vast projects, who needed but to strike the rock, and glorious creations would start forth, turned suddenly back in his career, commanded to forget his people of stone, and to evoke in their place a nation of colored shadows; to pass from the summit of one art to the base of another; and this to be accomplished in an hour. Truly, it was a fierce struggle, and a strange triumph wrought by the indomitable human will.

"On the morrow, Julius found Michael Angelo on the spot where he had left him; his arms were folded on his breast, his head bent in profound meditation; his cheeks were pale, and his eyes bloodshot, but the fire of genius beamed on his brow.

"Well?' said the pope.
"I submit to your wishes.'

"I am sure of it. Believe me, your enemies, in seeking to injure you, have prepared for you a new triumph.'

"Let Bramante come immediately to construct the scaffolding.'

"This man had been foremost in the attack; and now, caught in his own snare, the envious architect thought at least to procure a share of the work for his nephew, Raphael. But Julius was inexorable, and dryly ordered Bramante to prepare the necessary planks and cordage.

"Meantime, Michael Angelo went to the Sistine, and, for the first time addressing himself to Bramante, said, in the presence of the pope, and in a tone of insulting irony, ‘In what manner do you propose, Master Architect, to raise this scaffold?'

"In the usual manner,' replied Bramante, scornfully.

"That is to say

"That is to say, master, since you seem ignorant of the first principles of the art you profess, that I will make holes in the vault; that from these openings capstans will descend, and sustain the marble platform on which you will work.'

666

Very clear, indeed, Master Bramante. But permit me to ask you one question: When my paintings shall be finished, how will you stop these holes?'

“O, time enough to think of that.'

"Michael Angelo shrugged his shoulders, and having called the head carpenter, said to him in a loud voice, Take all this trumpery away; sell it, and keep the proceeds for your own use.' He then explained to the astonished pope the method which he meant to employ, and which has been ever since adopted under similar circumstances.

"The next day he sent to Florence for several painters accustomed to fresco work. He caused them to ascend the scaffold, gave each a portion of the wall tọ paint, and watched their proceedings closely. A few hours sufficed to make him acquainted with the mechanical portion of the art. He paid them liberally, and dismissed them; then he effaced all that they had done, and shut himself up alone.

"Without any assistance he tempered the lime, mixed the plaster, and ground his colors. Often a few drops more or less than the right quantity of water, a coat laid on too thinly or too thickly, in fact, the smallest oversight, used to cause his nearly-finished frescoes to fall off in patches. But genius mocks at difficulties, both great and small. After a time, colors and plaster obeyed their ruler, as marble and bronze had done be fore. The mechanical obstacles removed, it only re mained for him to execute his sublime conceptions.

KK *

"It was the spirit of Dante incarnate under another form, and breathed forth in painting instead of in song Both have embraced in their compositions the whole range of creation, the order and events of time, from the fall of the angels to the last judgment. It would be as impossible to convey an idea of the glories of the Sistine vault to those who have not seen them, as to describe those of Dante's wondrous epic to such as have not felt them. It would be speaking of music to the deaf, and of colors to the 'blind. Michael Angelo employed but twenty months in his stupendous work. On the day when he finally came down from the scaffolding, his eyes had been so accustomed to looking upward, that he could no longer without pain turn them towards the earth a touching symbol of genius obliged to look downward and walk with men, after having soared amid the regions of the sky."

Next we come to the monument of Dante, author of Divina Commedia, the greatest poem of the age; a man who died of a broken heart, unappreciated by his contemporaries. Beyond is that of Alfieri, the greatest tragic poet in Italy, a man of wonderful genius; passionate, haughty, imperious, but great. The names of great men are read on every side, and the enduring marble tells where sleeps their dust. The monument of Galileo, with the statues of Astronomy and Geometry, and the statue of the great man himself, form a group which leads you to wonder that human wisdom and skill should die so soon.

Leaving Santa Croce, we may wander about among other churches, finding in the corner of one a wax figure of Christ in a glass case. The figure was spotted with blood, crowned with thorns, and well calculated to awaken disgust. This figure was covered all over with

votive offerings, in the shape of watches, rings, and other jewelry. I counted seven watches of considerable value hanging up there. The priests are careful not to let these things become too burdensome to the figure.

2

In another church1 is a Madonna, said to have been painted by St. Luke, who, according to these folks, must have been a wonderful artist. In another you will find paintings of a great variety of persons and scenes, some painted by one apostle and some by another, some by one saint and some by another, until you feel disgusted with the conversion of the house of God into a gallery of paintings and curiosities. One Sabbath day we went into one of these churches,3 which was filled with an aristocratic audience. A whole regiment of priests were at work at the altar, bowing and bending, rising and falling, to the edification of the people, who gazed on with a sort of stupid wonder. Seeing others walking about, we did the same, and at length found our way to the altar, and behind it, where about sixty men were making most delightful music. Instruments of various kinds and fine voices blended together in one delightful strain of harmony. I have seldom heard such delicious music. There was in it something grand and awful, as the holy anthems, sung by such a host of professional singers, echoed amid the pillars and arches of the old church. The choir in Itak ian churches is generally concealed, and so constructed are the churches that the stranger can hardly tell from whence the strains proceed. The effect of the singing is thus hightened, and rendered more mysterious and enchanting. We know but little about good singing in the churches of America. The soft, warbling, melting

Santissima Annunziato. 2 Santo Spirito. 3 Santa Maria Novella

Italian voice produces strains such as never roll from the lips of the Anglo-Saxon.

The devout appearance of the people in church is contradicted by the eagerness with which they rush to the scenes of amusement with which the sacred day closes. On the Sabbath before I left Florence, the afternoon was given to as gay and brilliant parade as I ever saw on festive days in our own country. Splendid companies of military men marched up and down the streets; banners floated from the windows; civic processions moved through the streets; and over the people, who, in the morning, were bending before the altar, came swelling the intoxicating melody of pleas ure and sin.

The Catholic church here appears as odious as in Rome. The Grand Duke of Tuscany hates the Bible as much as does his master, the pope, who has made the bringing of one into Rome penal crime, for which four years of galley labor are necessary as an expiation. At the present time, arrests are being made almost every day in Florence, and no Italian is free to believe or to worship according to his own conscience. Information is generally received through the agency of the confessional, that perverted agent of a corrupt church. The wife reveals the fact that her husband has a Bible, or the mother states that her son has a prohibited book, or the daughter confesses that her father is a heretic, and soon the offender is secured, and, often without proof, hurried into banishment, or to a vile and loathsome dungeon. There is no crime in Italy greater than heresy; murder has less of guilt than Bible reading; and one had better become a beggar or a bandit than a Protestant. I see that the pope has expressed his desire to send a stone from the Temple of Peace, with an