Scarcely returned to Rome, M. Angelo, by command of Giulio, instigated as it is supposed by Bramante and Giuliano da Sangallo, found himself forced to try his powers on a novel theatre of art, the decoration of the ceiling and lunette of the Capella Sistina. Whatever were the motives of the two architects, whether private pique, or envy of M. Angelo's influence over the Pontiff, or friendship for Raffaello, and the desire of showing his superiority over one whom they deemed a novice in fresco, they deserved the thanks of their own and every succeeding epoch, for the most eminent service ever rendered to art. Vasari owns that M. Angelo, conscious of his want of practice, endeavoured to escape from the commission, and even proposed Raffaello as fitter for the task; but his powers soon supplied what circumstances had refused, and single conquered with every obstacle Time itself; for, nearly fabulous to relate, the whole, though interrupted more than once by the Pontiff's impatience, was sufficiently finished to be exhibited to the public in one year and ten months.
This task finished, M. Angelo, eager to resume his labours on the monument, was disappointed by the sudden death of Giulio, (1513,) and the election of Leo X. produced a total change in his situation; he was ordered to Florence to construct the front of the Laurentian Library.
Though the death of Leo, or rather the accession of Adrian VI. had paralysed art, Michael Angelo employed the dull interim by adding some statues to the monument of Giulio; till, in 1523, Clemente VII. reappointed him to the superintendence of the new sacristy and library of S. Lorenzo. It was about this time that he finished and sent to Rome the statue of Christ, still placed in the Minerva.
The arts received a new shock from the sack of Rome, 1527, and the expulsion of the Medici from Florence, at which crisis the Signoria conferred on Michael Angelo, who was a warm Republican,[73] the superintendence of the fortifications and the defence of Monte Miniato, on which the safety of the city depended. Meanwhile what time he could save from his public trust, he secretly[75] employed to finish or advance the symbolic and monumental statues of S. Lorenzo, and from the cartoon to paint in distemper a Leda for the Duke of Ferrara. Finding, however, that no defence could save the city, he saved himself by the secret paths of S. Miniato, and escaped to Venice, 1529; from whence he only returned to find the dominion of the Medici once more established, himself pardoned, again employed by Clemente at S. Lorenzo, and soon after sent for to Rome on a plan of painting two central frescoes, the Last Judgement and the Fall of Lucifer, for the Sistine Chapel,—long favourite ideas of the artist,[76] but with the works at Florence for that time checked by the death of Clemente, 1534. He now with redoubled ardour applied to the monument of Giulio, urged by his devotion to the house of De Rovere, the considerable pecuniary advance he had received, and the threats of the executors and the Duke of Urbino; but the accession of Paul III. again frustrated his exertions: the Pontiff resolved to have the exclusive boast of powers he had so long admired, interposed his authority, and obliged the executors and agents of the Duke to give up the original circumambient plan, and content themselves with the storied front which exists now.
This adjusted, Michael Angelo immediately proceeded to comply with the wishes of the Pope: if Paolo was inferior to Giulio in impetuosity, he was his equal in fervour of attachment to art, and excelled him, if not every other name which patronage has distinguished, in personal respect and public homage to the artist. No work ever received countenance and honours equal to those conferred on the Last Judgement of Michael Angelo, from its plan to its ultimate finish by Paolo Farnese. His first visit to the artist was attended by a train of ten cardinals:[77] though ambitious to have the work consecrated to his own name, in deference to Michael Angelo's attachment to the memory of Giulio, he submitted to his refusal of displacing the arms of De Rovere at the top of the picture, in favour of the Farnesian.[78] Induced by the specious sophistry of Sebastian del Piombo to prefer oil to fresco in the execution of the work, he permitted the wall to be prepared for that purpose, but on Michael Angelo's declaring oil painting an art for women only and sedentary tameness, he yielded to the decision, and patiently saw the whole apparatus dashed to the ground. When, before its final disclosure to the public, he took a private view of the whole composition at the Chapel, less convinced than irritated by the bigoted philippic of an attendant prelate against the daring display of immodest nudity, he acquiesced in the artist's well-known revenge, and refused to revoke or mitigate the punishment inflicted on the unlucky critic.[79]
The first conception of the Last Judgement, which completes the plan originally laid down for the decoration of the Chapel, notwithstanding the obstacles which protracted the execution, must find its date in the Pontificate of Giulio, from the Cartoons probably begun under Clemente. M. Angelo proceeded to the fresco itself at an early period, if not immediately after the accession of Paolo, 1534, and finished it in 1541, or perhaps 1542; for both these years are mentioned by Vasari; who, if not present at the removal of the scaffolding, attended its immediate display to the public. The completion of this 'multitudinous' work, M. Angelo, at an age of 68, or somewhat beyond, might justly consider as the consummation of his public career in painting: but the Pontiff, still ambitious to possess exclusive specimens of his powers in a fabric built by his own orders and consecrated to his own name, obliged him to continue his labours in two huge frescoes of the Capella Paolina, representing the Conversion of St. Paul and the Crucifixion of St. Peter. The lassitude inseparable from the waste of so much energy on the Last Judgement, the mental and bodily fatigue attendant on the arrangement and execution of new plans, if less enormous less congenial, protracted their ultimate completion to his 75th year, proved them children of necessity rather than choice, and confirmed the truth of his observation to Vasari, that painting in fresco, the union of powers required for a great public work, is not an art of old age.
And here indeed terminates the career of the Painter; the remainder of his life was divided between architecture and sculpture. This, which had always been his favourite pursuit, was now become the darling companion of his private hours, the amusement of his solitude, and the preservative of his health—for this purpose he furnished his study with a colossal block, destined for the complicated group of a Pietà: but though age had neither tamed his conception nor palsied his hand,[80] it checked his perseverance; he no longer struggled to subdue the flaws of his materials or to give them the air of beauties; he dismissed the group unfinished, and continued to exercise himself on another of inferior size.
The death of Antonio da S. Gallo, 1546, put it in the power of Paolo to create M. Angelo architect of S. Pietro, a trust of which he acquitted himself with a superiority which baffled all the opposition of venality and envy. He was probably, from Ictinus to our time, the first and the last of architects who refused salary and emolument, and consecrated his labours to divine love. Some of his successors, perhaps, might insinuate that he indemnified himself with being at the same time architect of the Campidoglio and the Farnese Palace.
After the demise of Paolo, Cosmo I. Duke of Florence, by means of Vasari, earnestly intreated him to pass the remainder of his life at Florence; but the infirmities of age, and still more, inward grief for the subversion of the republic, with indignation at the established usurpation of the Medici, rendered these intreaties ineffectual. Equally unshaken by them and the vile rumour of his dotage, spread by the venal gang of Pirrho Ligorio, after crowning the Basilica with its cupola, he steered through calm and tempest on to his ninetieth year, the last of his life, 1564, and was buried in S. Apostoli; but, by the orders of Cosmo, secretly conveyed to Florence, where the pomp of academical exequies, the starched eloquence of Varchi, and a monument in Santa Croce from a design of Vasari, awaited his remains.
It is difficult to decide who understood Michael Angelo less, his admirers or his censors; though both rightly agree in placing him at the head of an epoch; those of the re-establishment, these of the perversion, of style.