D.Anderson, Rome_) The work was exposed to view upon November 1, 1509.

So at the longest possible estimate of time from May 10, 1508, to November 1, 1509, Michael Angelo took four hundred and sixty-two working days to paint it.

The more probable, in fact, almost certain estimate of the time occupied in painting the fresco, as we now see it, is from the time his assistants left him, about New Year's Day 1509, to November 1 in the same year, or two hundred and thirty-four working days.

As the plaster could only be painted on whilst wet, we can tell, by the marks of the divisions between the separate days' plasterings, how many days the larger individual figures took.

One of the largest and most prominent, as well as one of the finest and most finished, the Adam in the Creation of Man, was painted in three sittings only.