say nothing of the rigid legs and twisted arms of those who remain in
the attitudes in which they were struck down, unable to move, and the
marvellous heads that are shrieking and thrown backwards in despair.
Not less beautiful than all these are those who, having looked upon
the serpent, and feeling their pains alleviated by the sight of it,
are gazing on it with profound emotion; and among them is a woman who
is supported by another figure in such a manner that the assistance
rendered to her by him who upholds her is no less manifest than her
pressing need in such sudden alarm and hurt. In the next scene,
likewise, in which Ahasuerus, reclining in a bed, is reading his
chronicles, are figures of great beauty, and among them three figures
eating at a table, which represent the council that was held for the
deliverance of the Jewish people and the hanging of Haman. The figure
of Haman was executed by Michelagnolo in an extraordinary manner of
foreshortening, for he counterfeited the trunk that supports his
person, and that arm which comes forward, not as painted things but as
real and natural, standing out in relief, and so also that leg which
he stretches outwards and other parts that bend inwards: which figure,
among all that are beautiful and difficult, is certainly the most
beautiful and the most difficult.

[Illustration: DECORATIVE FIGURE

(_After the fresco by =Michelagnolo Buonarroti=. Rome: Sistine
Chapel_)

_Anderson_]

It would take too long to describe all the beautiful fantasies in the
different actions in the part where there is all the Genealogy of the
Fathers, beginning with the sons of Noah, to demonstrate the Genealogy
of Jesus Christ, in which figures is a variety of things that it is
not possible to enumerate, such as draperies, expressions of heads,
and an infinite number of novel and extraordinary fancies, all most
beautifully considered. Nothing there but is carried into execution
with genius: all the figures there are masterly and most beautifully
foreshortened, and everything that you look at is divine and beyond
praise. And who will not be struck dumb with admiration at the sight
of the sublime force of Jonas, the last figure in the chapel, wherein
by the power of art the vaulting, which in fact springs forward in
accord with the curve of the masonry, yet, being in appearance pushed
back by that figure, which bends inwards, seems as if straight, and,
vanquished by the art of design with