The arts of sculpture and painting, as exercised by him, could not be carried on by assistants; he now perforce had to employ himself upon work in which the execution could be left to younger hands.

He sought the help of scholars to overhaul and set to rights his poems, sonnets, and thoughts in words, as the masons and master-builders expressed his thoughts in architecture--the Dome of St.Peter's, and the cornice of the Farnese Palace.

In the devotional drawings we have mentioned, and an unfinished group in sculpture, the Deposition from the Cross, now behind the High Altar of Santa Maria del Fiore at Florence, we have the only further manifestation of Michael Angelo's genius in his favourite arts.

Many of these drawings appear to be designs for a great picture of the Crucifixion.

He went on executing them long after the death of the Marchioness of Pescara, who first seems to have incited him to this work.
It almost appears to have become a religious exercise with him; they have the same meaning as these last lines of a Sonnet.
Ne pinger ne scolpir fia piu che quieti L' anima volta a quell' Amor divino Ch' aperse, a prender noi, in croce le braccia.
Painting nor sculpture now can lull to rest My soul, that turns to His great love on high, Whose arms to clasp us on the Cross were spread.( 158) [Image #48] THE PIETA OF SANTA MARIA DEL FIORE FLORENCE (_By permission of the Fratelli Alinari Florence_) The marble group of the Deposition is so religious in character that it can be compared with no work of art executed since Michael Angelo's own early work the Pieta, in St.Peter's, the Madonna della Febbre.