that
dignifies humanity--arts, sciences, and laws; the victory that crowns
heroic effort; the majesty of contemplation, and the energy of
action--was symbolised upon ascending tiers of the great pyramid; while
the genii of heaven and earth upheld the open tomb, where lay the dead man
waiting for the Resurrection. Of this gigantic scheme only one imperfect
drawing now remains.[306] The "Moses" and the "Bound Captives"[307] are
all that Michael Angelo accomplished. For forty years the "Moses" remained
in his workshop. For forty years he cherished a hope that his plan might
still in part be executed, complaining the while that it would have been
better for him to have made sulphur matches all his life than to have
taken up the desolating artist's trade. "Every day," he cries, "I am
stoned as though I had crucified Christ. My youth has been lost, bound
hand and foot to this tomb."[308] It was decreed apparently that Michael
Angelo should exist for after ages as a fragment; and such might Pheidias
among the Greeks have been, if he had worked for ephemeral Popes and
bankrupt princes instead of Pericles. Italy in the sixteenth century,
dislocated, distracted, and drained of her material resources, gave no
opportunity to artists for the creation of monuments colossal in their
unity.

Michael Angelo spent eight months at this period among the stone quarries
of Carrara, selecting marble for the Pope's tomb.[309] There his brain,
always teeming with gigantic conceptions, suggested to him a new fancy.
Could not the headland jutting out beyond Sarzana into the Tyrrhene Sea
be carved by his workmen into a Pharos? To transmute a mountain into a
statue, holding a city in either hand, had been the dream of a Greek
artist. Michael Angelo revived the bold thought; but to execute it would
have been almost beyond his power. Meanwhile, in November 1505, the marble
was shipped, and the quays of Rome were soon crowded with blocks destined
for the mausoleum. But when the sculptor arrived, he found that enemies
had been poisoning the Pope's mind against him, and that Julius had
abandoned the scheme of the mausoleum. On six successive days he was
denied entrance to the Vatican, and the last time with such rudeness that
he determined to quit Rome.[310] He hurried straightway to his house, sold
his effects, mounted, and rode without further ceremony toward Florence,
sending to the Pope a written message bidding him to seek for Michael
Angelo elsew