performance of the whole.

Nothing testifies more plainly to the ascendancy which this strange
man acquired over the imagination of his contemporaries, while yet
comparatively young, than the fact that Michelangelo had to relinquish
work for which he was pre-eminently fitted (the tomb of Julius) for
work to which his previous studies and his special inclinations in
no-wise called him. He undertook the facade of S. Lorenzo reluctantly,
with tears in his eyes and dolour in his bosom, at the Pope Medusa's
bidding. He was compelled to recommence art at a point which hitherto
possessed for him no practical importance. The drawings of the tomb,
the sketch of the facade, prove that in architecture he was still a
novice. Hitherto, he regarded building as the background to sculpture,
or the surface on which frescoes might be limned. To achieve anything
great in this new sphere implied for him a severe course of
preliminary studies. It depends upon our final estimate of
Michelangelo as an architect whether we regard the three years spent
in Leo's service for S. Lorenzo as wasted. Being what he was, it is
certain that, when the commission had been given, and he determined to
attack his task alone, the man set himself down to grasp the
principles of construction. There was leisure enough for such studies
in the years during which we find him moodily employed among Tuscan
quarries. The question is whether this strain upon his richly gifted
genius did not come too late. When called to paint the Sistine, he
complained that painting was no art of his. He painted, and produced a
masterpiece; but sculpture still remained the major influence in all
he wrought there. Now he was bidden to quit both sculpture and
painting for another field, and, as Vasari hints, he would not work
under the guidance of men trained to architecture. The result was that
Michelangelo applied himself to building with the full-formed spirit
of a figurative artist. The obvious defects and the salient qualities
of all he afterwards performed as architect seem due to the forced
diversion of his talent at this period to a type of art he had not
properly assimilated. Architecture was not the natural mistress of his
spirit. He bent his talents to her service at a Pontiff's word, and,
with the honest devotion to work which characterised the man, he
produced renowned monuments stamped by his peculiar style.
Nevertheless, in building, he remains a sublime amateur, aiming at