DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51585#0058
54
EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS.
exile. He was pardoned, and continued ever after-
wards in high favour with the pope, who employed
him on the sculptures in the chapel of San Lo-
renzo during the remainder of his pontificate.
Clement VII. was succeeded by Pope Paul III.,
of the Farnese family, in 1534. This pope, though
nearly seventy when he was elected, was as anxious
to immortalize his name by great undertakings as
any of his predecessors had been before him. His
first wish was to complete the decoration of the
interior of the Sistine Chapel, left unfinished by
Julius II. and Leo X. He summoned Michael
Angelo, who endeavoured to excuse himself, plead-
ing other engagements; but the pope would listen
to no excuses which interfered with his sovereign
power to dissolve all other obligations; and thus
the artist found himself, after an interval of twenty
years, most reluctantly forced to abandon sculp-
ture for painting ; and, as Vasari expresses it, he
consented to serve Pope Paul only because he
could not do otherwise.
In representing the Last Judgment on the wall
of the upper end of the Sistine Chapel, Michael
Angelo only adhered to the original plan as it had
been adopted by Julius II., and afterwards by Cle-
ment VII.
In the centre of this vast composition he has
placed the figure of the Messiah in the act of pro-
EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS.
exile. He was pardoned, and continued ever after-
wards in high favour with the pope, who employed
him on the sculptures in the chapel of San Lo-
renzo during the remainder of his pontificate.
Clement VII. was succeeded by Pope Paul III.,
of the Farnese family, in 1534. This pope, though
nearly seventy when he was elected, was as anxious
to immortalize his name by great undertakings as
any of his predecessors had been before him. His
first wish was to complete the decoration of the
interior of the Sistine Chapel, left unfinished by
Julius II. and Leo X. He summoned Michael
Angelo, who endeavoured to excuse himself, plead-
ing other engagements; but the pope would listen
to no excuses which interfered with his sovereign
power to dissolve all other obligations; and thus
the artist found himself, after an interval of twenty
years, most reluctantly forced to abandon sculp-
ture for painting ; and, as Vasari expresses it, he
consented to serve Pope Paul only because he
could not do otherwise.
In representing the Last Judgment on the wall
of the upper end of the Sistine Chapel, Michael
Angelo only adhered to the original plan as it had
been adopted by Julius II., and afterwards by Cle-
ment VII.
In the centre of this vast composition he has
placed the figure of the Messiah in the act of pro-