MICHEL-ANGE

Thème.

Michaei>-An"gelo was born near Florence. His father, who was a nobleman, had him thoroughly educated. When fifteen ynars of âge he became the pupil of a celebrated painter. At that time Lorenzo de Medici, who loved the arts, ruled over Florence. He showed Michael-Angelo such a considération that the other artists became jealous of him.

Angelo began very young to study sculpture, and, in order to become a thorough artist, he learned anatomy.

He was about thirty years of âge when he was called to Rome by Pope Julius IL A few years later he was intrusted, by one of Julius' successors, with the decorating of the nave of the Sistine Chapel. Those mural paintings, which even now are greatly admired by tourists, required twenty months of incessant labor. It is also in the Sistine Chapel that is to be seen the Last Judgment, which includes more than one hundred figures.

The last years of Michael-Angelo's long life were devoted to sculpture only, and it is he also who niade the plans for the cupola of Saint Peter's cathedral, the largest in the world.

When he died, he was given a magnificent funeral, and was buried at Florence in a church used as a resting-place for great men.