There is, to my mind, a unity of conception between the history depicted on the vault, the prophets and forecomers on the pendentives, the types selected for the spandrels, and the final spectacle of the day of doom.

Living, as he needs must do, under the category of time, Michelangelo was unable to execute his stupendous picture-book of human destiny in one sustained manner.

Years passed over him of thwarted endeavour and distracted energies--years of quarrying and sculpturing, of engineering and obeying the vagaries of successive Popes.

Therefore, when he came at last to paint the Last Judgment, he was a worn man, exhausted in services of many divers sorts.

And, what is most perplexing to the reconstructive critic, nothing in his correspondence remains to indicate the stages of his labour.