of not going on with
his tomb. It was put into his head by Bramante and other rivals of Michael
Angelo that he should make him paint the vault of the chapel of Sixtus the
Fourth, in the Vatican, making him believe that he would do wonders. This
was done maliciously, to distract the Pope from works of sculpture; and
because they thought it was certain, either, that by his not accepting
such a commission, he would stir up the Pope's anger against himself, or
that by accepting it he would come out of it very much inferior to
Raffaello da Urbino, whom they heaped with favours on account of their
hatred for Michael Angelo, judging that his principal art was sculpture,
as in truth it was. Michael Angelo, who as yet had never used colours and
knew the painting of the vault to be a very difficult undertaking, tried
with all his power to get out of it, proposing Raffaello and excusing
himself, in that it was not his art and that he would not succeed,
refusing so many demands that the Pope was almost in a passion. But seeing
his obstinacy, Michael Angelo set himself to do the work, which to-day is
seen in the palace of the Pope, and is the admiration and wonder of the
world; it brought him so much fame that it lifted him above all envy. I
will give some brief account of this work.

XXXIV. The shape of this ceiling is what is commonly called a barrel
vaulting, resting on lunettes, six to the length and two to the width of
the building, so that the whole formed two squares and a half. In this
space Michael Angelo has depicted, firstly, the creation of the world, and
then almost the whole of the Old Testament. He has divided the work after
this fashion: Beginning at the brackets, where the horns of the lunettes
rest, up to almost a third of the arch of the vault, the walls appear to
continue flat, running up to that height with certain pilasters and
plinths imitating marble, which project into the open like a balustrade
over an additional storey, with corbels below, and with other little
pilasters above the same storey, where sit the prophets and sybils. The
first pilasters grow from the arches of the lunettes, placing the
pedestals in the middle, leaving, however, the greater part of the arch of
the lunette--that is to say, the space they contain between them. Above the
said plinths are painted some little naked children in various poses, who,
in guise of terminals, support a cornice, which binds the whole work
together, leaving in