The Renaissance, with its mighty intellectual impetus, its reverence for the arts and culture, and its resistance against the absolutism of the Papacy came as the salvation of Rome from the terrors and the stagnation of the dark days. The birth of Michael Angelo, in 1474, came with a new era of enlightenment. Angelo, painter, sculptor, poet, and philosopher, was commissioned by Pope Julius II. to carve a great work in Rome, and to adorn the Sistine Chapel with frescoes. Three years were spent on these superb paintings. This is the most wonderful ceiling painting in the world. In the centre are pictures of scenes of the Creation and Fall; in compartments are the prophets, and other portions represent the ancestors of the Virgin Mary and historical characters. The figures are colossal, and wonderful in their anatomy, revealing the artist's richness of imagination, as well as his unsurpassed technical skill. To see to advantage the frescoes of the roof, it is necessary to lie flat on the back, and gaze upwards. The human figure is superbly imaged in "The Temptation, Fall and Expulsion." The largest figures in the whole composition are among the prophets and sibyls. "Here, at last, here indeed for the first time," writes Mr Arthur Symons, in his "Cities," "is all that can be meant by sublimity; a sublimity which attains its pre-eminence through no sacrifice of other qualities; a sublimity which (let us say it frankly) is amusing. I find the magnificent and extreme life of these figures as touching, intimate, and direct in its appeal, as the most vivid and gracious realism of any easel picture." The vast picture of "The Last Judgment," on the wall of the Sistine Chapel, was painted by Michael Angelo when he was growing old. The work occupied about seven years. It is full of figures in every kind of action, and most of them are nude. Their nakedness affronted Paul IV., who commanded Da Volterra, a pupil of Angelo, to paint clothing on some of the forms, thus marring the beauty of the work. In the Pauline Chapel of the Vatican are two mural paintings by Michael Angelo, "The Crucifixion of St Peter," and "The Conversion of St Paul." "I could only see and wonder," writes Goethe, referring to the works of Angelo in a letter from Rome. The mental confidence and boldness of the master, and his grandeur of conception, are beyond all expression. Sir Joshua Reynolds spent some time in Rome, in 1750, and recorded the result of his study of the work of Raphael and Michael Angelo. It was in the cold chambers of the Vatican that Reynolds caught the chill which brought about his deafness. He made many copies of parts of the paintings of Angelo. "The Adonis" of Titian in the Colonna Palace, the "Leda," by Coreggio, and the works of Raphael, were closely studied by the English painter. Before he left Rome he declared that the art of Angelo represented the highest perfection.