The composition of these pictures is as masterly as ever, and the drawing, especially in the fore-shortened figures, faultless, but for the first time we are aware of something cold and unnatural, very different from the glorious life and power with which the frescoes of the Sistine literally glow. Michelangelo was getting old, and even his Titanic frame could not withstand the insidious attacks of time. He was seventy-five years of age when he carried these frescoes to completion, and he himself confessed to Vasari that he did so "with great effort and fatigue." Nevertheless he found sufficient time and strength to complete the famous monument of Pope Julius II. during the intervals of his fresco painting, and in 1545 the tragedy of the tomb finally came to an end. It must have been with feelings of mingled relief and bitterness that Michelangelo surveyed the much modified tomb in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli. The mighty design which had fired his youthful ambition forty years previously had dwindled down to a comparatively unimposing monument, but everybody will agree with Condivi when he says that "although botched and patched up, it is the most worthy monument to be found in Rome, or perhaps in the world; if for nothing else, at least for the three statues that are by the hand of the master." Of the central figure, representing Moses, we shall have occasion to speak later on; the remaining statues by Michelangelo to which Condivi alludes are two female figures of rare beauty, representing Active and Contemplative Life. The rest of the tomb was finished by Raffaello da Montelupo and by other assistants under the master's supervision. Having, as best he could, fulfilled his sacred pledge to the memory of Julius II., Michelangelo appeared to consider his artistic career as practically at an end. He was always inclined to sadness, but a cloud of deeper melancholy seemed to settle over him, and like Titian, Tintoretto, and other artists who attained to great old age, he turned his thoughts almost exclusively to religious speculation. In one of his sonnets he beautifully expresses the yearning for peace and rest which had taken possession of his storm-tossed soul: Painting nor sculpture now can lull to rest My soul, that turns to His great love on high, Whose arms to clasp us on the Cross were spread.[2] [2] "The Sonnets of Michelangelo." By J. A. Symonds, No. lxv. Henceforward he regarded his art as a devotional exercise more than anything else. The unfinished marble group of the _Deposition_, now in the Duomo at Florence, and which he intended should be placed over his tomb, was carved by the master during these years of serene preparation for his approaching end.