Rogers.]
[ [cm] {272}
——from whose word
{ Israel took God, pronounce the law in stone.
Israel left Egypt, cleave the sea in stone.—
[MS. Alternative readings.]
[ [322] The Last Judgment, in the Sistine Chapel.
["It is obvious, throughout his [Michel Angelo's] works, that the poetical mind of the latter [Dante] influenced his feelings. The Demons in the Last Judgment ... may find a prototype in La Divina Comedia. The figures rising from the grave mark his study of L'Inferno, e Il Purgatorio; and the subject of the Brazen Serpent, in the Sistine Chapel, must remind every reader of Canto XXV. dell' Inferno."—Life of Michael Angelo by R. Duppa, 1856, p. 120.]
[ [323] I have read somewhere (if I do not err, for I cannot recollect where,) that Dante was so great a favourite of Michael Angelo's, that he had designed the whole of the Divina Commedia: but that the volume containing these studies was lost by sea.
[Michel Angelo's copy of Dante, says Duppa (ibid., and note 1), "was a large folio, with Landino's commentary; and upon the broad margin of the leaves he designed with a pen and ink, all the interesting subjects. This book was possessed by Antonio Montanti, a sculptor and architect in Florence, who, being appointed architect to St. Peter's, removed to Rome, and shipped his ... effects at Leghorn for Cività Vecchia, among which was this edition of Dante. In the voyage the vessel foundered at sea, and it was unfortunately lost in the wreck.">[
[ [324] {273} See the treatment of Michel Angelo by Julius II., and his neglect by Leo X. [Julius II. encouraged his attendance at the Vatican, but one morning he was stopped by the chamberlain in waiting, who said, "I have an order not to let you enter." Michel Angelo, indignant at the insult, left Rome that very evening. Though Julius despatched five couriers to bring him back, it was some months before he returned. Even a letter (July 8, 1506), in which the Pope promised his "dearly beloved Michel Angelo" that he should not be touched nor offended, but be "reinstated in the apostolic grace," met with no response. It was this quarrel with Julius II. which prevented the completion of the sepulchral monument. The "Moses" and the figures supposed to represent the Active and the Contemplative Life, and three Caryatides (since removed) represent the whole of the original design, "a parallelogram surmounted with forty statues, and covered with reliefs and other ornaments."—See Duppa's Life, etc., 1856, pp. 33, 34, and Handbook of Rome, p. 133.]
[ [325] [Compare Merchant of Venice, act iv. sc. 1, lines 191, 192.]