ible even to imitate his achievement. This work, in
truth, has been and still is the lamp of our art, and has bestowed
such benefits and shed so much light on the art of painting, that
it has served to illuminate a world that had lain in darkness for so
many hundreds of years. And it is certain that no man who is a painter
need think any more to see new inventions, attitudes, and draperies
for the clothing of figures, novel manners of expression, and things
painted with greater variety and force, because he gave to this work
all the perfection that can be given to any work executed in such a
field of art. And at the present day everyone is amazed who is able to
perceive in it the excellence of the figures, the perfection of the
foreshortenings, and the extraordinary roundness of the contours,
which have in them slenderness and grace, being drawn with the beauty
of proportion that is seen in beautiful nudes; and these, in order to
display the supreme perfection of art, he made of all ages, different
in expression and in form, in countenance and in outline, some more
slender and some fuller in the members; as may also be seen in the
beautiful attitudes, which are all different, some seated, some
moving, and others upholding certain festoons of oak-leaves and
acorns, placed there as the arms and device of Pope Julius, and
signifying that at that time and under his government was the age of
gold; for Italy was not then in the travail and misery that she has
since suffered. Between them, also, they hold some medallions
containing stories in relief in imitation of bronze and gold, taken
from the Book of Kings.

[Illustration: THE FALL AND THE EXPULSION

(_After the fresco by =Michelagnolo=. Rome: The Vatican, Sistine
Chapel_)

_Anderson_]

Besides this, in order to display the perfection of art and also the
greatness of God, he painted in a scene God dividing Light from
Darkness, wherein may be seen His Majesty as He rests self-sustained
with the arms outstretched, and reveals both love and power. In the
second scene he depicted with most beautiful judgment and genius God
creating the Sun and Moon, in which He is supported by many little
Angels, in an attitude sublime and terrible by reason of the
foreshortenings in the arms and legs. In the same scene Michelagnolo
depicted Him after the Blessing of the Earth and the Creation of the
Animals, when He is seen on that vaulting as a figure flying in
foreshortening; and wher