. MICHAEL ANGELO. 263 



executing his designs. He must have had many per- 

 sons working under his supervision and direction. 



I presume the amount of thought brought to bear 

 upon the minutice of a picture such as any one of 

 those upon the ceiling or walls of this celebrated 

 chapel, must be quite equal to, if not surpassing, that 

 of a well-wrought-up poem upon the same subject 

 chaos, order, light and darkness, the work of the six 

 days; Adam and Eve, the temptation, the fall, the 

 expulsion, the flood, and so on to the great finale, the 

 last Judgment all wrought out with such attention, 

 not only to the chief persons or figures in the plot, but 

 to all minor parts, revealing an intimate knowledge of 

 the artist with the inspired history, and the most pro- 

 found thought concerning the subject in hand. 



The pictures in the Sistine chapel are, however, only 

 a very small part of the famous works of this most 

 distinguished man. 



The corridor or gallery in the Vatican, which con- 

 tains what is called Angel o's Bible, is another monu- 

 ment to his towering genius. Almost every striking 

 incident in the old sacred history is here set forth in 

 the centres and bevelled sides of the panels Abel's 

 sacrifice, Noah, Abraham and his flocks, the sacrifice of 

 his son, Lot fleeing from Sodom, etc. 



The colors in these pictures are apparently much 



