"Michael Angelo, Sculptor, in Rome."[113]
To the same.
From Rome (Oct. 1509).
"Buonarroto,—I hear by your last how that all are well, and how Lodovico has another office. It all pleases me, and I encourage him to accept it if it will allow him to return when necessary to his post in Florence. I am here just as usual, and shall have finished my painting by the end of next week, that is, the part of it I began; and when I have uncovered it I believe I shall receive my money, and I will endeavour again to get leave to come to you for a month. I do not know whether it will be, but I need it for I am not very well. I have no time to write more. I will tell you what happens.
"Michael Angelo, Sculptor, in Rome."[114]
THE DELPHIC SIBYL
SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(Reproduced by permission from a photograph by Sig. D. Anderson, Rome)
The work was exposed to view upon November 1, 1509. So at the longest possible estimate of time from May 10, 1508, to November 1, 1509, Michael Angelo took four hundred and sixty-two working days to paint it. The more probable, in fact, almost certain estimate of the time occupied in painting the fresco, as we now see it, is from the time his assistants left him, about New Year's Day 1509, to November 1 in the same year, or two hundred and thirty-four working days. As the plaster could only be painted on whilst wet, we can tell, by the marks of the divisions between the separate days' plasterings, how many days the larger individual figures took. One of the largest and most prominent, as well as one of the finest and most finished, the Adam in the Creation of Man, was painted in three sittings only. The lines of the junctions of the plaster may be seen in a photograph; one is along the collar bone, and one across the junction of the body and the thighs. There is also a division all round the figure, an inch or so from the outline, so we know that the beautiful and highly finished head and neck were painted in one day; the stupendous torso and arms in another; and the huge legs, finished in every detail, in a third. Such power of work and of finish is utterly inconceivable to any artist of to-day. Some will even excuse the imperfection of the study of a head by saying that they had only three or four sittings.