ATHLETE
SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
The more gentle tone of the postscript is very characteristic. Outwardly he would be rough, consumed with anger and indignation; but inwardly his nature was kindly to a degree to those he had about him.
Condivi tells us of the delay in the works in the Sistine due to the mould on the surface of the fresco, and of the haste of Julius. The progress was fast enough, one would have thought, even for that exacting Pontiff; for although the whole work consists, on counting heads, of some three hundred and ninety-four figures, the majority ten feet high; the prophets and sibyls, twelve in number, would be eighteen feet high if they stood up; yet by the following letters to his brother Buonarroto, of October 1509, we know he had finished the first half, consisting probably of some two hundred figures, even then; or assuming that he began to paint when the assistants were dismissed in January 1509, he worked at the rate of about a figure a day.
To Buonarroto di Lodovico di Buonarrota, in Florence.
From Rome, the 17th of October, 1509.
"Buonarroto,—I got the bread: it is good, but it is not good enough to make a trade of, for there would be little gain. I gave the knave five carlini, and he would hardly hand it over. I learn by your last how Lorenzo[112] will pass this way, and how I am to give him a good reception. It appears you do not know how I am situated here, all the same I excuse you. What I can do, I will. About Gismondo and how he intends to come here to advance his business, tell him from me not to have any designs on me, not because I do not love him as a [pg 162]brother, but because I am unable to help him in anything. I am obliged to love myself more than others, and I have not enough for my own needs. I live here in great distress and with the greatest fatigue of body, and have not a friend of any sort, and do not want one, and have not even enough time to eat necessary food; therefore, do not annoy me any more, for I cannot bear another ounce.
For the shop I encourage you to be careful. It pleases me to hear that Giovanni Simone begins to do well. Endeavour to advance a little, or, at least, maintain what you have got, so that you will know how to manage larger affairs afterwards; for I have a hope, when I return to you, that you will be men enough to manage for yourselves. Tell Lodovico that I have not replied to him because I had not the time, and not to wonder if I do not write.