The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is rectangular in form, measuring
forty metres in length by thirteen in width.

I. On the level part of the vault are nine scenes from Genesis; the
Eternal dividing light from darkness, the Eternal creating the sun and
moon, the Eternal dividing the waters, the Creation of man, the Creation
of woman, the Temptation, Cain and Abel, the Deluge, and the Drunkenness
of Noah.

II. In every angle of the imaginary frame surrounding these nine scenes
is a naked figure seated on a pedestal, twenty in all. Vasari calls
these the "Ignudi." Between them, and below each one of the five scenes
from Genesis, is a small medallion the colour of bronze.

III. At the springing of the arches of the vault, in the twelve
pendentives, twelve prophets and sibyls are seated between pilasters
crowned by naked children who act as caryatids and are each accompanied
by two little geniuses. The figures are Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joel,
Zachariah, Isaiah, Daniel, Jonah, the Persian, Erythraean, Cumaean,
Delphian, and Libyan Sibyls.

IV. Between the prophets and sibyls, in the space above the twelve
arched windows, are the precursors and ancestors of Christ, groups of
two or three persons divided into two sections by an archivolt in the
midst of which are written on tablets the names of the precursors. Above
these triangles, on the ribs, are naked youths. Between the triangles
and under the thrones of the prophets and sibyls, whose names they carry
on tablets, are children's figures.

V. In the four pendentives formed by the angles of the ceiling are
David, Conqueror of Goliath; Judith and Holofernes; the Brazen Serpent,
and the Hanging of Haman.

[28] Letter to his father, January 27, 1509.

[29] Michelangelo abandoned painting for almost twenty years and did not
take it up again until 1529.

[30] "I did not want them to charge me with the 3,000 crowns which I had
already received, for I showed that they owed me much more than that.
But Aginensis said to me that I was a cheat." (Letter of Michelangelo,
1524.)

[31] Twenty-six feet three inches.

[32] Contratti, 635 ff.

[33] The two Slaves were given in 1544 by Michelangelo to Robert
Strozzi, who was at that time banished from Florence and had taken
refuge in France. They finally reached the Constable de Montmorency's
Chateau of Ecouen, and Henri de Montmorency when he died in 1632 gave
them to Cardinal de Richelieu. From the Chateau de Richelieu they were