But let us return for a moment to the Court of Lorenzo de Medici and its galaxy of scholars and artists. The creed of the Court of the Magnificent is summed up for ever in the great right hand of the “David.” The sculptor purposely emphasized its size. Michael Angelo desired to lay stress upon the part which the boy took in the struggle rather than to portray him as a mere instrument. To have been at one with the spirit of the biblical narrative, the weakness of the human agent would have been emphasized—as it was, indeed, in the “David” of Donatello. But the right hand of Angelo’s “David” stands for a new view—the Greek view—of the part mankind must play in the world. Human endeavour, rather than divine interference, is now to perfect man. By his own effort, by the exercise of his own free will, man is to work out his end. The influence of this new conception upon the art of Michael Angelo is equally noticeable in the “Pieta,” a rather earlier sculpture, and the first work of our artist’s maturity. The Virgin Mother is seated upon the stone on which the cross had been erected. The dead Christ lies before her. The scene corresponds with nothing in the biblical account. It illustrates no single verse. But it does more. It breathes the very spirit of the Christian narrative, for it interprets its inner meaning in its most vital and useful sense. We can see at once that Angelo would have been false to his art had he been more faithful to the current conception of Christian truth. He was no preacher. He was not expounding a faith. What he took from the Bible story was the divine grief of a mother for an all-perfect son. His task was to translate that without the loss of one iota of physical or moral beauty. Condivi tells us that there were many who complained that the mother was too young when compared with her son, and that he himself laid the matter before Michael Angelo for explanation. The sculptor’s answer is an example of what a perfect humanist—and that is very near to saying a perfect man—would have said. It is so characteristic of the sculptor that no apology for quoting it at length is necessary. “One day,” says Condivi, “I was talking to Michael Angelo of this objection.” [Illustration: MICHAEL ANGELO MOSES (TOMB OF JULIUS II.)]