e himself. He proposed Raphael in his place and gave as an
excuse that this was not his art and that he could not succeed in it,
and went so far in his attempts at refusal that the pope began to grow
angry and showed such obstinate determination that Michelangelo decided
to undertake the work.

The tremendous task began on May 10, 1508. The first plan was simply to
represent the figures of the twelve apostles in the lunettes and to fill
the rest of the space with an ornamental decoration. Bramante raised a
scaffolding in the chapel and several painters who had had practical
experience in fresco painting were brought from Florence. We have
already said that Michelangelo could only work alone. He began by
declaring that Bramante's scaffolding was of no use and replaced it with
one of his own invention. As for the Florentine painters who Francesco
Granacci had recruited for him, Giuliano Bugiardini, Jacopo di Sandro,
the elder Indaco, and Agnolo di Donnino, he took a dislike like to them
and sent them away. He remained alone, shut up in the chapel with a few
workmen, like Giovanni Michi, and far from allowing the great difficulty
of the undertaking to dampen his courage he enlarged his plan and
decided to paint not only the ceiling, but the walls of the chapel down
to the old frescoes.

It is dangerous to attempt to describe the "Last Judgment"; it is indeed
impossible. Analyses and commentaries have been multiplied, but they
kill the spirit by taking it in detail. We must face the vision squarely
and lose ourselves in the abyss of that spirit. It is terrifying and, if
regarded calmly, incomprehensible--it must be hated or adored. It
stifles and excites; there is no nature, no landscape, no atmosphere, no
tenderness, almost nothing human; the symbolism of a primitive and the
science of a decadent; an architecture of naked convulsed bodies; a
barren, savage and devouring thought, like a south wind over a sandy
desert. There is no corner of shade, no spring to slake the thirst; it
is a whirling spout of fire, the vertigo of a delirious emotion, with no
goal except the God in which it loses itself. The whole calls on God,
fears Him and proclaims Him. A whirlwind blows across this throng of
giants--the same whirlwind which sweeps through space the God who has
created the sun and hurled it like a ball of fire into the ether. There
is no escape from the groaning of the tempest which surrounds and
deafens you. Either you must ha