The latter is said to have replied to the Pope's messenger: "Tell his Holiness that this is a small matter, and can easily be set straight.

Let him look to setting the world in order: to reform a picture costs no great trouble." Later on, during the Pontificate of Pio V., a master named Girolamo da Fano continued the process begun by Daniele da Volterra.

As a necessary consequence of this tribute to modesty, the scheme of Michelangelo's colouring and the balance of his masses have been irretrievably damaged.
IV Vasari says that not very long before the Last Judgment was finished, Michelangelo fell from the scaffolding, and seriously hurt his leg.
The pain he suffered and his melancholy made him shut himself up at home, where he refused to be treated by a doctor.

There was a Florentine physician in Rome, however, of capricious humour, who admired the arts, and felt a real affection for Buonarroti.

This man contrived to creep into the house by some privy entrance, and roamed about it till he found the master.