The architectural plan and the surface decoration of this lower half are conceived in a style belonging to the earlier Italian Renaissance.  Arabesques and masks and foliated patterns adorn the flat slabs.  The recess of each niche is arched with a concave shell.  The terminal busts are boldly modelled, and impose upon the eye.  The whole is rich in detail, and, though somewhat arid in fanciful invention, it carries us back to the tradition of Florentine work by Mino da Fiesole and Desiderio da Settignano.

When we ascend to the upper portion, we seem to have passed, as indeed we do pass, into the region of the new manner created by Michelangelo at S. Lorenzo.  The orders of the pilasters are immensely tall in proportion to the spaces they enclose.  Two of these spaces, those on the left and right side, are filled in above with meaningless rectangular recesses, while seated statues occupy less than a whole half in altitude of the niches.  The architectural design is nondescript, corresponding to no recognised style, unless it be a bastard Roman Doric.  There is absolutely no decorative element except four shallow masks beneath the abaci of the pilasters.  All is cold and broad and dry, contrasting strangely with the accumulated details of the lower portion.  In the central niche, immediately above the Moses, stands a Madonna of fine sculptural quality, beneath a shallow arch, which repeats the shell-pattern.  At her feet lies the extended figure of Pope Julius II., crowned with the tiara, raising himself in a half-recumbent attitude upon his right arm.

Of the statues in the upper portion, by far the finest in artistic merit is the Madonna.  This dignified and gracious lady, holding the Divine Child in her arms, must be reckoned among Buonarroti’s triumphs in dealing with the female form.  There is more of softness and sweetness here than in the Madonna of the Medicean sacristy, while the infant playing with a captured bird is full of grace.  Michelangelo left little in this group for the chisel of Montelupo to deform by alteration.  The seated female, a Sibyl, on the left, bears equally the stamp of his design.  Executed by himself, this would have been a masterpiece for grandeur of line and dignified repose.  As it is, the style, while seeming to aim at breadth, remains frigid and formal.  The so-called Prophet on the other side counts among the signal failures of Italian sculpture.  It has neither beauty nor significance.  Like a heavy Roman consul of the Decadence, the man sits there, lumpy and meaningless; we might take it for a statue-portrait erected by some provincial municipality to celebrate a local magnate; but of prophecy or inspiration there is nothing to detect in this inert figure.  We wonder why he should be placed so near a Pope.