Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/268

256 These masters having reached the city, the work was begun, and Michelagnolo caused them to paint a portion by way of specimen, but what they had done was far from approaching his expectations or fulfilling his purpose, and one morning he determined to destroy the whole of it. He then shut himself up in the chapel, and not only would he never again permit the building to be opened to them, but he likewise refused to see any one of them at his house. Finally therefore, and when the jest appeared to them to be carried too far, they returned, ashamed and mortified, to Florence. Michelagnolo then made arrangements for performing the whole work himself, sparing no care nor labour, in the hope of bringing the same to a satisfactory termination, nor would he ever permit himself to be seen, lest he should give occasion for a request to show the work; wherefore there daily arose, in the minds of all around him, a more and more earnest desire to behold it. Now Pope Julius, always greatly enjoyed watching the progress of the works he had undertaken, and more than ever desired to inspect anything that was purposely concealed from him: thus it happened that he one day went to see the chapel, as we have related, when the refusal of Michelagnolo to admit him, occasioned that dispute which caused the master to leave Rome, as before described.

Michelagnolo afterwards told me the cause of this refusal, which was as follows: When he had completed about onethird of the painting, the prevalence of the north wind during the winter months had caused a sort of mould to appear on the pictures; and this happened from the fact that in Rome, the plaster, made of travertine and puzzolana, does not dry rapidly, and while in a soft state is somewhat dark and very fluent, not to say watery; when the wall is covered with this mixture, therefore, it throws out an efilorescence arising from the humid saltness which bursts forth; but this is in time evaporated and corrected by the air. Michelagnolo was, indeed, in despair at the sight of these spots, and refused to continue the work, declaring to the Pope that he could not succeed therein, but His Holiness sent Giuliano da Sangallo to look at it, and he, telling our artist whence these spots arose, encouraged him to proceed, by teaching him how they might be removed.

When the half was completed. Pope Julius, who had sub-