e Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).]

The misfortune which he had foreseen took place on August 2, 1530, when
Malatesta Baglioni turned traitor. On the 12th Florence capitulated, and
the Emperor turned the town over to the representative of the pope,
Baccio Valori. Then the executions began. During the first few days
nothing checked the vengeance of the conquerors and some of
Michelangelo's best friends were among the victims. Michelangelo hid
himself, it is said, in the tower of S. Niccolo oltr'Arno. He had
especial reason to fear because the report had been spread that he had
wished to tear down the palace of the Medici. "When the wrath of Clement
VII had subsided," says Condivi, "he wrote to Florence that Michelangelo
should be searched for. He added that if he was found and was willing to
go on working at the tombs of the Medici he should be treated with all
the consideration he deserved," Michelangelo came out of his
hiding-place and in September or October, 1530, again undertook his work
for the glory of those against whom he had fought.

It was not the glory of the Medici he wrought, but his own sorrow and
wrath. The same thing happened here as with the tomb of Julius II.
Michelangelo did not have the force to refuse a task unworthy of him:
his genius was heroic, his will not so at all. He accepted the order, he
even outlined a program whose sychophantic affectation arouses a feeling
of sadness and of pity for the humiliation of so great a man, forced to
lie. A note in his own hand at the Casa Buonarroti explains one of the
monuments in the following way.

"Day and Night talk together and say: In our rapid flight we have
brought Duke Giuliano to death. It is therefore just that he should
avenge himself. His vengeance, now that we have killed him, is to snatch
away the light from us; by closing his eyes, he has closed ours, which
will no longer illumine the earth. What would he have done with us if he
had remained alive?"

Is not that insipid interpretation the veil of prudence which he wrapped
about his rebel spirit? How much of this is really left in the work? Who
can find it there? Who thinks only of the Medici before this tragic
expression of a lonely and despairing soul? The burning and mighty
spirit of the Sistine breathes again, and austere forms rise from the
shade. Yet here everything is sadder; a funereal silence reigns. It is
no longer the tragic struggle of the Son of Man. It is the void which
weighs on