its lights and shades, even
appears in truth to recede inwards? Oh, truly happy age of ours, and
truly blessed craftsmen! Well may you be called so, seeing that in our
time you have been able to illumine anew in such a fount of light
the darkened sight of your eyes, and to see all that was difficult
made smooth by a master so marvellous and so unrivalled! Certainly the
glory of his labours makes you known and honoured, in that he has
stripped from you that veil which you had over the eyes of your minds,
which were so full of darkness, and has delivered the truth from the
falsehood that overshadowed your intellects. Thank Heaven, therefore,
for this, and strive to imitate Michelagnolo in everything.

When the work was thrown open, the whole world could be heard running
up to see it, and, indeed, it was such as to make everyone astonished
and dumb. Wherefore the Pope, having been magnified by such a result
and encouraged in his heart to undertake even greater enterprises,
rewarded Michelagnolo liberally with money and rich gifts: and
Michelagnolo would say at times of the extraordinary favours that the
Pope conferred upon him, that they showed that he fully recognized his
worth, and that, if by way of proving his friendliness he sometimes
played him strange tricks, he would heal the wound with signal gifts
and favours. As when, Michelagnolo once demanding from him leave to go
to Florence for the festival of S. John, and asking money for that
purpose, the Pope said, "Well, but when will you have this chapel
finished?" "As soon as I can, Holy Father." The Pope, who had a staff
in his hand, struck Michelagnolo, saying, "As soon as I can! As soon
as I can! I will soon make you finish it!" Whereupon Michelagnolo went
back to his house to get ready to go to Florence; but the Pope
straightway sent Cursio, his Chamberlain, to Michelagnolo with five
hundred crowns to pacify him, fearing lest he might commit one of his
caprices, and Cursio made excuse for the Pope, saying that such things
were favours and marks of affection. And Michelagnolo, who knew the
Pope's nature and, after all, loved him, laughed over it all, for he
saw that in the end everything turned to his profit and advantage, and
that the Pontiff would do anything to keep a man such as himself as
his friend.

When the chapel was finished, before the Pope was overtaken by death,
his Holiness commanded Cardinal Santiquattro and Cardinal Aginense,
his nephew, in the eve