to have been studied from the model. There is an individuality
about the character of each, a naturalism, an aiming after realistic
expression, which separate this group from previous and subsequent
works by Buonarroti. Traces of Donatello's influence survive in the
treatment of the long large hands of David, the cast of features
selected for that statue, and the working of the feet. Indeed it may
be said that Donatello continued through life to affect the genius of
Michelangelo by a kind of sympathy, although the elder master's
naivete was soon discarded by the younger.

The second period culminated in the Cartoon for the Battle of Pisa.
This design appears to have fixed the style now known to us as
Michelangelesque, and the loss of it is therefore irreparable. It
exercised the consummate science which he had acquired, his complete
mastery over the male nude. It defined his firm resolve to treat
linear design from the point of view of sculpture rather than of
painting proper. It settled his determination to work exclusively
through and by the human figure, rejecting all subordinate elements of
decoration. Had we possessed this epoch-making masterpiece, we should
probably have known Michelangelo's genius in its flower-period of
early ripeness, when anatomical learning was still combined with a
sustained dependence upon Nature. The transition from the second to
the third stage in this development of form-ideal remains imperfectly
explained, because the bathers in the Arno were necessary to account
for the difference between the realistic David and the methodically
studied genii of the Sistine.

The vault of the Sistine shows Michelangelo's third manner in
perfection. He has developed what may be called a scheme of the human
form. The apparently small head, the enormous breadth of shoulder, the
thorax overweighing the whole figure, the finely modelled legs, the
large and powerful extremities, which characterise his style
henceforward, culminate in Adam, repeat themselves throughout the
genii, govern the prophets. But Nature has not been neglected. Nothing
is more remarkable in that vast decorative mass of figures than the
variety of types selected, the beauty and animation of the faces, the
extraordinary richness, elasticity, and freshness of the attitudes
presented to the eye. Every period of life has been treated with
impartial justice, and both sexes are adequately handled. The
Delphian, Erythrean, and Libyan Sibyls