ot write.

"MICHAEL ANGELO, Sculptor, in Rome."(113)

To the same.

_From_ ROME (_Oct. 1509_).

"BUONARROTO,--I hear by your last how that all are well, and how
Lodovico has another office. It all pleases me, and I encourage
him to accept it if it will allow him to return when necessary to
his post in Florence. I am here just as usual, and shall have
finished my painting by the end of next week, that is, the part of
it I began; and when I have uncovered it I believe I shall receive
my money, and I will endeavour again to get leave to come to you
for a month. I do not know whether it will be, but I need it for I
am not very well. I have no time to write more. I will tell you
what happens.

"MICHAEL ANGELO, Sculptor, in Rome."(114)

[Image #23]

THE DELPHIC SIBYL

SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(_Reproduced by permission from a photograph by Sig. D. Anderson, Rome_)

The work was exposed to view upon November 1, 1509. So at the longest
possible estimate of time from May 10, 1508, to November 1, 1509, Michael
Angelo took four hundred and sixty-two working days to paint it. The more
probable, in fact, almost certain estimate of the time occupied in
painting the fresco, as we now see it, is from the time his assistants
left him, about New Year's Day 1509, to November 1 in the same year, or
two hundred and thirty-four working days. As the plaster could only be
painted on whilst wet, we can tell, by the marks of the divisions between
the separate days' plasterings, how many days the larger individual
figures took. One of the largest and most prominent, as well as one of the
finest and most finished, the Adam in the Creation of Man, was painted in
three sittings only. The lines of the junctions of the plaster may be seen
in a photograph; one is along the collar bone, and one across the junction
of the body and the thighs. There is also a division all round the figure,
an inch or so from the outline, so we know that the beautiful and highly
finished head and neck were painted in one day; the stupendous torso and
arms in another; and the huge legs, finished in every detail, in a third.
Such power of work and of finish is utterly inconceivable to any artist of
to-day. Some will even excuse the imperf