Twenty colossal nude figures of Athletes.
Ten circular medallions.
Seven large figures of Prophets.
Five large figures of Sibyls; these Prophets and Sibyls would be eighteen
feet high if they stood upright, and most of them have secondary figures
of angel boys between them, twenty-three in all.
Twenty-four decorative pilasters of two children each, in monochrome.
[Image #26]
THE PROPHET DANIEL
SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(_By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence_)
Four large triangular compositions representing the Redemptions of Israel,
and containing from five to twenty-two colossal figures.
Eight triangular spaces above the windows, representing the Ancestors of
Christ, containing from two to four colossal figures.
Twenty-four groups in the semicircular spaces above the windows, also of
the Ancestors of Christ, of from one to four colossal figures.
Ten large figures of children forming brackets under the figures of
Prophets and Sibyls, at the springing of the arches between the windows.
Twenty-four bronze-coloured colossal figures filling up the spaces in the
architectural framework.
Thus, the vault may be regarded as a gallery of one hundred and forty-five
separate pictures by Michael Angelo. There is one reservation, and that
is, that the twenty-four groups of two children forming pilasters are in
pairs, of the same outline but reversed; as they are differently lighted
they may still be taken as different pictures.
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