of contracts were made and broken, each one reducing the size and importance of the design.  The artist was continually in demand for other work.  Finally, in 1542, to leave him free for the services of the Pope, the completion of the tomb was put into other hands.  The statue of Moses, with those of Rachel and Leah, is all that Michelangelo contributed to a work which had occupied his thoughts for nearly forty years.  The setting of the Moses is in every way exceedingly unfavorable to a proper appreciation of the work.

[Footnote 2:  The Pope, Julius ii., is buried at St. Peter’s.]

5. Holy Family, an oil painting belonging to the Florentine period 1501-1505, and painted for Angelo Doni.  It is now in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

6. The Pieta, a marble group executed by the order of the Cardinal di San Dionigi according to a contract drawn up August 28, 1498.  It was placed in the old basilica of St. Peter’s (Rome), in a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of the Fever (Madonna della Febbre).  In the present church of St. Peter’s it occupies a side chapel, to which it gives its name, where it is placed so high that it is impossible to see it well, and where its beauty is disfigured by the bronze cherubs fastened above, holding a crown over the Virgin’s head.

7. Christ Triumphant, a marble statue ordered by Bernardo Cencio (a canon of St. Peter’s), Mario Scappuci, and Metello Varj dei Porcari for the church of S. Maria sopra Minerva, Rome, where it still stands.  The deed was executed in 1514, specifying that the statue should be of marble, “life sized, naked, erect, with a cross in his arms.”  It appears from Michelangelo’s correspondence that the work was finished by apprentices, first by Pietro Urbano, who did so badly that he was discharged and replaced by Federigo Frizzi.  It was completed in 1521, when Michelangelo offered to make a new statue if it was not satisfactory.  Varj, however, declared that the sculptor had “already made what could not be surpassed and was incomparable,” so the statue was placed in position.

8-12. The Creation of Man, Jeremiah, Daniel, The Delphic Sibyl, the Cumaean Sibyl, frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Rome, begun in 1508 at the order of the Pope Julius II.  Michelangelo undertook the work reluctantly, as sculpture was his chosen art.  The architect Bramante first made a scaffolding for the work, so clumsily constructed that Michelangelo replaced it by one of his own invention.  Several Florentine painters were engaged as assistants, but, failing to satisfy the painter, returned.  Julius II. often visited the chapel during the work, climbing to the scaffolding to see how it progressed.  Impatient to see it, he gave orders to have the ceiling uncovered when but half finished.  The first uncovering took place November 1, 1509.  The work was completed October, 1512.