The death of Pope Clement, however, put a stop to these subordinate works, which, had they been accomplished, might perhaps have shown us how Buonarroti intended to fill the empty niches on each side of the Dukes.
When Michelangelo left Florence for good at the end of 1534, his statues had not been placed; but we have reason to think that the Dukes and the four allegorical figures were erected in his lifetime.
There is something singular in the maladjustment of the recumbent men and women to the curves of the sarcophagi, and in the contrast between the roughness of their bases and the smooth polish of the chests they rest on.

These discrepancies do not, however, offend the eye, and they may even have been deliberately adopted from a keen sense of what the Greeks called _asymmetreia_ as an adjunct to effect.

It is more difficult to understand what he proposed to do with the Madonna and her two attendant saints.

Placed as they now are upon a simple ledge, they strike one as being too near the eye, and out of harmony with the architectural tone of the building.

It is also noticeable that the saints are more than a head taller than the Dukes, while the Madonna overtops the saints by more than another head.