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For German it was unmistakably in every feature, save for the one oddity that the Teutonic face wore a flowing beard not unlike that of Michael Angelo's Moses. As we moved forward my eye swept in the lettering on the pedestal, "Unser Alte Deutche Gott," and I was aware that I had acknowledged my allegience to the supreme war lord I had saluted the Statue of God.
We read now for the first time what the greatest man of the sixteenth century actually wrote, and are able to enter, without the interference of a fictitious veil, into the shrine of his own thought and feeling. His sonnets form the best commentary on Michael Angelo's solitary life and on his sublime ideal of art.
The sight of Michael Angelo's pictures has brought back to my consciousness that almost forgotten sensation. Great souls enjoy their own greatness: the rest of the world is seized with fear, and goes mad." After the painting of the "Last Judgment," one more great labour was reserved for Michael Angelo.
See Heath Wilson, pp. 79-87, and the letter to Giuliano di San Gallo in Milanesi's Archivio Buonarroti, p. 377. Michael Angelo appears to have had some reason to fear assassination in Rome. See Michael Angelo's letters to Giovan Francesco Fattucci, and his family. Gotti, pp. 55-65. See the sonnet to Giovanni da Pistoja:
A tender and ecstatic smile beamed from Angelo's eyes, and he broke forth in a tone of joyous fervency: "Ah, how blessed it would be to die for such a cause it would be martyrdom!" "But your brother consider your brother; you would be risking his life, too." "He risked mine an hour ago," responded Angelo, gloomily; "did he consider me?" A thought swept through his mind that made him shudder.
I cannot imagine, for example, how the resolute champion of undeserving pictures can soar to the amazing beauty of Titian's great picture of the Assumption of the Virgin at Venice; or how the man who is truly affected by the sublimity of that exquisite production, or who is truly sensible of the beauty of Tintoretto's great picture of the Assembly of the Blessed in the same place, can discern in Michael Angelo's Last Judgment, in the Sistine chapel, any general idea, or one pervading thought, in harmony with the stupendous subject.
Now Michael Angelo's works, because of their Southern impetuosity and volubility, are not so instinct with this divine sorrow, this immobility of the soul face to face with evil, as is Duerer's Melancholy. He inspires and exhilarates us more, but takes us out of ourselves rather than leads us home.
"And we will at once resume our study of paintings," said Mr. Sumner, drawing nearer. "To-morrow morning, if Malcom has no engagement, we will go to the Sistine Chapel to see Michael Angelo's frescoes. I have been so busy until now that I could not get the time I wished for it." The next morning, as Barbara and Bettina were getting ready for the drive according to Mr.
Velasquez went to Venice first, and afterwards to Rome, where he was offered, and declined, a suite of apartments in the Vatican, asking only free access to the papal galleries. There he copied many portions of Michael Angelo's 'Last Judgment' not a hundred years old, and 'yet undimmed by the morning and evening incense of centuries, and portions of the frescoes of Raphael.
I saw the ceiling, not merely as it is to-day, but as it was when the colours were fresh, for in places there were patches, the bright yellow, for instance, which showed the depth of colouring in which the whole had been carried out. It was Michael Angelo's intention to show us the ceiling pierced and the heavens open above it.
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