I The correspondence which I used in the eleventh chapter, while describing Michelangelo's difficulties regarding the final contract with the Duke of Urbino, proves that he had not begun to paint the frescoes of the Cappella Paolina in October 1542.

They were carried on with interruptions during the next seven years.

These pictures, the last on which his talents were employed, are two large subjects: the Conversion of S.Paul, and the Martyrdom of S.Peter.They have suffered from smoke and other injuries of time even more than the frescoes of the Sistine, and can now be scarcely appreciated owing to discoloration.

Nevertheless, at no period, even when fresh from the master's hand, can they have been typical of his style.

It is true that contemporaries were not of this opinion.