After the death of Julius, Leo X., in character the reverse of his fiery predecessor, and by temperament unsympathetic to the austere Michael Angelo, found nothing better for the sculptor’s genius than to set him at work upon the facade of S. Lorenzo at Florence.  The better part of the years between 1516 and 1520 was spent in quarrying marble at Carrara, Pietra Santa, and Seravezza.  This is the most arid and unfruitful period of Michael Angelo’s long life, a period of delays and thwarted schemes and servile labours.  What makes the sense of disappointment greater, is that the facade of S. Lorenzo was not even finished.[319] We hurry over this wilderness of wasted months, and arrive at another epoch of artistic production.

Already in 1520 the Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici had conceived the notion of building a sacristy in S. Lorenzo to receive the monuments of Cosimo, the founder of the house, Lorenzo the Magnificent, Giuliano Duke of Nemours, Lorenzo Duke of Urbino, Leo X., and himself.[320] To Michael Angelo was committed the design, and in 1521 he began to apply himself to the work.  Nine years had now elapsed since the roof of the Sistine chapel had been finished, and during this time Michael Angelo had produced little except the “Christ” of S. Maria sopra Minerva.  This new undertaking occupied him at intervals between 1521 and 1534, a space of time decisive for the fortunes of the Medici in Florence.  Leo died, and Giulio after a few years succeeded him as Clement VII.  The bastards of the house, Ippolito and Alessandro, were expelled from Florence in 1527.  Rome was sacked by the Imperial troops; then Michael Angelo quitted the statues and helped to defend his native city against the Prince of Orange.  After the failure of the Republicans, he was recalled to his labours by command of Clement.  Sullenly and sadly he quarried marbles for the sacristy.  Sadly and sullenly he used his chisel year by year, making the very stones cry that shame and ruin were the doom of his country.  At last in 1534 Clement died.  Then Michael Angelo flung down his mallet.  The monuments remained unfinished, and the sculptor set foot in Florence no more.[321]

The Sacristy of S. Lorenzo was built by Michael Angelo and panelled with marbles to receive the sculpture he meant to place there.[322] Thus the colossal statues of Giuliano and Lorenzo were studied with a view to their light and shadow as much as to their form; and this is a fact to be remembered by those who visit the chapel where Buonarroti laboured both as architect and sculptor.  Of the two Medici, it is not fanciful to say that the “Duke of Urbino” is the most immovable of spectral shapes eternalised in marble; while the “Duke of Nemours,” more graceful and elegant, seems intended to present a contrast to this terrible thought-burdened form.[323] The allegorical figures, stretched on segments of ellipses beneath the pedestals of the two dukes, indicate phases of darkness and of light, of death and life.  They