In selecting the following eight illustrations, we have endeavoured not only to give an idea of Michelangelo's gradual artistic development, but also to throw some light on his powerful and most interesting personality. Although the _Portrait_ now in the Capitol Museum is in many respects inferior to the one in the Uffizi, and has even fewer claims to the honour of being regarded as by the master's own hand, we have selected it because it tallies perfectly with the descriptions which Michelangelo's contemporaries, and more especially Condivi and Vasari, have left us of the master's rugged and expressive features. There is an aspect of profound melancholy, almost of discouragement, in the wan face, disfigured by the flattened nose; the eyes are sunk deep under the massive and somewhat slanting brow, and the whole picture has an indescribably mournful, hopeless expression. It was probably painted when Michelangelo was about fifty-five years of age, and the tragedy of the tomb was causing him bitter grief and disappointment. In the Uffizi portrait the most interesting feature is the hand, strangely resembling an eagle's talon and immediately giving the impression of strong individuality and creative power, which were Michelangelo's most striking characteristics. It has been rightly observed that nothing closes the fifteenth century so fitly as the magnificent marble group of _The Pietà_, which, although carved by Michelangelo in 1498, already prophesied the power of sixteenth-century art. Numerous other artists had already been attracted by the pathetic theme of the Virgin Mother mourning over her dead Son, their principal aim, however, being almost invariably to convey as forcibly as possible to the beholder the grief and despair of the bereaved Mother. With characteristic originality Michelangelo departed from the traditional manner, successfully endeavouring to give the theme a simpler but far more dignified and lofty interpretation. The Madonna is seated on the stone upon which the Cross is erected, with her dead Son on her lap. Her beautiful face is not contracted with grief, but wears an expression of sublime peace and resignation, and the graceful head reclines slightly on her right shoulder, as if pitying Heaven had sent sleep to temper the extremity of her grief, and sweet dreams of the past, when the Virgin Mother fondled her Infant Son, had mercifully cancelled the horrible vision of the Redeemer's lifeless body now lying on her lap.