When the academicians decreed a catafalque for Michelangelo's solemn obsequies in S. Lorenzo, they did not aim so much at worldly splendour or gorgeous trappings as at an impressive monument, combining the several arts which he had practised in his lifetime.

The princess then passes by as it were a phantom, and after a masque, which he takes for a dream, he is conducted to a room draped in black wherein is placed a catafalque.