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 BUONARROTI 443 with the pope suspended this great work, which, though several times undertaken in after years, was never finished ; the parts designed for it, among them the famous statue of Moses, were finally placed in the church of San Pietro in Vincolo. A reconciliation was effected at Bologna in 1506, and in 1508 the artist, after devoting 16 months to a colossal bronze statue of Julius, which the Bolognese afterward con- verted into a cannon, returned to Rome ex- pecting to resume his lahor upon the mauso- leum ; but the pope had changed his mind, and was now bent upon decorating with frescoes the walls and ceiling of the Sistine chapel, in honor of his uncle Sixtns IV., its builder. With extreme reluctance Michel Angelo consent- ed to execute this undertaking in an untried branch of art. He was not a painter ; Raphael could do it better ; but the pope's request was a command ; so he made the casting, construct- ed the scaffolding, sent away the fresco painters who had come from Florence, shut himself up alone, and finished the first picture on the ceil- ing, the "Deluge." The plaster was too wet, and a film obscured the picture ; this was easily remedied, and the artist went on. Before the ceiling was half finished the impatient pope had the scaffolding removed that he might see the effect. Notwithstanding this interruption, the whole ceiling was actually painted in 20 months. Michel Angelo was making studies for the other paintings when his patron died, Feb. 21, 1513, and the work was suspended. He would now gladly have resumed his labor upon the mausoleum under the patronage of the deceased pope's nephew, but Leo X. occu- pied him the whole nine years of his reign in the quarries of Pietra Santa getting out inferior marble for the facade of the church of San Lorenzo in Florence. On the death of Leo, his cousin Giuliano de' Medici (Clement VII.) em- ployed him upon the Medici chapel in the same church, a work which consumed the 20 months of Adrian VI.'s reign, and a portion of Clem- ent's. In 1527-'30 Michel Angelo displayed genius of yet another kind, as an engineer, be- ing engaged in fortifying the city of Florence against assaults of the imperial troops. The city fell, and he restored himself to the pope's favor by promising to complete the two statues for the Medici chapel. Again he was anxious to resume the monument to Julius II., and again he was prevented by the pope, who or- dered him to paint the walls of the Sistine chapel. This was in 1533. After much studied delay on the part of the artist, who kept pri- vately at work upon his Julian mausoleum, the " Last Judgment " was opened to the public on Christmas day, 1541, Paul IIL being pontiff. He afterward completed two large paintings, the " Conversion of St. Paul " and the " Cruci- fixion of St. Peter," for the capella Paolina. In the reign of Paul III. this extraordinary man, 70 years old, entered upon a new depart- ment of art. San Gallo died in 1546, and he was summoned to succeed him as architect of St. Peter's. This office he held through five pontificates, accepting no emolument, and nearly all the time crossed and perplexed by the invidious plots of his enemies. With this stupendous work on his hands, he had also to carry forward the palazzo Farnese, construct a palace on the Capitoline hill, adorn the hill with antique statues, make a flight of steps to the churcli of the convent of Ara Cceli, rebuild an old bridge across the Tiber, and last and greatest, convert the baths of Diocletian into the magnificent church of Sta. Maria degli Angeli. Under Pius IV. St. Peter's was car- ried up as far as the dome, which was modelled in clay, and carefully executed to a scale in wood. But the architect had no time to direct it. A slow fever attacked him in February, 1563, and in a few days put an end to his life, at the age of nearly 89 or 90. His funeral so- lemnities were honorable and imposing. His remains, after lying a short time in the church of SS. Apostoli, were conveyed to Florence, and deposited in a vault in the Santa Croce. Michel Angelo applied himself to every branch of knowledge connected with his twin arts, painting and sculpture. His acquaintance with anatomy was great, and also with the science of mechanics. He was fond of Dante and Pe- trarch, and was himself a poet of a very high order, his sonnets being among the noblest in that kind of literature. Always a student, al- ways dissatisfied with what he had done, many of his works were left unfinished ; but his frag- ments have educated eminent men. In dispo- sition he was proud and passionate, but high- minded, not greedy of gold, but princely in his generosity. His mind was full of great concep- tions, for which he was ready to sacrifice and forego physical comforts. Of his merits as an artist, it is enough to say that Raphael thanked God that he was born in the time of Michel Angelo Buonarroti. He was of mid- dle stature, of a bony and rather spare frame, broad-shouldered, with a fine complexion, a square and rather projecting forehead, and small hazel eyes ; his nose had been broken by a blow received in his youth. His poems were edited at Florence in 1623 by his nephew, Michel Angelo Buonarroti, and have since passed through many editions. English translations of his writings are contained in E. Taylor's "Michel Angelo considered as a Philosophic Poet " (London, 1846), and of many of his poems and letters in John S. Harford's "Life of Michel Angelo," &c. (2 vols., 1857). See also Vasari's " Lives ;" Vita de Michelangelo Buonarroti, by Ascanio Condivi (Rome, 1553 ; new ed., Pisa, 1823) ; " Life of Michel Angelo," by Richard Duppa (London, 1806), containing a list of his works ; Hutoire de la peinture en Italie, by Marie Henri Bayle (2 vols., Paris, 1817) ; and Leben Michelangelo's, by Hermann Grimm (2 vols., Hanover, 1860-'63 ; 2d ed., 1866 ; English translation, 2 vols., London, 1865). II. Michel liiirclo, an Italian poet, nephew of the preceding, born in Florence in 1568,