Hardly had he set to work when unforeseen difficulties presented themselves, which were on the point of making him relinquish the whole thing.  The colors, while still fresh, were covered with a mist, the cause of which he was unable to discover.  Utterly discouraged, he went to the Pope and said:  “I forewarned your holiness that painting was not my art; all I have done is lost, and, if you do not believe me, order someone to come and see it.”  Julius sent San Gallo, who saw that the accident was caused by the quality of the time, and that Michelangelo had made his plaster too wet.  Buonarroti, after this, proceeded with the utmost ardor, and in the space of twenty months, without further accident, finished the first half.

The mystery with which Michelangelo surrounded himself keenly excited public curiosity.  In spite of the painter’s objection, Julius frequently visited him in the chapel, and notwithstanding his great age ascended the ladder, Michelangelo extending a hand that he might with safety reach the platform.  He grew impatient; he was eager that all Rome should share his admiration.  It was in vain that Michelangelo objected that all the machinery would have to be reconstructed, that half the ceiling was not completed; the Pope would listen to nothing, and the chapel was accordingly opened to the public on the morning of November 1, 1509.  Julius was the first to arrive before the dust occasioned by the taking down of the scaffolding was laid, and celebrated mass there the same day.

The success was immense.  Bramante, seeing that his evil intentions, far from succeeding, had only served to add to the glory of Michelangelo, who had come triumphant out of the trap he had laid for him, besought the Pope to permit Raphael to paint the other half of the chapel.  Notwithstanding the affection he bore his architect, Julius adhered to his resolution, and Michelangelo resumed, after a brief interruption, the painting of the ceiling; but rumors of these cabals reached him.  They troubled him, and he complained to the Pope of Bramante’s conduct.  It is probable that the coolness which always existed between Raphael and Michelangelo dates from this period.

The second part of the ceiling, by much the most considerable, was finished in 1512.  It is difficult to explain how Vasari, confusing the dates, and appearing to apply to the whole what referred only to the first part, could have stated that this immense work was completed in the space of twenty months.  If anything could astonish, it is that Michelangelo was able in four years to accomplish so gigantic a work.  It is needless, for the purpose of exciting our admiration, to endeavor to persuade us that it was done in a space of time materially insufficient.