stages of his labour. The letters tell plenty about
domestic anxieties, annoyances in his poor craftsman's household,
purchases of farms, indignant remonstrances with stupid brethren; but
we find in them, as I have said, no clue to guide us through that
mental labyrinth in which the supreme artist was continually walking,
and at the end of which he left to us the Sistine as it now is.

VII

The old reckoning of the time consumed by Michelangelo in painting the
roof of the Sistine, and the traditions concerning his mode of work
there, are clearly fabulous. Condivi says: "He finished the whole in
twenty months, without having any assistance whatsoever, not even of a
man to grind his colours." From a letter of September 7, 1510, we
learn that the scaffolding was going to be put up again, and that he
was preparing to work upon the lower portion of the vaulting. Nearly
two years elapse before we hear of it again. He writes to Buonarroto
on the 24th of July 1512: "I am suffering greater hardships than ever
man endured, ill, and with overwhelming labour; still I put up with
all in order to reach the desired end." Another letter on the 21st of
August shows that he expects to complete his work at the end of
September; and at last, in October, he writes to his father: "I have
finished the chapel I was painting. The Pope is very well satisfied."
On the calculation that he began the first part on May 10, 1508, and
finished the whole in October 1512, four years and a half were
employed upon the work. A considerable part of this time was of course
taken up with the preparation of Cartoons; and the nature of
fresco-painting rendered the winter months not always fit for active
labour. The climate of Rome is not so mild but that wet plaster might
often freeze and crack during December, January, and February.
Besides, with all his superhuman energy, Michelangelo could not have
painted straight on daily without rest or stop. It seems, too, that
the master was often in need of money, and that he made two journeys
to the Pope to beg for supplies. In the letter to Fattucci he says:
"When the vault was nearly finished, the Pope was again at Bologna;
whereupon, I went twice to get the necessary funds, and obtained
nothing, and lost all that time until I came back to Rome. When I
reached Rome, I began to make Cartoons--that is, for the ends and
sides of the said chapel, hoping to get money at last and to complete
the work. I never could ext