without any assistance is undoubtedly exaggerated; it possibly refers to the completion of the first half of the ceiling. For the next twenty years Michelangelo did little or nothing in painting; but in 1533, at the age of fifty-nine, he began the cartoons for the fresco of the “Last Judgment” on the wall behind the altar in the Sistine Chapel. This celebrated composition is entirely of nude figures, no accessories being introduced to add to the terror of the scene. Each figure throughout this vast composition has its appropriate meaning, and the power of design and mastery of execution are unsurpassed and unsurpassable. The picture was finished in 1541. Two frescoes in the neighboring Pauline Chapel, the “Conversion of Saint Paul,” and the “Crucifixion of Saint Peter,” which were finished in 1549, were his last paintings. He had accepted, in 1547, the position of architect of Saint Peter’s, stipulating that his services should be gratuitous. He continued to carry the building forward, altering materially the original design of Bramante, until his death, which took place in February, 1564. His body was taken to Florence, and buried in Santa Croce. Although the genius of Michelangelo has exercised a vast and widely diffused influence over all subsequent art, yet this master, unlike Raphael, formed no school of his own immediate followers. It must be admitted that Raphael owes him much, for he never found his full strength until he had seen Michelangelo’s works at Rome, when his style underwent immediate improvement. None of those who worked under Michelangelo dared to walk directly in his steps; there is in his style, as there was in the character of the man himself, a certain stern individuality which gives the impression of solitary and unapproachable greatness. Of his assistants, the most eminent was Sebastiano del Piombo. RAFFAELLO SANZIO,