But seeing his obstinacy, Michael Angelo set himself to do the work, which to-day is seen in the palace of the Pope, and is the admiration and wonder of the world; it brought him so much fame that it lifted him above all envy.

I will give some brief account of this work.
XXXIV.

The shape of this ceiling is what is commonly called a barrel vaulting, resting on lunettes, six to the length and two to the width of the building, so that the whole formed two squares and a half.

In this space Michael Angelo has depicted, firstly, the creation of the world, and then almost the whole of the Old Testament.

He has divided the work after this fashion: Beginning at the brackets, where the horns of the lunettes rest, up to almost a third of the arch of the vault, the walls appear to continue flat, running up to that height with certain pilasters and plinths imitating marble, which project into the open like a balustrade over an additional storey, with corbels below, and with other little pilasters above the same storey, where sit the prophets and sybils.