Michael Angelo replied with his usual brusqueness: 

“Tell the Pope that he must employ himself a little less in correcting my pictures, which is very easy, and employ himself a little more in reforming men, which is very difficult.”

It is said that Maestro Biaggio, master of ceremonies to Paul III., having accompanied the Pope on a visit that His Holiness made to see Michael Angelo’s fresco when it was about half finished, allowed himself to express his own opinion upon The Last Judgment.

“Holy Father,” said the good Messer Biaggio, “if I dare pronounce my judgment, this picture seems more appropriate to figure in a tavern than in the chapel of a Pope.”

Unfortunately for the master of ceremonies, Michael Angelo was behind him and did not lose a word of Messer Biaggio’s compliment.  The Pope had scarcely gone before the irritated artist, wishing to make an example as a warning for all future critics, placed this Messer Biaggio in his hell, well and duly, under the scarcely flattering guise of Minos.  That was always Dante’s way when he wanted to avenge himself upon an enemy.

I leave you to imagine the lamentations and complaints of the poor master of ceremonies when he saw himself damned in this manner.  He threw himself at the Pope’s feet, declaring that he would never arise unless His Holiness would have him taken out of hell:  that was the most important thing.  As for the punishment, that the painter deserved for this dreadful sacrilege, Messer Biaggio would leave that entirely to the high impartiality of the Holy Father.

“Messer Biaggio,” replied Paul III. with as much seriousness as he could maintain, “you know that I have received from God an absolute power in heaven and upon the earth, but I can do nothing in hell; therefore you must remain there.”

While Michael Angelo was working at his picture of The Last Judgment, he fell from the scaffold and seriously injured his leg.  Soured by pain and seized with an attack of misanthropy, the painter shut himself up in his house and would not see any one.

But he reckoned without his physician; and the physician this time was as stubborn as the invalid.

This excellent disciple of AEsculapius was named Baccio Rontini.  Having learned by chance of the accident that had befallen the great artist, he presented himself before his house and knocked in vain at the door.

No response.

He shouted, he flew into a passion, and he called the neighbours and the servants in a loud voice.

Complete silence.

He goes to find a ladder, places it against the front of the house, and tries to enter by the casements.  The windows are hermetically sealed and the shutters are fast.

What is to be done?  Any one else in the physician’s place would have given up; but Rontini was not the man to be discouraged for so little.  With much difficulty he enters the cellar and with no less trouble he goes up into Buonarroti’s room, and, partly by acquiescence and partly by force, he triumphantly tends his friend’s leg.