From time to time, as the opportunity presented itself, he went on with the tomb of Julius II., which was evidently his favorite enterprise. The reign of Adrian VI., who had no liking for literature or art, enabled him to work at it for a whole year; but when Clement VII. (Giuliano de' Medici) succeeded Adrian, he led a very hard and feverish life, so numerous were the engagements forced upon him. Upon the one hand, the executors pressed him to finish the tomb of Julius H., while upon the other, Clement VII. insisted upon employing him upon the Medici chapel at San Lorenzo.

Amid these conflicting calls upon his time he painted the "Three Fates," now in the Pitti Palace, which is one of the few easel pictures by him. He graphically describes the life which be led at this period in a letter to Messer Luigi del Riccio, who had acted as the agent of the Pope in these contracts. He says, painting, sculpture, fatigue, and honesty have done for me, and things are as bad as they well can be. I should have done much better if I had started in life as a vendor of matches " (Zolfanelli).

He speaks of himself as being a very martyr, and says that he is "stoned every day, as if I had crucified our Lord." The monument was finally completed in a very different manner from that originally intended, only one statue, the Moses, is by Michael Angelo himself, and two of the others are from designs of his. "The Prisoners," now in the Louvre, was also intended for this tomb.

The two tombs in the new sacristy of San Lorenzo, which Clement VII. ordered in 1525 for the remains of his two relatives, Giuliano, Due de Nemours, and Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, were executed with more dispatch, though it took twelve years to complete the whole work, for during that period Florence was besieged by Charles V., and Michael Angelo laid down the chisel to fortify the slopes of San Miniato.

When Florence was taken Michael Angelo had to fly from the vengeance of the Pope, but as no one else was capable of going on with the work in San Lorenzo, he was eventually pardoned, and returned to complete the two tombs. Upon either side of the sarcophagus of Giuliano he placed the two gigantic figures known as Day and Night, while by the side of the sarcophagus of Lorenzo, surnamed II Pensiero, on account of its thoughtful attitude, he placed the figures of Dawn and Twilight. Opposite the altar is a " Madonna and Child," quite after the manner of Michael Angelo, and grandiose in design.

The tomb of the Medici was not finished when Michael Angelo, on Christmas Day, 1541, disclosed to view the grand fresco of the "Last Judgment," "filling the world with stupor and admiration," to use Vasari's phrase.

It was at this period of his life that Michael Angelo, then sixty-four years of age, fell deeply in love with the celebrated Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara, daughter of Fabrizio Colonna and Anna de Montefeltro, married to Alfonso d'Avalos, Marquis of Pescara, who died in 1525 of wounds received at the battle of Pavia. Her influence upon him was very great, for, he writes, " I cannot turn my eyes away from hers : I see in them the light which guides me towards God." He lived for nine years in her society, burning with a spiritual passion which recalls that of Dante for Beatrice. When she died he was present to imprint a kiss upon the cold hand. In a subsequent sonnet he expresses his regret at not having kissed her forehead.

He was at this time about 1547 busily engaged upon the dome of St. Peter's, which, as he had resolved when he saw Brunelleschi's work, equalled that of Santa Maria del Fiore at Florence.

This great sculptor, painter, architect, and poet died at the age of nearly ninety, and his remains were claimed by Florence, as he had expressed a desire to be buried in Santa Croce. Pope Pius IV. was also anxious to raise a tomb worthy of him in St. Peter's, and the Florentines were compelled to smuggle his body out of Rome in a bale of goods, as had been done by the Venetians with the body of St. Mark at Constantinople.

The funeral ceremony was a splendid one, the whole of Florence defiling past his coffin. Benedetto Varchi pronounced the funeral oration, and his tomb was erected by Vasari, who, however, was not equal to the occasion. It must be said that his influence was almost as a matter of necessity prejudicial to those who came after him, for, in attempting to imitate his originality of style, they only succeeded in bringing into relief what may be termed its defects, exaggerating his eccentricities of posture and attitude. Florentine art could still, however, boast of several men of talent, such as Montelupo, Simone Mosca, Lorenzetto, and Montorsoli, followed by Baccio Bandinelli, Tribolo, and Giovanni da Bologna, though the name of Michael Angelo stands out in the sixteenth century as an exception recalling the galaxy of genius which had illumined the fifteenth century.

RAFFAELLO SINIBALDI DA MONTELUPO, who was born in 1505, and who died at Orvieto in 1567, was one of the best pupils of Michael Angelo, who allowed him to do some of the statues for the tomb of Julius II., including those of Leah, Rachel, one of the Prophets, and a Sibyl. He was an architect as well, and held the position of architect of the castle of St. Angelo for which he also executed a marble angel, now placed inside the building and assisted in the erection of the dome at Orvieto.

LORENZO DEL CAMPANARO, surnamed Lorenzetto, born June 13, 1490, and died in 1541, left but few traces behind him, his principal works being part of the tomb of Cardinal Portiguerra in the cathedral of Pistoia, and the statues of "Jonas " and "Elias " in the Chigi Chapel at Santa Maria del Popolo at Rome. The first is generally attributed to Raphael, but the truth is that he merely designed, or at most modelled, it, and that Lorenzetto carried it out. This happened often with statues which are attributed to Michael Angelo, though it must be added that the general outline of a statue is the primary condition of success in sculpture, and that the hand which carries it into execution is of only secondary importance.

SIMONE MOSCA, a somewhat inferior artist, worked in Sansovino's studio with I1 Tribolo. He was about the same age as Michael Angelo, but he died before him, his principal works being the decorations of the Cesia Chapel at Santa Maria Bella Pace at Rome, and those of the Magi Chapel in the Orvieto Cathedral. Another of his pupils, surnamed I1 Moschino, executed for this same chapel a group representing God the Father surrounded by angels, a Visitation, and a San Sebastian of no little beauty.

FRA GIOVANNI ANGIOLO MONTORSOLI is the most celebrated of Michael Angelo's pupils next to Montelupo, and the great artist was five-and-forty years of age when he came to study under him at St. Peter's, having been grounded in his profession by Andrea Ferrucci. Michael Angelo employed him prior to 1527 in the new sacristy of San Lorenzo at Florence, and he was again with him from 1531 to 1534, having a share in the erection of the tombs of Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici. He also travelled to France, where Francois I. was endeavoring to attract Italian artists and founding the Fontainebleau School, which gave such a great impulse to the Renaissance. For the Annunziata at Florence he executed for the Painters' Chapel the stucco decorations, notable among which are the figures of Moses and St. Paul. He left works behind him at Genoa, Bologna, Messina, Arezzo, and Naples. At Genoa there is a colossal statue of Jupiter by him in Prince Doria's villa, and several marble and plaster statues in the church of St. Matthew, which are more or less an exaggeration of Michael Angelo's style. The celebrated fountain at Messina, erected in the piazza, is his work ; after completing it he returned to Florence and finished the Capella dei Pittori in the church of SS. Annunziata. It was there that he was buried on the 1st of September, 1563, his funeral oration being pronounced by Michael Angelo.