s easily recognized there!

[Illustration: THE LAST JUDGMENT.
_Michael Angelo_.]

"Ah!" said the Holy Father, in a tone of firm decision, "I hope that
henceforth the whole of your time will belong to me, Maestro
Buonarroti."

"May your Holiness deign to excuse me," replied Michael Angelo, "but I
have just signed an engagement with the Duke of Urbino, which forces me
to finish the tomb of Pope Julius."

"What!" exclaimed Paul III.: "for thirty years I have had a certain wish
and now that I am Pope I cannot realize it!"

"But the contract, Holy Father, the contract!"

"Where is this contract? I will tear it up."

"Ah!" exclaimed in his turn the Cardinal of Mantua, who was one of the
suite, "your Holiness should see the _Moses_ which Maestro Michael
Angelo has just finished: that statue alone would more than suffice to
honour the memory of Julius."

"Cursed flatterer!" muttered Michael Angelo in a low voice.

"Come, come, I will take charge of this matter myself," said the Pope.
"You shall only make three statues with your own hand: the rest shall be
given to other sculptors, and I will answer for the Duke of Urbino's
consent. And now, Maestro, to the Sistine Chapel. A great empty wall is
waiting for you there."

What could Michael Angelo reply to such an emphatic wish expressed so
distinctly? He finished in his best style his two statues of _Active
Life_ and _Contemplative Life_--Dante's symbolical Rachel and Leah--and
not wishing to profit by this new arrangement to which he was forced to
submit, he added fifteen hundred and twenty-four ducats to the four
thousand he had received, to pay with his own gains for the works
confided to the other artists.

Having thus terminated this unfortunate affair, which had caused him so
much worry and fatigue, Michael Angelo was at last enabled to occupy
himself exclusively with the execution of his _Last Judgment_, to which
he devoted no less than eight to nine years.

This immense and unique picture, in which the human figure is
represented in all possible attitudes, where every sentiment, every
passion, every reflection of thought, and every aspiration of the soul
are rendered with inimitable perfection, has never been equalled and
never will be equalled in the domain of Art.

This time the genius of Michael Angelo simply attacked the infinite. The
subject of this vast composition, the manner in which it is conceived
and executed, the admirable variety and t