruined state they bear evidence of the same tendencies that made the art of Michelangelo in its latest phase so dangerous an example to weaker men—the tendency, that, is, to seek for unqualified energy and violence of action, both in place and out, for “terribleness” quand même, and to design actions not by help of direct study from nature, but by scientific deduction from the abstract laws of structure and movement. At best these frescoes can never have been happy examples of Michelangelo’s art.

Other Work of the years 1534–1549. .—During the fifteen years when Michelangelo was mainly engaged on these paintings, he had also at last been enabled to acquit himself, although in a manner that can have been satisfactory to none concerned, of his engagements to the heirs of Julius. Once more the influence of the pope had prevailed on them to accept a compromise altogether to their disadvantage. By a final contrast dated 1542, it was agreed that the “Moses” executed thirty years before, seated on a low plinth in a central recess, should be the chief figure of the new