Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/303

Rh likewise, endeavouring to fly from the place, appears to hurry after him the servant who is seeking to restrain the velocity of his course; the whole story indeed offers evidence of extraordinary power and design. In the second picture is the Crucifixion of St. Peter, a most beautiful figure bound naked to the Cross. The executioners have made a hole in the earth wherein they are about to fix the cross, that the martyr may remain crucified with his feet in the air; a picture full of fine thought and consideration.

The attention of Michelagnolo was constantly directed towards the highest perfection of art, as we have said elsewhere; we are therefore not here to look for landscapes, trees, buildings, or any other variety of attraction, for these he never regarded; perhaps because he would not abase his great genius to such matters. These were his last pictures, they were painted in his seventy-fifth year, and as he told me himself, at great cost of fatigue, seeing that painting, and more especially fresco, is not the work of those who have passed a certain age. Michelagnolo now arranged that Perino del Vaga, a most excellent painter, should decorate the ceiling with stucco-work and painting after his designs, and to this Pope Paul III. consented; but the work being delayed, nothing more was done, as indeed has been the case with many undertakings, which the irresolution of artists or the indifference of princes has caused to be left unfinished.

Pope Paul had begun to fortify the Borgo, and had called Antonio Sangallo, with many of the Roman nobles, to counsel in that matter, but knowing that Michelagnolo had directed the fortifications of San Miniato at Florence, he determined, after many disputes, to ask his opinion also. Thinking differently to Sangallo and most of the others, Michelagnolo nevertheless uttered his thoughts plainly, when Sangallo told him that sculpture and painting were his arts, and not fortification: to this Michelagnolo replied, that of sculpture and painting he knew but little; of fortification, on the contrary, the much he had thought of it, with what he had accomplished, had taught him more than had ever been known by Sangallo and all his house put together. He then proceeded, in the presence of all, to point out the errrors that had been committed.

One word calling forth another, the Pope was compelled to