"One day," says Condivi, "the pope asked him when he would finish and Michelangelo answered, according to his custom, 'When I can.' The pope, who was irritable, struck him with his staff, saying, 'When I can, when I can!' Michelangelo rushed home and began to make his preparations to leave Rome. Luckily the pope sent hurriedly after him an amiable young man named Accursio, who gave[{44}] him five hundred ducats, soothed him as well as he could and apologised for Julius II and Michelangelo accepted the excuses. The next day, however, they began again and when the pope threatened to have him thrown from his scaffolding Michelangelo had to give way. He had the scaffolding removed and uncovered the ceiling sooner than he had intended. 'That is why,' he said, 'that that work was not carried on as far as I would have wished. The pope's impatience prevented.'"
The first part of the paintings was finished on September 1st, 1510, and the pope was able to see the four chief compositions of the ceiling before his departure for Bologna. In January and February, 1511, Michelangelo drew the cartoons for the "teste e faccie attorno di ditta capella," the pictures for the corners and the lunettes, and the second period of the work began. On August, 1511, Julius II celebrated mass in the Sistine Chapel, "ut picturas novas ibidem noviter detectas videret"; and the entire work was finished in October, 1512. On October 31, 1512, the Sistine Chapel was opened to the public.
Soon after, on February 21, 1513, Julius II died.[{45}]
CHAPTER III
THE FAILURE OF THE GREAT PLANS
(1513-1534)
Michelangelo, freed from the Sistine Chapel, returned to sculpture and to the great project which he had most at heart, the tomb of Julius II.[29]
Julius II in his will had charged Cardinal d'Agen, Lionardo Grossi della Rovere and the Prothonotary Lorenzo Pucci (later on Cardinal de Santi Quatro) to continue the enterprise. He had stipulated that the monument should not be executed in the colossal proportions which were originally determined on. But it does not appear that his executors complied with this request. Michelangelo writes in 1524 "at the death of Pope Julius and the beginning of Leo's reign Aginensis (Cardinal d'Agen) wished to enlarge the monument and to make the work more considerable than was my first design and a contract was made."[{46}]
The sixth of March, 1513, Michelangelo signed what was in effect a new contract by which he pledged himself to execute the monument in seven years and not to undertake any other work of importance till it was finished. He was to receive sixteen thousand five hundred ducats, from which were deducted the three thousand five hundred which had been paid during the life of Julius II.[30] The new plan included thirty-two large statues, and the monument was to be built against the wall of the church. "At each of the three sides were two tabernacles, both containing a group of two figures; in front of each of the pilasters flanking the tabernacles was to be a statue. Between the tabernacles were reliefs in bronze, on the platform above was the statue of the pope supported by four figures and surrounded by six others on pedestals. Finally from the platform was to rise a little sanctuary thirty-four palms high[31] and containing five statues larger in size than the others."[32]
For three years Michelangelo devoted himself almost exclusively to this work and from that period[{47}] of vigour and maturity, of relative calm and satisfying accomplishment, came his most perfect piece of sculpture, the Moses. This statue, originally intended for one of the six colossal figures crowning the upper story of the tomb, in the end was itself the complete expression of the whole monument. The Moses is the older brother of the Prophets of the Sistine, sprung from the same vehement and passionate inspiration, but more commanding, more sure and more master of himself (we shall come upon him again at the completion of the work thirty years later, for Michelangelo was never tired of returning to him). The two Slaves[33] now in the Louvre, who were to be placed against the pilasters of the lower story, immortal symbols of the weariness of living and of the revolt against life,—the voluptuous hero with his beautiful body overcome by deadly torpor and the athlete, vanquished but unsubdued, who writhes in his bonds, "bent like a spring," gathering himself together and hurling his scorn into the face of heaven—both belong to this period.[{48}] Probably the Caryatid of the Hermitage at St. Petersburg, which was certainly meant for one of the groups of conquerors in the niches, was made at this time as well as the models for many statues.