Page:Studies in the history of the renaissance (IA studiesinhistor01pategoog).djvu/91

Rh expresses not the mirthfulness of the god of wine, but his sleepy seriousness, his enthusiasm, his capacity for profound dreaming. No one ever expressed more truly than Michelangelo the notion of inspired sleep, of faces charged with dreams. A vast fragment of marble had long lain below the Loggia of Orcagna, and many a sculptor had had his thoughts of a design which should just fill this famous block of stone, cutting the diamond, as it were, without loss. Under Michelangelo's hand it became the David which now stands on the steps of the Palazzo Vecchio. Michelangelo was now thirty years old, and his reputation was established. Three great works fill the remainder of his life; three works often interrupted, carried on through a thousand hesitations, a thousand disappointments, quarrels with his patrons, quarrels with his family, quarrels perhaps most of all with himself—the Sistine Chapel, the Mausoleum of Julius the Second, and the sacristy of San Lorenzo.

In the story of Michelangelo's life, the strength often turning to bitterness is not far to seek; a discordant note sounds throughout it which almost spoils the music. He 'treats the Pope as the King of France himself would not dare to treat him;' he goes along the streets of Rome 'like an executioner,' Raffaelle says of him. Once he seems to