an's salary; the said salary to begin upon the day they
leave Florence to come here. And if they do not agree with me, half the
said money shall be paid them for their travelling expenses and for their
time."(104)

From this important record we learn that Michael Angelo, who still calls
himself "sculptor," intends to engage five painter assistants, and very
wisely arranges terms by which he can send them away if he does not get on
with them, and also that he began to work upon May 10, 1508. This must not
be taken to mean that he began to paint, but only to prepare the vault by
carefully pointing the bricks and covering it with rough cast plaster
ready for the fine coat called intonaca, in this case made of marble dust
and Roman lime, prepared each day and plastered on the wall in patches
sufficient for one day's work only. In true fresco painting the colour is
put on the plaster only whilst it is still wet. Michael Angelo must also
have prepared a general scheme to scale from his small design, approved by
the Pope, and set it off with very careful measurements on the surface of
the rough cast, at least as to the architectural framework. The cartoons
for the figure-subjects and details he may have left until they were
needed. He considerably altered the scale of the figures in his stories as
he proceeded with the work; this alteration in scale is not only
observable in the central subjects or pictures of the vault, but also in
the decorative figures on the framework, called Athletes; those at the
end, near the stories of Noah and the Flood, and where Michael Angelo
began to work, are at least a head smaller than those at the other end of
the chapel over the altar, where the stories relate to the Creation. This
can be seen even in a photographic reproduction. Although the development
of the great scheme was so much upon the traditional lines of Italian art,
yet the details of arrangement and placing must have fully occupied the
artist for some months. He cannot have begun actually to paint on the
vault until late autumn, at least, not any of the work we see now, for his
assistants did not arrive from Florence until August, and he had to
experiment with their work, and find it wanting, before he dismissed them,
destroyed their work, and began alone. All the work of the part of the
vault executed first is by Michael Angelo's own hand, as far as can be
judged from the floor of the chapel, or from the cornice level with the
wi