After his return to Florence in 1501 Michel angelo, on June 5, signed a contract for fifteen statues of saints for the Piccolomini Chapel in the Cathedral of Siena. The inferior quality of these works, as they now stand, is such that it is impossible to attribute them to him. In August of the same year he received from the city of Florence a commission for a statue of David, nine cubits in height, to be carved from a single block of marble. The statue was of national impor tance, intended to mark the deliverance of the city from the Medici and Cesare Borgia. On .Tune 8. 1504. it was erected to the right of the entranee to the Palazzo Vecchio, where it re mained as a sort of Palladium until, in 1873, it was removed to the Academy of Fine Arts for protection against, the weather. The figure is frankly naturalistic, head and hands being un duly large. as in the case of the undeveloped youthful frame. The expression denotes ex pectation and confidence of victory; the action represented is at the moment at which the youth is about to unloose the string.
The "David" is the last work of Michelangelo's early or realistic period. A number of other works of the years 1501-04 cannot he exactly dated. While engaged on the "David" he com pleted, at the request of the Signory, another statue of the same subject in bronze. which was sent as a present to a high official of the French Court. Resembling the "Piet:)," though probably somewhat earlier. is the life-size "Madonna of Bruges." purchased by the Mmiscron family. and still in their chapel in the Cathedral of Bruges. He also carved two circular bas-reliefs of the Madonna, one in the Museo Nazionale, Florence, another in the Royal Academy, London. While executing the "David" lie was also engaged in painting a "Madonna" for Angelo Doni (Uffizi). Though deficient in color, this picture is wonder ful in drawing and in the sturdy realism of the figures, and is original in conception. Somewhat earlier than this is the unfinished Madonna in the National Gallery, London.
Michelangelo's second manner is characterized by an increasing departure from the realism of his early days and a reliance upon an unbridled imagination. His first work in which this new• style prevails was his cartoon for the fresco of one of the long walls of the hall of the Great Council in the Palazzo Veechio. executed in ri valry with Leonardo da Vinci (q.v.), to whom the other wall had been assigned. Begun in August, 1504. the eartoon was not completed till 1506, the fresco never having been carried out. The subject was the so-called "Battle of Pisa." an in cident from the war between Florence and Pisa. in 1364, when four hundred Florentines were sur prised by the enemy while bathing in the Arno at Anghiari. This was considered by contem poraries as his greatest painting. and practically revolutionized Florentine art. The cartoon was destroyed in 1516, and only survives in drawin•s at Holkhann and Vienna (Albertina), and in the well•known line engraving of a single group by Mareantonio. entitled "1.c•s Grimpeurs."
Its execution was interrupted earl• in 1505 by a summons to the artist from Rome by Pope Julius 11., who of all Michelangelo's patrons best understood the man and his art. his first com mission was for his own sepulchral monument. to he plaeed in the tribune of the new Church of Saint Peter's, and to contain forty colossal stat ues. besides bronze reliefs and other decorations. spent over eight months in Carrara procuring the marble for this. the darling scheme of his life. But when, after his return to Rome, the Pope. moved by the intrigues of Bramante, wished to defer the execution of the monument, and the artist was slightingly treated, he left Rome in a rage, sending the Pope word to seek him elsewhere. Not withgtand hip. the Intl ef forts and the mediation of the Florentine govern ment, a reconciliation was not effected till the end of 1508. at Bologna, which the Pope had just added to the Papal domains. Until February 21, 1504, the artist was occupied with the bronze statue of Julius II., three tittles life size, which was destroyed when the Bentivogli recovered the city three years later. l'pon rejoining the Pope at flow, he was induced, muell against his Win. to undertake the decoration of the vault of the 51st int. Chapel.
It was a task of colossal proportions (the ceiling alone measuring In feet by 41 feet).
and he dill it praet lenity alone. In tober, 1521. the scaffolding was removed. Im mediately upon its coinpletion it was hailed ns the greatest pieee of work ever done by painter's hand. Even Raphael's style was transformed after he had seen it. Miehelangelo arranged the vast space as though it had been roof less. framing it with architecture in per spective delusion, and filling the open spaces with paintings. Just above the windows me the figures of the ancestry of Christ in attitudes of eager waiting; above them, twelve gig.antie fig ures of the Prophets and Sibyls; in the enrners, four representations from the history of Israel; while in the centre of the vault the stories of the "Creation of the World," the "Fall of Man," and of the "Deluge," are told in nine pictures. The spaces of the architecture are tilled with figures of nude boys and genii in various attitudes. Among the central pictures the "Creation of Adam" is preeminent. Adam is depicted just on the point of rising, just as God's touch sends the first thrill of life through his veins. His body is the perfection of anatomical form and action, and the representation of the almighty ac the inearnat' of omnipotence and mild passion has never been equaled. The "Delphic Sibyl" is young and beautiful. with an upturned look of rapture, the "Cuma•an" is old and with ered, the wisdom of the ages in her counte nance. Of the prophets, Jeremiah is the image of deep thought and Zacharias a type of mental absorption; Jonah, the type of restored life, is a nude figure of remarkable foreshortening.