The eighth, ninth, and tenth groups, occupying the base of the
composition, are composed, as we have already said, of the bark of
Charon, the grotto of Purgatory, and the Angels of Judgment, eight in
number, blowing their brazen trumpets with all their might to convoke
the dead from the four quarters of the earth.

Finally, in the eleventh group, in the centre, very near the upper part
of the picture, between the two companies of the blessed, and seated
upon the clouds, the sovereign Judge with a terrible action hurls his
malediction upon the condemned: _"Ite maledicti in ignem aeternum."_ The
Virgin turns away her head and trembles. On Christ's right is Adam, and
on his left, St. Peter. They have exactly the same positions assigned to
them by Dante in his _Paradiso_.

This immense work was exhibited to the public on Christmas Day, 1541. It
had cost eight years of work. Michael Angelo was then sixty-seven years
old.

Several anecdotes relating to this great picture have come down to us.

It is related that the Pope, scandalized at the nudity of certain
figures, a nudity which Daniele da Volterra was afterwards charged to
clothe, sent word to Michael Angelo that he must cover them.

Michael Angelo replied with his usual brusqueness:

"Tell the Pope that he must employ himself a little less in correcting
my pictures, which is very easy, and employ himself a little more in
reforming men, which is very difficult."