ist, he maintained
that "a lofty style, grave and decorous, was essential to great work.
Few artists understand this, and endeavour to appropriate these
qualities. Consequently we find many members of the confraternity who
are only artists in name. The world encourages this confusion of
ideas, since few are capable of distinguishing between a fellow who
has nothing but his colour-box and brushes to make him a painter, and
the really gifted natures who appear only at wide intervals." He
illustrates the position that noble qualities in the artist are
indispensable to nobility in the work of art, by a digression on
religious painting and sculpture. "In order to represent in some
degree the adored image of our Lord, it is not enough that a master
should be great and able. I maintain that he must also be a man of
good conduct and morals, if possible a saint, in order that the Holy
Ghost may rain down inspiration on his understanding. Ecclesiastical
and secular princes ought, therefore, to permit only the most
illustrious among the artists of their realm to paint the benign
sweetness of our Saviour, the purity of our Lady, and the virtues of
the saints. It often happens that ill-executed images distract the
minds of worshippers and ruin their devotion, unless it be firm and
fervent. Those, on the contrary, which are executed in the high style
I have described, excite the soul to contemplation and to tears, even
among the least devout, by inspiring reverence and fear through the
majesty of their aspect." This doctrine is indubitably sound. To our
minds, nevertheless, it rings a little hollow on the lips of the great
master who modelled the Christ of the Minerva and painted the Christ
and Madonna of the Last Judgment. Yet we must remember that, at the
exact period when these dialogues took place, Buonarroti, under the
influence of his friendship with Vittoria Colonna, was devoting his
best energies to the devout expression of the Passion of our Lord. It
is deeply to be regretted that, out of the numerous designs which
remain to us from this endeavour, all of them breathing the purest
piety, no monumental work except the Pieta at Florence emerged for
perpetuity.

Many curious points, both of minute criticism and broad opinion, might
still be gleaned from the dialogues set down by Francis of Holland. It
must suffice here to resume what Michelangelo maintained about the
artist's method. One of the interlocutors begged to be infor