Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/576

 540 Readings in European History hundred thousand crowns in the cost, might very well be spared, while the work might be completed with increased majesty, grandeur, and lightness, to say nothing of better design, greater beauty, and superior convenience. He made a model also, to prove the truth of his words, and this was of the form wherein we now see the work to have been carried on ; it cost twenty-five crowns and was finished in a fortnight, that of San Gallo having exceeded four thousand and having occupied several years in making. From this and other circumstances, it was indeed easy to see that the church had become an object of traffic and a means of gain rather than a building to be completed, being considered by those who undertook the work as a kind of bargain to be turned to the best account. Such a state of things could not fail to displease so upright a man as Michael Angelo, and as the pope had made him superintendent against his will, he determined to be rid of them all. He therefore one day told them openly that he knew well that they had done and were doing all they could by means of their friends to prevent him from entering on this office, but that if he were to undertake the charge he would not suffer one of them to remain about the building. Michael Angelo worked for his amusement almost every day at a group of four figures, but he broke up the block at last, either because it was found to have numerous veins, was excessively hard, and often caused the chisel to strike fire, or because the judgment of the artist was so severe that he could never content himself with anything that he ever did. There is proof of this in the fact that few of his works undertaken in his manhood were ever entirely completed, those entirely finished being the productions of his youth. . . . Michael Angelo himself would often remark that if he were really permitted to satisfy himself in the works to be produced, he should give little or nothing to public view. And the reason for this is obvious. He had advanced to such an extent of knowledge in art that the very slightest error could not exist in any figure without his immediate