Note 79 — HENRY FUSELI, Esq. M.A. R.A. (continued 3)

Michael Angelo had finished more than three-fourths of the work, when the Pontiff visited the Chapel, and on inspection, turning to Messer Biagio, of Cesena, then master of ceremonies, in his train, asked him what he thought of the work? The scrupulous prelate replied, that so daring an aggregate of shameless nudities in a sacred place was obscene profanation, and an exhibition fitter for a tavern or a brothel than a papal chapel. Michael Angelo, indignant, and eager to revenge the affront, only waited for his departure, and then, from memory, drew him in the character of Dante's Minos, with a snake encircling his body and gnawing his middle, in the midst of a hillock of fiends. In vain did Messer Biagio supplicate the Pontiff and Michael Angelo to take him out; he remained, and is there still. So far Vasari; but tradition adds, that on Biagio's application, the Pope asked in what part of the picture he was placed, and being answered, in Hell, replied, had you been lodged in Purgatory, you might perhaps have been dismissed, "sed ex Inferno nulla est redemptio." Condivi notices the story not at all.

In the Diary of Paris de' Grassi, Messer Biagio is said to have been appointed master of ceremonies by Leo X. 1518, in the room of Nicola da Viterbo, and, if we believe Ducange, (Table des Auteurs dans le Supplement du Glossaire,) he has written a diary himself.—See Fiorillo, i. p. 389.