Bottari observes[148] that there have been some who affected to depreciate this picture, on comparing it with the works of other artists, by remarking how much he might have added to the expression, to the colouring, or to the beauty of the contours: but Lomazzo, Felibien,[149] and several others, have not failed on that account to acknowledge him supreme in that peculiar branch of the profession, at which he aimed in all his works, and especially in this of his Last Judgment. The subject itself appeared rather created than selected by him. To a genius so comprehensive, and so skilled in drawing the human figure, no subject could be better adapted than the Resurrection; to an artist who delighted in the awful, no story more suitable than the day of supernal terrors. He saw Raffaello pre-eminent in every other department of the art: he foresaw that in this alone could he expect to be triumphant; and, perhaps, he indulged the hope also that posterity would adjudge the palm to him who excelled all others in the most arduous walk of art. Vasari, his confidant, and the participator of his thoughts, seems to hint at something of this sort in two passages in his Life of Michelangiolo.[150] He informs us, "that applying himself to the human figure, the great object of art, he neglected the attractions of colouring, all sporting of the pencil, and fantastic novelty:" and again, "neither landscapes, trees, nor houses, are to be seen in it, and we even look in vain for some degree of variety and ornament, which are never attempted, probably because he disdained to submit his towering genius to such objects." I cannot suppose in Michelangiolo such arrogance, nor such negligence of his own improvement in an art which embraces every object in nature, that he would limit himself to the naked figure, which is a single branch, and to one only character, his own sublime and awful manner. I rather imagine, that discovering his strength in this style, he did not attempt any other. There he proceeded as in his peculiar province, and, what one cannot wholly commend, he observed no limits, and wished for no control. This Last Judgment was filled with such a profusion of nudity, that it was in great danger of being destroyed: from a regard to the decency of the sanctuary, Paul IV. proposed to white-wash it, and was hardly appeased with the correction of its most glaring indelicacies, by some drapery introduced here and there by Daniel da Volterra, on whom the facetious Romans, from this circumstance, conferred the nick-name of the _Breeches-maker_.[151]