ing." Yet he was no less capable of discerning
excellence than the Medici himself, and his spirit strove incessantly
after the accomplishment of vast designs. Between Julius and Michael
Angelo there existed a strong bond of sympathy due to community of
temperament. Both aimed at colossal achievements in their respective
fields of action. The imagination of both was fired by large and simple,
rather than luxurious and subtle thoughts. Both were _uomini terribili_,
to use a phrase denoting vigour of character made formidable by an abrupt
uncompromising temper. Both worked _con furia_, with the impetuosity of
daemonic natures; and both left the impress of their individuality graven
indelibly upon their age.

Julius ordered the sculptor to prepare his mausoleum. Michael Angelo
asked, "Where am I to place it?" Julius replied, "In S. Peter's." But the
old basilica of Christendom was too small for this ambitious pontiff's
sepulchre, designed by the audacious artist. It was therefore decreed that
a new S. Peter's should be built to hold it. In this way the two great
labours of Buonarroti's life were mapped out for him in a moment. But, by
a strange contrariety of fate, to Bramante and San Gallo fell respectively
the planning and the spoiling of S. Peter's. It was only in extreme old
age that Michael Angelo crowned it with that world's miracle, the dome.
The mausoleum, to form a canopy for which the building was designed,
dwindled down at last to the statue of "Moses" thrust out of the way in
the church of S. Pietro in Vincoli. "La tragedia della Sepoltura," as
Condivi aptly terms the history of Giulio's monument, began thus in 1505
and dragged on till 1545.[304] Rarely did Michael Angelo undertake a work
commensurate with his creative power, but something came to interrupt its
execution; while tasks outside his sphere, for which he never
bargained--the painting of the Sistine Chapel, the facade of S. Lorenzo,
the fortification of Samminiato--were thrust upon him in the midst of
other more congenial labours. What we possess of his achievement, is a
_torso_ of his huge designs.

Giulio's tomb, as he conceived it, would have been the most stupendous
monument of sculpture in the world.[305] That mountain of marble covered
with figures wrought in stone and bronze, was meant to be the sculptured
poem of the thought of Death; no mere apotheosis of Pope Julius, but a
pageant of the soul triumphant over the limitations of mortality. All