The first conception of the Last Judgement, which completes the plan originally laid down for the decoration of the Chapel, notwithstanding the obstacles which protracted the execution, must find its date in the Pontificate of Giulio, from the Cartoons probably begun under Clemente. M. Angelo proceeded to the fresco itself at an early period, if not immediately after the accession of Paolo, 1534, and finished it in 1541, or perhaps 1542; for both these years are mentioned by Vasari; who, if not present at the removal of the scaffolding, attended its immediate display to the public. The completion of this 'multitudinous' work, M. Angelo, at an age of 68, or somewhat beyond, might justly consider as the consummation of his public career in painting: but the Pontiff, still ambitious to possess exclusive specimens of his powers in a fabric built by his own orders and consecrated to his own name, obliged him to continue his labours in two huge frescoes of the Capella Paolina, representing the Conversion of St. Paul and the Crucifixion of St. Peter. The lassitude inseparable from the waste of so much energy on the Last Judgement, the mental and bodily fatigue attendant on the arrangement and execution of new plans, if less enormous less congenial, protracted their ultimate completion to his 75th year, proved them children of necessity rather than choice, and confirmed the truth of his observation to Vasari, that painting in fresco, the union of powers required for a great public work, is not an art of old age. And here indeed terminates the career of the Painter; the remainder of his life was divided between architecture and sculpture. This, which had always been his favourite pursuit, was now become the darling companion of his private hours, the amusement of his solitude, and the preservative of his health--for this purpose he furnished his study with a colossal block, destined for the complicated group of a Pietà: but though age had neither tamed his conception nor palsied his hand,[80] it checked his perseverance; he no longer struggled to subdue the flaws of his materials or to give them the air of beauties; he dismissed the group unfinished, and continued to exercise himself on another of inferior size. The death of Antonio da S. Gallo, 1546, put it in the power of Paolo to create M. Angelo architect of S. Pietro, a trust of which he acquitted himself with a superiority which baffled all the opposition of venality and envy. He was probably, from Ictinus to our time, the first and the last of architects who refused salary and emolument, and consecrated his labours to divine love. Some of his successors, perhaps, might insinuate that he indemnified himself with being at the same time architect of the Campidoglio and the Farnese Palace.