Messer Biagio complained
to the Pope, who asked him where he was placed? "In hell," was the reply.
"Then I can do nothing to help you," said the Pope; "had the painter sent
you to purgatory I would have used my best efforts to get you released,
but I exercise no influence in hell, _ubi nulla est redemptio_." Some
years afterwards Paul IV. objected to the naked figures, and employed
Daniele da Volterra to patch draperies on to some of them, with Michael
Angelo's consent, whereby Daniele obtained the nickname of Il Braghettone,
or the breeches-maker. Daniele did his work with a good deal of
discretion, hiding as little of the original fresco as possible: the
additions are unfortunately offensive in colour. The early engravings show
the picture in its original state, and show that the additions are not so
many or so important as might be supposed, as most of the larger masses of
draperies are seen to be Michael Angelo's own work. When the Pope obtained
Michael Angelo's consent to this alteration, the artist replied to his
messenger: "Tell his Holiness this is a small matter, and can easily be
set right. Let him look to setting the world in order: to reform a picture
costs no great trouble." Pius V. also employed Girolamo da Fano to make
some further alterations. These retouches _a secco_ have destroyed to a
great extent the atmospheric quality and the relation of the planes in
Michael Angelo's suave true-fresco method, which, as may be seen in the
vault, gives the grey half-tints of the flesh-tones in a way only equalled
by Andrea del Sarto in fresco and Rembrandt in oil painting.
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