The buildings at San Lorenzo should be regarded as the prentice work of the architect of the Dome of St.Peter's.

The decorations of the Sagrestia Nuova, too, were left unfinished; the statues of Day, Night, Morning, and Evening were left where he had worked upon them, on the floor of the chapel.

From Vasari's letter to him of 1562, instigated by the Duke Cosimo, who desired to complete the work according to Michael Angelo's designs, asking for help and advice,( 146) we gather that Michael Angelo intended to have placed statues in all the niches above the sepulchres, and in the frames above the doors works of painting, stucco for the arches, and painting to adorn the flat walls and semicircular spaces of the chapel.

Michael Angelo, on account of his great age, was unable or unwilling to assist in the work.

The present sarcophagi cannot have been intended to hold the allegorical figures in the way they do, for the under surfaces of the statues do not fit the top of the mouldings, and certainly the rough stones that project over them, forming a base for the feet, must have been intended to be supported by solid marble, and not to rest uneasily on air.