THE WORKS OF MICHAEL ANGELO
"Non essendo homo in Italia apto ad expedire una opera di costesta qualità, e necessario che lui solo, e non altro."
Piero Soderini to the Marchese Alberigo Malaspina, Gaye ii. 107.
CHAPTER I
THE RAPE OF DEIANEIRA, OR THE BATTLE OF THE CENTAURS, AND THE ANGEL OF THE SHRINE OF SAINT DOMINIC
All accounts agree as to the precocity of the genius of Michael Angelo, and Piero Soderini vouches for its practical character in the words quoted above. It was not until he had suffered from the procrastination and uncertainty of the patronage of the Popes, that his work took him so long to finish that sometimes it had to be left incomplete. His early works were remarkable, not only for their high finish but also for the expedition with which they were carried out.
Condivi has given us the story of his early difficulties and of his first picture,[60] probably in Michael Angelo's own words; we may supplement this account by the following extract from Vasari, who gathered his information from the gossip of the workshops of Florence, and from Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, the son of his first master. "Michael Angelo grew in power and character so rapidly that Domenico[61] was astonished, seeing him do things quite extraordinary in a youth, for it seemed [pg 98]to him that he not only surpassed the other students, of whom Domenico had a large number, but that he often equalled the work done by him as master. Now, one of the lads who studied under Domenico made a pen-drawing of some women, draped, after Ghirlandaio. Michael Angelo took up the paper, and with a thicker pen went over the outline of one of the women with a new line, correcting it, and making it perfect, so that it is wonderful to see the difference between the two styles, and the ability and judgment of a boy, so spirited and bold that he had the courage to correct his master's handiwork. This drawing is to-day in my possession, valued as a relic. I had it from Granacci to put it in my book of drawings with others given to me by Michael Angelo. In the year 1550, being in Rome, I, Giorgio, showed it to Michael Angelo, who recognised it and was pleased to see it again, saying modestly that he knew more of art as a child than now as an old man.[62] It happened that Domenico was working in the great Chapel of Santa Maria Novella, and one day when he was out Michael Angelo set himself to draw from nature the scaffolding, the tables with all the materials of the art, and some of the young men at work. Presently Domenico returned, and saw Michael Angelo's drawing. He was astonished, saying this boy knows more than I do; and he was stupefied by this style and new realism: a gift from heaven to a child of such tender years."
[pg 99]The first art school of Michael Angelo was the beautiful Church of Santa Maria Novella, called by him affectionately "Mia Sposa." Here, day by day, he beheld the "Last Judgment" of Orcagna, the enthroned figures in the Spanish Chapel, and the solemn blue Madonna, now in the Capella Rucellai, with its little figures of prophets on the frame that are already almost Michael Angelesque. Here he transferred cartoons for Domenico and painted draperies and ornaments; here he mixed colours for fresco painting after the Florentine fashion; and here possibly he first painted on a vault. No certain trace of his handiwork can be identified upon the walls, but there is a nude figure seated upon the steps resting his chin upon his hand in the fresco of the Blessed Virgin going to the Temple, that has a sinister expression and a force of modelling that Domenico does not usually command.
Now Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent, desired to encourage the art of sculpture in Florence; he therefore established a museum of antiquities in his garden near San Marco, and made Bertoldo, the pupil of Donatello and the foreman of his workshop, keeper of the collection, with a special commission to aid and instruct the young men who studied there. Lorenzo requested Domenico Ghirlandaio to select from his pupils those he considered the most promising, and send them to work in the garden. Domenico sent Michael Angelo Buonarroti and Francesco Granacci; possibly he was rather glad to get these talented elements of insubordination out of his workshop. Thus it was that Michael Angelo came under the influence of a pupil and foreman of Donatello. Bertoldo [pg 100]must be considered the instructor of Michael Angelo in his beloved art of sculpture, and the most important influence in shaping his genius. Very little is known of the man upon whom this responsibility was placed, but he appears to have been worthy of it. Vasari tells us that Bertoldo "was old and could not work; that he was none the less an able and highly reputed artist, not only because he had most diligently chased and polished the casts in bronze for the pupils of Donatello his master, but also for the numerous casts in bronze of battle-pieces and other little things, which he had executed of his own; there was no one then in Florence more masterly in such work." We have no important work entirely by Bertoldo, but he must have been a considerable artist or he would not have been appointed to his important post by such a wise man as Lorenzo the Magnificent. His share of the work for the pulpits of San Lorenzo was probably much greater than we are accustomed to think. Vasari's word rinettato had a much wider meaning to him than it has to us, the chasing of a bronze was considered no small part of its quality by the Florentines. Lorenzo Ghiberti's supposed superiority over his competitors for the doors of San Giovanni was more in his superb finish than in anything else. The pulpits in San Lorenzo have something about them that is between the art of Donatello and the art of Michael Angelo; we may even owe a large part of the composition in some of the stories to Bertoldo. Donatello must have needed a man of judgment and ability to carry out the numerous and important commissions that issued from his workshops in his old age. That Michael Angelo studied the pulpits of San Lorenzo is [pg 101]proved by the numerous motives he took from them in after life; the general aspect of the figures strangely suggests the "terribilità" of his style, and the beginnings of several of his motives can be traced to them, such as the Centaurs, the Pietà, and, in the Sistine ceiling, the Adam; the monochrome putti used as Caryatides; the single putto placed at the springing of two arches; the athletes supporting garlands, similar in proportion to the cherubs supporting garlands used for the capitals of columns in the pulpits; two figures for the spaces over the windows. The man with the clean-shaven and bird-like face writing in a book and dressed in trousers tied in at the ankles, like the captive barbarians of Roman art, in one of the semi-circular spaces round the windows, is very like a man standing behind the Madonna who supports the dead Christ in the deposition of the pulpit. Perhaps it is a portrait of old Bertoldo himself. In this panel, too, are horsemen riding animals similar to the ones Michael Angelo drew in his last fresco, The Conversion of Saint Paul. The composition for the scourging of Christ, supplied by Michael Angelo to Sebastiano del Piombo for his wall painting in San Pietro in Montorio, follows the lines of the bas-relief of the same subject on the pulpit. What is more likely than that Bertoldo should have educated his great pupil by directing him to the glories of the last work of his master, Donatello, and that Michael Angelo should have studied them eagerly, particularly if Bertoldo himself was partly responsible for some of the panels, and may have been working upon them at this time.[63]
[pg 102]The pulpits of San Lorenzo were the second school of Michael Angelo, and Bertoldo was his master. No great style ever sprang complete from the brain of its great exponent, but grew and developed from master to pupil until its supreme exponent blazed it before the world full of the traditional fire of his predecessors, but distinctly marked by his own dominant personality. The root of the style of Michael Angelo may be seen in the works of Donatello and in the pulpits of San Lorenzo. His study of the antique,[64] modified by his love of grace, of high finish, and his own powerful character, only had to be added to complete the perfect flower of Florentine art, Michael Angelo, the topmost bloom of the lily.
THE RAPE OF DEIANEIRA AND THE BATTLE OF THE CENTAURS
CASA BUONARROTI, FLORENCE
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari. Florence)
By good fortune, Michael Angelo attracted the notice of Lorenzo the Magnificent, as Condivi has related;[65] and thus at the age of fifteen years he entered the most cultured house in Italy and there acquired that distinction of style that he kept all through his life, both in his art and his manner. In these halcyon days at this hospitable table Michael Angelo met such men as Massilio Ficino, the interpreter of Plato; Pico della Mirandola, the phoenix of erudition; Luigi Pulci and Angelo Poliziano—the latter is supposed to have incited Michael Angelo to carve the bas-relief[66] now in the Casa Buonarroti, [pg 103]called by Condivi "The rape of Deianeira and the battle of the Centaurs." This is the earliest work that we know from the master's hand to which we can give a date; it already shows his double love for the Hellenistic and for the Tuscan styles. The degree of relief is alto-rilievo, like those on the Roman sarcophagi and the pulpits of the Pisani; in shape it is almost as high as it is long; this unusual proportion is similar to some of the divisions of the bronze reliefs in the Donatello pulpits at San Lorenzo. The struggling figures, Centaurs, and Lapithæ, already exhibit Michael Angelo's power over rhythm of line in a crowded composition as in the later groups of "Moses raising the Serpent in the Wilderness," and "The Last Judgment," both in the Sistine Chapel. The method is extraordinarily free for so young a sculptor; he evidently thinks out his work as it proceeds; his delight in the beauty of the male human form is shown in every figure. Some critics have been unable to distinguish the figure of Deianeira, as her form has been so little differentiated or emphasised by the master. She is towards the left of the [pg 104]composition; a man holds her by the hair of her head. The centre figures and the two at the lower corners remind us forcibly of the pulpits of San Lorenzo.
THE ANGEL AT THE SHRINE OF SAINT DOMINIC
BOLOGNA
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
Vasari mentions another bas-relief executed at this period, a seated Madonna with the Infant Jesus, in the manner of Donatello; the inferior bas-relief, now in the Casa Buonarroti, is said to be this work. If the club-shaped feet and thick hands of the Madonna are compared with the beautiful long feet and graceful hands of the angel holding a candlestick, at San Domenico, in Bologna, certainly by Michael Angelo, it cannot be supposed that these two works were either executed or even designed by the same artist. The pose of the Holy Child in the Madonna bas-relief has been arranged by some one who has seen "The Day" on the tomb of Giuliano at San Lorenzo; in the background are children on a stairway, somewhat in the style of Donatello, but they are more like imitations of the later works of Michael Angelo. The folds of the draperies are like the folds of some silken material, whereas the folds of the robe of the angel at San Domenico are large, like the folds of a blanket, a characteristic of all the draperies designed by the master. This bas-relief, now in the Casa Buonarroti, was presented to Cosimo dè Medici, first Grand Duke of Tuscany, by Michael Angelo's nephew Leonardo,[67] as a work by his uncle, but we do not know that Leonardo was a good judge of his uncle's works, and this bas-relief was supposed to have been executed more than fifty years before its presentation; afterwards it came back into the possession of the Buonarroti family, and was presented by [pg 105]them to the city of Florence along with the house in Via Ghibellina.
Michael Angelo, like all young artists who have had the opportunity, drew and studied in the Brancacci Chapel of the Church of the Carmine, containing the frescoes of Masaccio and his followers; the result of these studies may be seen in some of the compositions, and especially in the draperies of the Sistine ceiling. There are two pen-drawings in Vienna that show us the sort of work Michael Angelo did at this time: one represents a kneeling figure, evidently from a picture by Pesellino; the other, two standing figures, that might be after Ghirlandaio. The draperies have been specially studied. Another pen-drawing, in the Louvre, is a careful study from Giotto's fresco of the Resurrection of St. John in the Cappella Peruzzi at Santa Croce.
A gloom was cast over all Italy by the death of Lorenzo de' Medici on April 8, 1492. Michael Angelo lost his best friend and returned to his father's house; here he worked upon a statue of Hercules that stood in the Strozzi Palace until the siege of Florence in 1530, when Giovanni Battista della Palla bought it and sent it into France as a present to the French King. It is lost.
In the year 1495, whilst living with Aldovrandi at Bologna, as Condivi tells us, Michael Angelo, for the sum of thirty ducats, completed the drapery of a San Petronio, begun by Nicolo di Bari on the arca or shrine of San Domenico, and carved the very beautiful and highly finished statuette of an angel holding a candlestick, still to be seen there.[68]
[pg 106]When Michael Angelo returned to Florence a government had been established by Savonarola. No doubt, like all the other citizens, the master listened to the voice of the preacher, but we have no evidence that he was particularly influenced by his teaching, though many of his biographers would have us believe that Savonarola made him Protestant, Lutheran, or what not, according to the sect of the biographer. Michael Angelo loved the sermons of the eloquent Frate as works of art; no doubt, if the prophets of the Sistine could speak, they would preach with the voice of Savonarola.
Michael Angelo set to work and carved a San Giovannino for Lorenzo di Pier Francesco, a cousin of the exiled Medici. The Berlin Museum acquired, in 1880, a marble statue of a young St. John, which had been placed in the palace of the Counts Gualandi Rosselmini, at Pisa, in 1817, and was rediscovered there in 1874. It is supposed to be this San Giovannino by Michael Angelo, though it has nothing of the large quality of Michael Angelo's work. Donatello has been suggested as the author, but it has still less of the square planes and ascetic character of the great Donato. It is a charming, almost a cloying statue. St. John seems to find his honeycomb distinctly sweet.
CHAPTER II
THE BACCHUS, AND THE MADONNA DELLA PIETÀ OF SAINT PETER'S
The story of a Cupid, carved and coloured in imitation of the antique, is given by Condivi.[69] It was the cause of Michael Angelo's first visit to Rome. As soon as he reached the Eternal City he set to work at his sculpture, as the purchase of a piece of marble mentioned in his letter to Pier Francesco de' Medici, sent to Florence under cover to Sandro Botticelli,[70] indicates. During the whole of this very important visit he worked in marble. We have, however, one record of a cartoon by him for a Saint Francis receiving the Stigmata, to be painted by a certain barber; but that is all. He studied the works of antique art and imitated the finish and softness of the Hellenic style: marbles of debased Greek workmanship abound to this day in the Roman collections. Messer Jacopo Gallo, a Roman gentleman and a banker, commissioned a Bacchus, now in the Bargello at Florence, and a Cupid, said to be the statue now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington. Condivi records these commissions.[71] [pg 108]This Bacchus is the least dignified work that Michael Angelo ever executed. Perhaps, like a young artist struggling to get on, he listened too much to the wishes and suggestions of his intelligent patron. The finish and the truth to nature of the unpleasant youth are exquisite. The folds of the skin and the softness of the flesh are perfectly rendered, but the work is repulsive, save for the mischievous little Satyr who steals the grapes; he seems to take us out into the open air, and away from the fumes of the wine shop. Condivi calls the second statue a Cupid,[72] but Springer points out[73] that Ulisse Aldovrandi, who saw the statue in Messer Gallo's house at Rome, talks of an Apollo quite naked, with a quiver at his side and an urn at his feet. The work, Cupid or Apollo, at Kensington, is not so finely finished as the other statues of this first Roman period; the head is like a copy of the head of the David, the division between the pectoral muscles is weak, and their attachments to the breast-bone are round, regular, and without distinction, very different from either the naturalism of the Bacchus, the delicate truth of the Pietà, or the dignified abstraction of the David, done very shortly afterwards. This work at Kensington was discovered some fifty years ago in the cellars of the Gualfonda (Rucellai) Gardens by Professor Miliarini and the sculptor Santarelli. The left arm was broken, the right hand damaged, and the hair unfinished, as may be seen to-day; Santarelli restored the arm. The statue is like the work of a poor imitator. A work by Michael Angelo may easily have been destroyed in troublous times, but can never have been lost and forgotten. He has always had lovers in every age; unlike the [pg 109]primitives and the quattrocentisti, he has never been out of fashion.
Whilst Michael Angelo was working away in Rome he was much troubled by family affairs in Florence. After the expulsion of the Medici in 1495, Lodovico lost his post at the Customs, and his three younger sons appear to have been put into trade. Buonarroto, who was the only sensible one left at home, and dearly loved by Michael Angelo, was born in 1477; he was sent to serve in the Strozzi cloth warehouse in the Porta Rossa. All the noble families of Florence practised some trade, in order that they might share in the Government. Giovan Simone, another brother, born in 1479, led a vagabond life until he joined Buonarroto in a cloth business that was bought for them by Michael Angelo. Sigismondo, born in 1481, was a soldier. At the age of forty he settled down on the small paternal farm at Settignano, and became a mere peasant, very much to the annoyance and chagrin of his famous brother, Michael Angelo, who spent his earnings for the advantage of his brothers, and the advancement of his family, with a kindness and generosity as beautiful as it is rare. Francesca, the mother of Michael Angelo and of the other sons of Lodovico Buonarroti, was married to him in 1472. When she died is not known, but Lodovico married his second wife Lucrezia in 1485. She died childless in 1497, and was buried upon July 9 in the Church of Santa Croce.
In the year 1497 Buonarroto visited Rome, and informed Michael Angelo, the only hope of the family, of their pecuniary troubles. Michael Angelo wrote kindly to his father:
"Domino Lodovico Buonarroti, in Florence.
"In the name of God, the 19th day of August, 1497.
"Dearest Father, &c.—Bonarroto arrived on Friday; as soon as I knew of it I went to seek him at the inn, and he told me by word of mouth how you are doing, and informed me that Consiglio, the mercer, annoys you very much, and will not, by any means, come to an agreement, and that he wishes to have you arrested. I tell you that you must satisfy him and pay him some ducats on account; and whatever you agree to pay him for the balance, send and tell me, and I will send it to you, if you have it not; although I have but little myself, as I have told you, I will contrive to borrow it, so that you need not take money out of the Monte,[74] as Bonarroto says. Do not wonder that I have sometimes written irritably, for I often get very angry, owing to the many annoyances that happen to one away from his home.
"I had an order to do a work for Piero de' Medici and bought the marble; but I never began it because he did not do as he had promised, so I stayed at home and carved a figure for my pleasure. I bought a piece of marble for five ducats; it was not good; the money was thrown away. Afterwards I bought another piece, another five ducats, and worked at it for my pleasure; so you must believe that I also have expenses and troubles, and you must make allowances. I will send you the money, though I should have to sell myself into slavery.
"Buonarroto arrived in safety and has returned to his inn; he has a room; he is all right and lacks nothing for [pg 111]as long as he likes to stay. I have no accommodation for him to stay with me, because I am living in another's house. It suffices that I do not let him want for anything. Well, as I hope you are.
"Michael Angelo, in Rome."
(In the hand of Lodovico.)
"He says he will help me to pay Consiglio."[75]
Nevertheless, Milanesi tells us in a note, Lodovico settled with Consiglio, to whom he owed ninety gold florins, in the way Michael Angelo did not approve and after going to law about it. A letter of Lodovico's refers to the kindness of Michael Angelo in establishing his brothers in the cloth business. It is dated December 19, 1500. "... and more, I know that you have advanced money, and the love you have for your brothers; it is a great consolation to me. About this matter of the money with which you wish to set up Buonarroto and Giansimone in a shop, I have hunted and I am still hunting, but as yet I have not found anything to please me. True it is I have my hands on a good thing, but it is necessary to keep one's eyes open and to take care not to get into difficulties; I want to go slowly and with good counsel, and I will tell you all about it day by day. Buonarroto tells me how you live yonder, very economically, or rather penuriously; economy is good, but penuriousness is evil, for it is a vice displeasing to God and man, and, moreover, it is bad for the body and soul. Whilst you are young you will be able to bear these hardships for a time, but when the strength of youth fails you, disease and infirmities will develop, for they are engendered by hardship, mean living, and penurious [pg 112]habits. As I said, economy is good. But, above all, do not be penurious; live moderately and do not stint yourself; above all things avoid hardships, because in your art, if you fall ill (which God forbid), you are a lost man; above all things have a care of your head, keep it moderately warm, and never wash; have yourself rubbed down, but never wash. Buonarroto also tells me that you have a swelling on your side; it comes from hardship or fatigue, or from eating something bad and windy, or suffering the feet to be cold or damp. I have had one myself, and it still troubles me when I eat windy food, or when I endure cold or such like things. Our Francesco formerly had one, too, and also Gismondo similarly. Be careful about it because it is dangerous."
The name of Michael Angelo's good friend, Jacopo Gallo, appears in the agreement drawn up concerning the crowning work of this the first Roman period, the Pietà, called the Madonna della Febbre, first placed in the Chapel of Santa Petronilla, and now in the Chapel of Santa Maria della Febbre, on the right of the entrance to St. Peters, in Rome. The commission for this work was given by the Cardinal Jean de la Grostaye de Villiers François, Abbot of St. Denis, called in Italy Cardinal di San Dionigi. It is dated August 26, 1498.
THE MADONNA BELLA PIETÀ
SAINT PETER'S, ROME
(By permission, of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
"Be it known and manifest to whoso shall read the ensuing document, how the Most Reverend Cardinal of San Dionigi has agreed with the master, Michael Angelo, sculptor of Florence, that the said master shall make a Pietà of marble at his own cost; that is, a Virgin Mary clothed, with the dead Christ in her arms, of the size of a proper [pg 113]man, for the price of four hundred and fifty golden Papal ducats, within the term of one year from the day of the beginning of the work" (the Cardinal agrees to pay certain sums in advance). The contract concludes: "And I, Jacopo Gallo, promise to his Most Reverend Monsignore that the said Michael Angelo will finish the said work within one year, and that it shall be the most beautiful work in marble which Rome to-day can show, and that no master of our days shall be able to produce a better. And similarly I promise the said Michael Angelo that the Most Reverend Cardinal will disburse the payments as written above; and in good faith, I, Jacopo Gallo, have made the present writing with my own hand, according to date of year, month, and day, as above."[76]
Jacopo's boast and promise were justified, for even now there is no finer complete work of sculpture in the whole of Rome than the Pietà at St. Peter's. It is said that Michael Angelo overheard certain Lombards ascribe the Pietà to their own sculptor, Cristoforo Solari, called "Il Gobbo." He therefore carved his name upon the belt of the Madonna's robe. He never signed any other work. Nothing closes the great period of the fifteenth century so fitly as the Pietà of Michael Angelo, prophesying at the same time the power of the art of the sixteenth.
CHAPTER III
THE DAVID AND THE CARTOON OF PISA
Family affairs recalled Michael Angelo to Florence in the spring of 1501. He returned full of honours gained in Rome, and took up his position as the first sculptor of the day. His next commission came from Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius III. A contract was signed on June 5, 1501, by which Michael Angelo agreed to complete some fifteen statues of male saints within the time of three years, for the Piccolomini Chapel, in the Duomo of Siena. A Saint Francis was begun by Piero Torrigiano, and may have been finished by Michael Angelo. The rest of the four works that were the outcome of this commission can have had nothing to do with the chisel of the sculptor of the Madonna della Febbre and the David. Michael Angelo must have merely contracted to supply them, as the master sculptor of a sculptor's yard, possibly furnishing the designs himself. There is a drawing at the British Museum of a bearded saint, cowled and holding a book in his left hand, which may be a design for one of these inferior works.
DAVID
THE ACADEMY, FLORENCE
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari Florence)
DAVID
IN THE PIAZZA
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
SAINT MATTHEW
THE COURT OF THE ACADEMY, FLORENCE
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
In August of the same year, 1501, Michael Angelo began the colossal statue of David, that used to stand in the Piazza and is now in the Academy at Florence. The first contract for this work, signed between Michael [pg 115]Angelo, the Arte della Lana, and the Opera del Duomo, is dated August 16, 1501. It states "That the worthy master, Michael Angelo, son of Lodovico Bonarroti, citizen of Florence, has been chosen to fashion, complete, and perfectly finish the male statue, already rough hewn and called the giant, of nine cubits in height,[77] now existing in the workshop of the Cathedral, badly blocked out afore-time by Master Agostino,[78] of Florence. The work shall be completed within the term of the next ensuing two years, dating from September, at a salary of six golden florins[79] per month; and whatever is needful for the accomplishment of this task, as workmen, wood, &c., which he may require, shall be supplied him by the said Operai; and when the said statue is finished, the Consuls and Operai, who shall be in office, shall estimate whether he deserve a larger recompense, and this shall be left to their consciences." Michael Angelo began to work in a wooden shed, erected for that purpose near the Cathedral, on Monday morning, September 13, 1501, and the "David" is said to be almost entirely finished in a note, dated January 25, 1503,[80] when a solemn council of the most important artists, then resident in Florence, met at the Opera del Duomo to consider where the statue should be placed. What an original way of deciding æsthetic questions! They came to the admirable conclusion that the choice of the site should be left to Michael Angelo. Amongst those who spoke at the meeting were Francesco Monciatto, a wood carver, who suggested that the statue [pg 116]should be erected in front of the Duomo, where the block was originally meant to be set up; he was supported by the painters Cosimo Rosselli and Sandro Botticelli. Giuliano da San Gallo proposed to place it under the Loggia dei Lanzi, because "the imperfection of the marble, which is softened by exposure to the air, renders the durability of the statue doubtful." Messer Angelo de Lorenzo Manfidi (second herald) objected because it would break the order of certain ceremonies held in the Loggia. Leonardo da Vinci followed San Gallo; he did not think it would injure the ceremonies. Salvestro, a jeweller, and Filippino Lippi supported Piero di Cosimo, who proposed that the precise spot should be left to the sculptor who made it, "as he will know better how it should be." Michael Angelo elected to have his David set up on the steps of the Palazzo Vecchio, on the right side of the entrance. Its effect in that position may be well seen, appropriately enough, in a picture by the same Piero di Cosimo (No. 895), in the National Gallery, where the Piazza della Signoria forms the background to a portrait of a man in armour. Il Cronaca, Antonio da San Gallo, Baccio d'Agnolo, Bernardo della Cecca, and Michael Angelo were associated in the task of transporting the giant from the workshop near the Duomo to the Piazza della Signoria. It was encased in planks and suspended upright from great beams. "On May 14, 1504, the marble giant was dragged from the Opera. It came out at twenty-four o'clock, and they broke the wall above the door enough to let it pass. That night some stones were thrown at the Colossus with intent to injure it; a watch had to be set over it at night, and it made way very slowly, bound as it was upright, suspended so that the feet were off the ground by enormous [pg 117]beams with much ingenuity. It took four days to reach the Piazza, arriving on the 18th at the hour of twelve. More than forty men were employed to make it go, and there were fourteen logs to go beneath it, which were changed from hand to hand. Afterwards they worked until June 8, 1504, to place it on a pedestal where the Judith used to stand. The Judith was removed and set upon the ground within the palace. The said giant was the work of Michael Angelo Buonarroti."[81] The great marble David stood in the Piazza three hundred and sixty-nine years; it was removed to the hall of the Accademia delle Belle Arti in 1873 for its better preservation. It has suffered very little from its exposure in the fine air of Florence, but the left arm was broken by a huge stone thrown during the tumults of 1527. Giorgio Vasari and his friend Cecchino Salviati collected the broken pieces and brought them to the house of Michael Angelo Salviati, father of Cecchino. They were carefully put together and restored to the statue in 1543. The David was the first work by Michael Angelo that displayed the awe-inspiring quality known as his Terribilità; from the fierce frown of the brow to the sharp, strained forms of the feet and toes there is an expression of strenuous force struggling against an almost overwhelming power. The force of the David may succeed against Goliath; but in Michael Angelo's later works the struggle always appears to be a hopeless one, nobly as his Titans fight against fate and omnipotence. The face of the David is a development of the Saint George of Or San Michele, by Donatello, and the figure is of the same type, only this triumphant boy of Michael Angelo's shows a more exact study of the antique than the naturalistic [pg 118]work of his master. In Donatello the planes are given as flat, and their junctions are sharp and hard; in Michael Angelo they are carefully rounded and finished with the grace of the antique and of life. The details of the head, although so high up, are so absolutely perfect that the separate features have been, and are still, the models set before all students of art when they first begin to study the human figure, and they are known as the nose, the eye, the ear, and the mouth. We have noticed that the young student is more interested in his work when he is told that they are the features of the David. Michael Angelo carved his giant without modelling a full-size clay figure first, but with the guidance of drawings and small wax models about eighteen inches high only, carving the figure out of the block in the way that is so well seen in the unfinished Saint Matthew in the court of the Accademia delle Belle Arti, in Florence. There are two small wax models of the David in the Casa Buonarroti at Florence, said to be Michael Angelo's designs for this figure, but they are of very doubtful authority. Later in his life he is said to have worked from full-sized models, as Benvenuto Cellini tells us in his Trattati dell' Oreficeria, &c.[82] Vasari tells the story of how Michael Angelo contented the Gonfaloniere and silenced his criticism of the David: "While still surrounded by the scaffolding Pier Soderini inspected the statue, which pleased him immensely, and when Michael Angelo was re-touching it in parts, Soderini said to him that the nose appeared to him too big. Michael Angelo, knowing that the Gonfaloniere was close under the statue and that from this point of view the truth was not to be discerned, mounted the scaffolding, [pg 119]which was as high as the shoulder of the giant, and quickly took a chisel in his left hand with a little of the marble dust from the platform and began to let fall a little of it at each touch of the tool, but he did not alter the nose from what it was before; then he looked down to the Gonfaloniere, who stood watching below: 'Look at it now,' said Michael Angelo. 'I like it better. You have given it life,' said the Gonfaloniere," rubbing the dust out of his eyes.
On August 12, 1502, Michael Angelo undertook another commission for the Republic—another giant David. This time it was to be in bronze, two cubits and a quarter in height; in the casting he was to be assisted by Benedetto da Rovezzano. It has been suggested that the pen and ink drawing in the Louvre is a design for this second David, but the drawing of an arm on the same sheet is so like the right arm of the first David that it is more probably an early idea for the first David, in which we see that Michael Angelo's design needed more room than the cramped block of marble allowed; it makes us wonder the more at the marvellous freedom of action that he managed to get out of the cramped stone. The bronze David was intended for the French statesman, Pierre de Rohan, Maréchal de Gié, as a present from the Florentine Republic, but before it was finished the Maréchal fell into disgrace and could be of no further use to the Florentines. The Signory therefore determined to send the bronze to Florimond Robertet, Secretary of Finance to the French King. A minute of the Signory dated November 6, 1508, informs us that the bronze David, weighing about 800 pounds, had been "packed in the name of God," and sent [pg 120]to Signa on its way to Leghorn. Florimond Robertet placed it in the courtyard of his château of Bury, near Blois. It remained there for more than a hundred years, then it was removed to the château of Villeroy, and disappeared no one knows whither.
On April 24, 1503, the Consuls of the Arte della Lana and the Operai of the Duomo ordered Michael Angelo to carve out of Carrara marble twelve Apostles, each four and a quarter cubits high, to be placed inside the church. One was to be finished each year, the Operai paying all expenses, including the cost of living for the sculptor and his assistants, and paying him two golden florins a month. They built a house and workshops for him in the Borgo Pinti; it was designed by Il Cronaca. Michael Angelo lived there rent free until it was evident that the contract could not be carried out. He then hired it on a lease, but on June 15, 1508, the lease of the house was transferred to Sigismondo Martelli. The St. Matthew, now in the courtyard of the Accademia delle Belle Arti, in Florence, is the only work we know of resulting from this commission. The apostle is just emerging from the marble, and shows us Michael Angelo's method of work. Vasari says: "At this time he also began a statue in marble of San Matteo in the works of Santa Maria del Fiore, which, though but roughly hewn, shows his perfections, and teaches sculptors how to carve figures from the stone without maiming them, always gaining ground by cutting away the waste stone, and being able to draw back or alter in case of need." The deep chisel marks in the stone are sometimes as much as four inches long, and their directions indicate that Michael Angelo worked equally well [pg 121]with either hand, a fact confirmed by Raffaello de Montelupo in his "Autobiographie."[83] "Here I may mention that I am in the habit of drawing with my left hand, and that once, at Rome, while I was sketching the arch of Trajan from the Colosseum, Michael Angelo and Sebastiano del Piombo, both of whom were naturally left-handed (although they did not work with the left hand excepting when they wished to use great strength), stopped to see me, and expressed great wonder."
THE MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH THE CHILD SAINT JOHN
THE BARGELLO, FLORENCE
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
The Florentine love of bas-relief explains to some extent their extreme devotion to the tondo, or circular shape, in paintings and in sculptures. According to Vasari, it was at this time that Michael Angelo carved two tondi: one for Bartolommeo Pitti, now in the Bargello at Florence, and the other for Taddeo Taddei, now at Burlington House, in the Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy, London. It was acquired by Sir George Beaumont, and is the most valuable work the Academy possesses. If it were in an out-of-the-way palace in Florence many of us would see it more frequently than we do now, although we have only to climb a few steps to visit this glorious work any day we are in Piccadilly. Both of these reliefs represent the Madonna and Child, with the child St. John. The one in the Bargello appears to be the earlier; the composition is very beautiful and simple, and fills the circular space admirably. The Madonna is seated facing the spectator, and looks out full towards him with an enigmatical expression on her proud features; the Child stands beside her, His elbow on her knee, as in the Bruges Madonna. The St. John is only roughly cut, but the movement and forms are so well realised under the marble that one does [pg 122]not wish for any further finish. In the Royal Academy tondo the Madonna is seated more to the side of the circle, and is in profile; the Child reclines upon her knee, clinging to her arm, startled but interested by the little bird St. John has brought to show Him (a favourite motive with Italian artists). The head and shoulders of the Madonna and the torso of the Child Jesus are the only parts that are near completion, yet the whole group is so much there that we do not ask for another touch; in fact, the works of Michael Angelo were finished from the very first strokes. The rough charcoal drawing upon the block of marble, could we see it, would have been complete to us, only Michael Angelo could add anything to it; and so it is with every fragment of stone or other piece of work by his hand, from the lightest charcoal drawing to the great marble fragments in the grotto of the Boboli Gardens. They are complete to us; the thing he thought is there, and the art is there, and we are satisfied.
THE HOLY FAMILY
THE UFFIZI, FLORENCE
(Reproduced by permission from a photograph by Sig. D. Anderson, Rome)
Another tondo executed about this time is the painting now in the Uffizi, the only easel picture known with certainty to be by the hand of Michael Angelo. This Holy Family, with naked shepherds in the background, was painted for Angelo Doni, the same man whose portrait was painted by Raphael. Vasari says that Michael Angelo asked seventy ducats for the work, but that Doni only offered forty when the picture was delivered. Michael Angelo sent word that he must pay a hundred or send back the picture. Doni offered the original seventy; but Michael Angelo replied that if he was bent on bargaining, he should not pay less than one hundred and forty. In this composition the Madonna is seated upon the ground, forming a pyramid, of which the heads of Joseph and the [pg 123]Child form the apex; her lithe and strong form has a Greek loveliness as she turns quickly and receives the beautiful Child on to her shoulder from the arms of Joseph. Never in any painting have the drawing and modelling of the human figure been so perfectly executed as in the figure of this Child and the arms of the Madonna; the hands and feet are modelled with the delicacy of a Flemish miniature, and at the same time have a beauty and suavity of modelling and a magnificent choice of line altogether Italian. On either side of the central triangle the spaces between it and the circumference of the tondo are filled by the introduction of the infant St. John and some nude shepherds; the landscape background is austere as the mountain tops of some primeval world where such titanic beings as these of Michael Angelo's alone could dwell. The old painters loved to decorate their Madonna pictures with all the most beautiful things they could think of, or most loved. The Florentines with fair and pleasant gardens; the Umbrians with spacious colonnades, distant landscapes, and rare skies; the Venetians with fruits and garlands of foliage and fruit, and even vegetables, if they had a particular regard for them, as Crivelli had for the cucumber. One painter only before this time decorated his pictures with nude human figures, Luca Signorelli. Michael Angelo may have seen a Madonna of his, with two nude figures in the background, executed for Lorenzo de' Medici, and now hung in the Gallery of the Uffizi. Michael Angelo, who knew the beauty of the human form better than any one, would never be content to decorate his tondo with any less beautiful offering after seeing this picture by Signorelli. The tondo form was a favourite one with Signorelli. His [pg 124]two pictures of this shape in Florence perhaps helped Michael Angelo in the three compositions we have been considering; and this is the only debt Michael Angelo owes to the Umbrian painter. Their way of looking at the nude and their ideals of its beauty are so absolutely different, the one from the other, that possibly the Florentine could hardly bear to look at the work of the Umbrian.
THE CARTOON OF PISA
FROM THE MONOCHROME AT HOLKHAM HALL
(By permission of the Earl of Leicester)
In August 1504, Michael Angelo was commissioned to prepare cartoons for the decoration of a wall in the Sala del Gran Consiglio in the Palazzo Vecchio, opposite the wall for which Leonardo da Vinci was already preparing designs. Michael Angelo had a workshop given him in the Hospital of the Dyers at San Onofrio, under the date October 31, 1504; a minute of expenditure shows that paper for the cartoon was provided. Leonardo's design was the famous "Fight for the Standard." Michael Angelo chose an episode from the war with Pisa, when, on July 28, 1364, a band of four hundred Florentines were surprised bathing in the Arno by Sir John Hawkwood (Giovanni Acuto) and his cavalry, then in the service of the Pisans, a subject that enabled Michael Angelo to express his delight in the beauty of the human form, and his power of drawing and foreshortening the naked limbs of the bathers as they hurry out of the river and don their armour at the sound of the alarm. This great central work of Michael Angelo's prime has disappeared, and we must be very careful in studying it to allow for the weakness of the work of the copyists and engravers who preserved what little record of it is left for us, especially in the drawing of the nude. If we compare the vault of the Sistine Chapel with the contemporary [pg 125]engravings we shall be able to estimate the enormous difference between the cartoon, which may have been the greatest work of art produced in Italy, and the copies of it that exist. The most complete copy of the cartoon is the monochrome painting belonging to the Earl of Leicester, at Holkham Hall. There is a sketch of the whole composition in the Albertina Gallery at Vienna, and the line engraving by Marc Antonio Raimondi of three principal figures with a foolish Italian rendering of a German engraved landscape in the background, utterly destroying what little Michael Angelesque dignity the engraver was able to get into the figures, with his poor knowledge of the nude. The best remnants we have are some few of Michael Angelo's own studies from the nude, done especially for this composition; they are full of the power, vigour, and naturalism peculiar to this period, rude forms hacked out of the paper with a broad pen, altered with charcoal, chalk, white paint, or anything handy and effective; from them we must try and imagine the power, breadth and dignity of the great composition. The work was done upon ordinary paper, stretched over canvas or linen fixed on a wooden frame, like the few cartoons by the great masters that have come down to us. The outlines were usually pricked, and when finished the cartoon was cut into convenient sizes for pouncing on the wall or other foundation upon which the picture was to be painted, unless the artist took the precaution of putting a plain piece of paper under the original drawing and pricking both together and transferring the outlines by the aid of the second sheet. These cut-up cartoons became the property of the whole workshop, and were used by the pupils when they wished. No doubt the roughness of [pg 126]this treatment soon destroyed many of them. Vasari, who cannot have seen the Cartoon of Pisa, gives us a long, enthusiastic description of it, ending with some helpful notes as to the materials with which it was drawn, and an account of its effect upon contemporary artists. He continues: "In addition, you discovered groups of figures sketched in various methods, some outlined with charcoal, some shaded with lines, some rubbed in, some heightened with white-lead, the master having sought to prove his empire over all materials of draughtsmanship.[84] The craftsmen of design remained therewith astonished and dumbfounded, recognising the fullest reaches of their art revealed to them by this unrivalled masterpiece. Those who examined the forms I have described, painters who inspected and compared them with works hardly less divine, affirm that never in the history of human achievement was any product of man's brain seen like to them in mere supremacy. And certainly we have the right to believe this; for when the cartoon was finished and carried to the hall of the Pope, amid the acclamation of all artists and to the exceeding fame of Michael Angelo, the students who made drawings from it, as happened with foreigners and natives through many years in Florence, became men of mark in several branches. This is obvious, for Aristotele da San Gallo worked there, as did Ridolfo Grillandaio, Rafael Santio da Urbino, Francesco Granaccio, Baccio Bandinelli, and Alonso [pg 127]Berugetta, the Spaniard; they were followed by Andrea del Sarto, il Franciabigio, Jacomo Sansovino, il Rosso, Maturino, Lorenzetto, Tribolo (then a boy), Jacomo da Puntormo, and Pierin del Vaga, all of them first-rate masters of the Florentine school."
Benvenuto Cellini's account is important, for he himself copied the cartoon in 1513 just before it disappeared. He says: "Michael Angelo portrayed a number of foot soldiers, who, the season being summer, had gone to bathe in the Arno. He drew them at the moment the alarm is sounded, and the men, all naked, rush to arms. So splendid is their action, that nothing survives of ancient or of modern art which touches the same lofty point of excellence; and, as I have already said, the design of the great Leonardo was itself most admirably beautiful. These two cartoons stood, one in the Palace of the Medici, the other in the hall of the Pope. So long as they remained intact they were the school of the world. Though the divine Michael Angelo in later life finished that great chapel of Pope Julius, he never rose half-way to the same pitch of power; his genius never afterwards attained to the force of those first studies."
These years spent under the shadow of the Duomo, away from which no Florentine is happy, working at his sculptures and drawings, were probably some of the happiest years of Michael Angelo's whole life.
CHAPTER IV
THE FIRST ACT OF THE TRAGEDY OF THE TOMB
MOSES
THE TOMB OF JULIUS II. SAN PIETRO IN VINCOLI, ROME
(By permission of Sig. Giacomo Brogi, Florence)
The cartoon, The Apostles for the Duomo, and all these works, had to be left unfinished, as Michael Angelo was summoned to Rome in the beginning of 1505 by Pope Julius II. From this period Michael Angelo was the servant, often the unwilling servant, of the Popes (his Medusa as he said). Much of his time was wasted owing to the different dispositions and likings of his patrons, yet we must be thankful to them for the opportunities they gave him in their great undertakings. Now began what Condivi called "The Tragedy of the Tomb"; the phrase is so apt that we imagine he must have got it from Michael Angelo himself. Julius appears to have appreciated his artist from the first; both were what the Italians call uomini terribili, men whose brains worked with furious energy, grand and formidable in their imaginations. Michael Angelo was packed off to Carrara for marble as soon as his design was approved. There is a contract signed by him and two shipowners of Lavagna, dated November 18, 1505. Thirty-four cartloads of marble were then ready for shipment, together with two blocked-out figures. He probably left Carrara soon afterwards, returning to Rome by way of Florence. The only authoritative account of the original project of the Tomb is that [pg 129]of Condivi; Vasari's account was not published until his second edition in 1558. The architectural drawings, said to be designs for this Tomb, are of doubtful authenticity; most of them are certainly not by Michael Angelo. We must therefore study Condivi, who probably got the details from Michael Angelo himself, though he, too, must have had great difficulty in recalling the ideas of forty-eight years ago.[85] The plans for the new church of St. Peter's, the largest church in Christendom, were altered to embrace this huge monument, but a transept of the little church of San Pietro in Vincoli gave ample space for the final scheme, when it was set up in 1545. The only statues we know belonging to it by Michael Angelo are the Moses and the two bound Slaves in the Louvre; the other six statues in San Pietro in Vincoli were finished by assistants. The unfinished marble figures so unworthily housed in the stupid rock-work grotto of the Boboli Gardens, Florence, may have been for the Tomb, although their measurements do not agree with the Slaves of the Louvre. How well these superlative fragments would look in the corners of the Loggia dei Lanzi, or in the courtyard of the Bargello. In the Bargello two groups, the Victory and the Dying Adonis, may have been originally intended for the Tomb, but we believe they have been finished and considerably altered by some later workman; possibly they were only blocked out by Michael Angelo. The movement of the figure and the position of the head have been altered [pg 130]in the Victory, and the whole subject of the Adonis has been changed by the introduction of the insignificant boar. Vasari tells us that in his time there were, besides the Moses, Victory, and two Slaves, eight figures blocked out by Michael Angelo at Rome, and five at Florence; possibly these five at Florence were the four in the Boboli Gardens and an earlier state of the Adonis.
After his flight from Rome in 1506 Michael Angelo had some six months at Florence, working on his cartoon in the workshop at the Spedale dei Tintori. When he went to Julius at Bologna in November it was finished, and was exhibited in the Sala del Papa at Santa Maria Novella. All this time Bramante and his set had the Pope's ear in Rome. He has been accused of suggesting that Michael Angelo should paint the vault of the Sistine Chapel, in the hope that he would ignominiously fail in such an unusual task; but we do not think we can thank Bramante even for that indirect service, for Michael Angelo's friend, Pietro Rosselli, wrote on May 6, 1506:—
TWO OF THE UNFINISHED MARBLE STATUES IN THE GROTTO OF THE BOBOLI GARDENS, FLORENCE
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
"Dearest in place of a brother, after salutations and kind regards:—I inform you how on Saturday evening, when the Pope was at supper, I showed him certain designs that Bramante and I had to examine. When the Pope had supped and I had showed them to him, he sent for Bramante and said to him: 'Sangallo goes to Florence and will bring Michael Angelo back with him.' Bramante replied to the Pope, and said: 'Holy Father, he will do no such thing, because I know Michael Angelo well enough, and he has told me many a time that he will not undertake the Chapel, which you wanted to put upon him; and that he intended to apply himself to sculpture [pg 131]all the time and not to painting.' And he said: 'Holy Father, I believe that he has not courage enough for it, because he has not painted many figures, and especially as these will be high up and foreshortened; and that is quite another thing to painting on the ground.' Then the Pope replied, and said: 'If he does not come he will do me wrong, so I think he will return anyhow.' Upon this I up and abused him soundly there in the presence of the Pope; and said what I believe you would have said for me, so that he did not know what to reply, and he seemed to think he had made a mistake. And I said further: 'Holy Father, he has never spoken to Michael Angelo, and as to what he has now told you, if it be true may you cut my head off, for he never did speak to Michael Angelo; and I believe he will return by all means, whenever your Holiness desires.' And so the thing ended. I have nothing more to tell you. God keep you from harm. If I can do anything for you let me know; I will do it willingly. Remember me to Simone il Pollaiuolo."[86]
Bramante was not far wrong in what he said about vault painting. He alluded to the method of foreshortening employed by his fellow countryman, Melozzo da Forli, by which he made figures painted on domes and vaults look as if they were suspended in the air really above the spectators, and not simply a pattern painted on the surface of the plaster; this method was perfected by Correggio, but was never practised successfully by a Florentine.
CHAPTER V
THE COLOSSAL BRONZE FOR THE FAÇADE OF SAN PETRONIO
The Pope entered Bologna in triumph on November 11, 1506, after the marvellous campaign by which he restored two rich provinces to the Church with only five hundred men-at-arms and his twenty-four Cardinals. Less than ten days afterwards he inquired for his artist. The Cardinal of Pavia wrote an autograph letter to the Signory of Florence on the 21st, urgently requesting that they would despatch Michael Angelo immediately to that town, inasmuch as the Pope was impatient for his arrival, and wanted to employ him on important works. On November 27 Soderini wrote to the Cardinal of Pavia introducing Michael Angelo and praising the cartoon the artist had to leave unpainted, and to the Cardinal of Volterra more formally as follows:—
"The bearer will be Michael Angelo, the sculptor, whom we send to please and satisfy his Holiness our Lord. We certify your Lordship that he is a worthy young man, and in his own art without a peer in Italy; perhaps also in the universe. We cannot recommend him too highly. He is of such a nature, that with good words and kindness one can make him do anything. Show him love and show him kindness, and he will do things that will make all who see [pg 133]them wonder. We inform your Lordship that he has begun a story for the Republic which will be admirable, and also XII Apostles, each 4-1/2 to 5 braccia high, which will be remarkable. We recommend him to your lordship as much as we can.
"The XXVII of November, 1506."[87]
Michael Angelo says in his letter to Fattucci[88] that the portrait he now modelled of Pope Julius was in bronze, sitting, about seven cubits in height.[89] At the end of the two years that it took him to finish the work he had to cast it twice. He says. "I found that I had four and a half ducats left. I never received anything more for this work; and all the moneys paid out during the said two years were the 1000 ducats with which I promised to cast it." Michael Angelo worked in the Stanza del Pavaglione behind the Cathedral; he employed three assistants, from Florence—Lapo Antonio di Lapo, a sculptor; Lodovico del Buono, called Lotti, a founder; and Pietro Urbano, a man who worked for him for a long time. His way of life was frugal and sordid in the extreme. In his letter to his brother Buonarroto he says[90]:—
"With regard to Giovansimone coming here, I do not advise it as yet, for I am lodged in one wretched room, and have bought one single bed, in which we all four of us sleep. And I shall not be able to receive him suitably. But if he will come all the same, let him wait till I have [pg 134]cast the figure I am doing, and I will send away Lapo and Lodovico who are helping me, and I will send him a horse so that he may come decently and not like a beggar. No more. Pray to God for me that things may go well.
"Michael Angelo, Sculptor, in Bologna."
Another letter tells of a visit from the Pope, troubles with his workmen, and his usual generosity to his brothers and father.
"To Buonarroto di Lodovico Simone, in Firenze[91]
"To be delivered at the shop of Strozzi, wool merchant, in the street of the Porta Rossa.
"Buonarroto,—I hear by one of yours how things went about the little farm; it is a great comfort to me and pleases me well, if it is a sure thing. Of the affairs of Baronciello I am well informed, and from what I understand it is a much more serious thing than you make out; and for my part, it not being to my taste, I do not ask it. We are all obliged to do all we can for Baronciello, and so we will, especially everything that is in our power. You must know that on Friday evening at twenty-one o'clock Pope Julius came to my house where I work, and stayed about half an hour while I was at work; then he gave me the benediction, and went away, and showed himself well pleased with what I am doing. For all this we must thank God heartily; and so I beg you to do, and pray for me. I inform you further, how that on Friday morning I sent away Lapo and Lodovico, who were with me. Lapo I dismissed because he is good for nothing and a rogue, and would not serve me. Lodovico is better, and I would [pg 135]have kept him another two months; but Lapo, so as not to be the only one blamed, so corrupted him that they both had to go. I write this not because I care for them, for they are not worth three halfpence between them, but because, if they come to talk to Lodovico, he must not be surprised. Tell him by no means to lend them his ears; and if you want to know about them go to Messer Agnolo, the Herald of the Signoria, for I have written all the story to him, and he, out of his kindness, will relate it to you. Of Giovansimone I have heard. I shall be pleased if he goes to the shop of your master and is careful to do his best; and so comfort him, because, if all goes well, I have hopes of placing you both in a good position, if you will be discreet. About that land which is beside that of Mona [92] Zanobia, if Lodovico likes it, tell him to see about it and let me know. I think, according to what is rumoured here, the Pope will leave about the time of Carnival.
"The first day of February, 1506.
"Michael Angelo di Lodovico
"di Buonarrota Simoni,
"Sculptor, in Bologna."
Notwithstanding this warning, the silly old man, his father, wrote a scolding letter to his son about the workmen. Michael Angelo's humble reply was dated February 8, 1507.[93]
"Most Revered Father,—I have received a letter from you to-day, from which I learn that you have been talked to by Lapo and Lodovico. I am glad that you [pg 136]should rebuke me, because I deserve to be rebuked as a miserable sinner, as much as any one, perhaps more. But you must know that I have not been guilty in this affair for which you blame me now."
He goes on to explain his dealings with the rogue Lapo. There is also trouble about a sword-hilt[94] Michael Angelo had designed for Pietro Aldobrandini. However, Aldobrandini objected that the blade was too short. Michael Angelo affirmed that it was ordered exactly to the measure sent, and bade his brother present it to Filippo Strozzi as a compliment from the Buonarroti family; but the stupid fellow bungled it in some way, for Michael Angelo writes to say that he is sorry "he behaved so scurvily towards Filippo in so trifling an affair."
Michael Angelo must have spent his spare time in studying the bas-reliefs by Jacopo della Quercia upon the façade of San Petronio, for he used many of the motives in his next great work, the Sistine vault. When the wax model of the statue of Pope Julius was ready, Michael Angelo sent to Florence for the ordnance founder to the Republic, Maestro dal Ponte, of Milan, to cast it for him. This master's leave of absence was signed on May 15, 1507. Just before the casting Michael Angelo wrote to Buonarroto:—
"To Buonarroto di Lodovico Simoni, in Florence, at the Shop of Lorenzo Strozzi, Wool Merchant, in Porta Rossa, Florence.
"Buonarroto,—I have received yours by the hand of Master Bernardo, who has arrived; by it I hear all are [pg 137]well except Giovansimone, who has not yet recovered. I am very sorry, and it grieves me not to be able to help him. But soon I hope to be with you, and I will do something that will please him, and you others, too. Therefore comfort him and tell him to be of good cheer. Tell Lodovico also that about the middle of next month I hope to cast my figure without fail; therefore, if he will offer prayers, or anything else for its good success, let him do so betimes, and say I beg this of him. I have no time to write more. Things go well.
"The twenty-sixth day of May (1507).
"Michael Angelo, in Bologna."[95]
At last, on July 1, it is done, but done badly; and he writes:—
To the same.
"Buonarroto,—We have cast my figure, and it has come out so badly that I truly believe I shall have to do it all again. I cannot write all the particulars, because I have other things to think of. Enough that it has come badly. Thanks be to God all the same, because I believe everything is for the best. Before long I shall know what I have to do and will write to you. Tell Lodovico about it, and be of good cheer. And if it should be that I have to do it all again, and that I am not able to return to you, I will find means somehow to do what I have promised in the best way I can.
"The first day of July.
"Michael Angelo, in Bologna."[96]
[pg 138]He gives further details in his next letter:—
"Buonarroto,—Understand how that we have cast my figure. I have not had much luck in it; for Master Bernardino, either by ignorance or misfortune, did not sufficiently melt the bronze. How it happened would be long to tell; it is enough that my figure has come out up to the girdle; the rest of the stuff, that is to say the metal, remained in the furnace; it was not melted; so that to get it out I shall have the furnace taken to pieces, and that I am doing now, and I will have it remade again this week. Next week I will recast the upper part and finish filling the mould, and I believe that this bad business will go very well, but not without the greatest devotion, labour, and expense. I would have believed that Master Bernardino could have cast it without fire, so much faith had I in him; all the same, it is not that he is not a good master and that he did not work with a will. But he who fails, fails. And he has failed enough to my loss and his own, for he blames himself so much that he cannot lift his eyes in Bologna. If you see Baccio d'Agnolo read him this letter and ask him to tell San Gallo, at Rome, and remember me to him and to Giovanni da Ricasoli, and to Granaccio give my respects. I hope, if the thing goes well, in from fifteen to twenty days to be through with it and to return to you. If it should not go well, I should perhaps have to do it again. I will tell you all. Let me know how Giovansimone is.
"The sixth day of July. (No signature.)
"With this will be a letter to go to Rome for Giuliano da San Gallo. Send it safely and as quickly as you can; but if he should happen to be in Florence, give it to him."[97]
"Buonorroto,—I hear by one of yours that you are well and happy. It pleases me very much. My business here, I hope, will turn out well after all, but as yet I know nothing. We have recast the upper part which was wanting, as I informed you, but have not been able to see how it has come, for the sand is so hot that we cannot as yet uncover it. By next week I shall know and will tell you. Master Bernardino left here yesterday. When he salutes you receive him kindly enough.
"The tenth day of July.
"Michael Angelo, in Bologna."[98]
To the same, later (July 18, 1501):—
"Buonarroto,—My affairs might have turned out much better and also much worse; at any rate, all of it is there as far as I can make out, for it is not yet all uncovered. I estimate that it will take some months to chase, for it has come out with a bad surface; all the same, we must thank God! for, as I say, it might have been worse. If anything is said to you by Salvestro del Pollaiolo[99] or others, tell them that I do not need any one, so that no one will be sent here to be on my shoulders, because I have spent so much that there hardly remains enough for me to live on, let alone keeping others. About next week I will let you know more when I have uncovered the whole figure.
"Michael Angelo, in Bologna."[100]
[pg 140]After several letters describing his labours, he writes, ultimately, to the same:—
"Buonarroto,—I marvel you write to me so seldom. I am sure you have much more time to write to me than I to write to you, so let me hear often how things go. I understand by your last how, with good reason, you wish me to return soon. It made me anxious for several days; therefore, when you write to me, write strongly and clearly what the matter is so that I may understand it—and enough. Know that I desire to return soon even more than you desire it, for I pass my life here in the greatest discomfort and with the hardest labour, doing nothing but work day and night, and I have endured so much fatigue and hardship that if I should have to go through it again, I do not believe my life would hold out, for it has been an enormous undertaking, and if it had been in any one else's hands it would have come out very badly. But I believe the prayers of some one have sustained me and kept me in health, for all Bologna was of opinion that I should never finish it after it was cast, and before also, when no one would believe that I should ever cast it. Enough that I have brought it to a good end, but I shall not quite have finished it by the end of this month, as I hoped; but next month, at any rate, it will be done, and I will return. So be all of good cheer, for I will do as I promised whatever happens. Comfort Lodovico and Giovansimone for me and write to me how Giovansimone does. Mind and learn to keep shop, so that you will know how to do it when you need, which will be soon.
"The tenth day of November.
"Michael Angelo, in Bologna."[101]
[pg 141]He worked on until February, and wrote to the same:—
"Buonarroto,—It is now a fortnight since I expected to be with you, for I thought that directly my figure was finished they would place it. And now these people are dawdling and doing nothing; and I have orders from the Pope not to leave until it is placed, so that it seems to me I shall be prevented. I shall stay and look after it all this week too; if there are no further orders I will come away at all costs, without observing the command. With this will be a letter to go to the Cardinal of Pavia, in which I reply to him about it all, so that he cannot complain. So put it in a cover and direct it to Giuliano da San Gallo on my part, and desire him to deliver it with his own hand.
"Di Bologna (the 18th day of February, 1508)."[102]
On February 21, 1508, the statue of Pope Julius II. was hoisted on to its pedestal above the great central door of San Petronio. Alas! this work which cost Michael Angelo a year and three months of hard, unremitting labour only existed for about twice that period. It was destroyed by the worst enemy of art—war. The Papal Legate fled from Bologna in 1511 and the Bentivogli again entered the city. The people of their party dragged the heavy bronze to the ground and broke it into pieces on December 30. The broken fragments were sent to Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, who cast a huge cannon with the metal, which the Italians, with their usual mocking spirit, immediately called La Giulia. The Duke kept the head only, and said he would not take its weight in gold for it; it weighed six hundred pounds. This head has disappeared too; [pg 142]there is no drawing, engraving, or any fragment to help us to reconstruct in our minds this mighty bronze; only, perhaps, we may imagine that we have an echo of this Pope by Michael Angelo when we turn our eyes from the bare front of San Petronio to the niche on the Palazzo Comunale to the right of the square, where a bronze Pope, Gregory XIII., stretches his hand to curse the iconoclastic people. In the Piazza Dante, at Perugia, is the bronze statue of Pope Julius III., by Vincenzio Dante, that makes us think of the master, and in Rimini a mighty bronze form stretches out his right hand with a threatening gesture. He, too, is a Pope—Paul V.
THE CREATION OF THE SUN AND MOON, AND OF THE TREES AND HERBS
SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
CHAPTER VI
THE VAULT OF THE SISTINE CHAPEL
Michael Angelo's work in Bologna well over, he returned to Florence upon March 18, 1508, and hired his house at Borgo Pinti from the Operai del Duomo, probably intending to proceed with the Twelve Apostles for that church. Michael Angelo's father now emancipated his son from parental control. The date of the document is March 13; it was entered in the State Archives upon March 28. According to the law of Florence a son was not of age until his father had executed this document. Michael Angelo appears to have had the idea of settling in Florence at this time, but "his Medusa," as he called the Pope, commanded the presence of his artist in Rome as soon as he heard that the work at Bologna was finished. Michael Angelo obeyed at once this time. We have a good account by his own hand of what happened when he arrived in Rome, his famous letter to Fattucci, written sixteen years later.
"To Ser Giovan Francesco Fattucci, in Rome.
"From Florence (January 1524).
"Messer Giovan Francesco,—You ask of me in your letter how my affairs stood with Pope Julius. I tell you that I estimate that I could demand payment and interest [pg 144]on it, to receive money rather than give it. For when he sent for me to Florence, I believe it was in the second year of his Pontificate, I had begun to decorate the half of the Sala del Consiglio of Florence, that is to paint it. I was to have had three thousand ducats for it, and the cartoon was already completed, as was well known to all Florence, so that they seemed to me half earned. And of the Twelve Apostles, which I had still to do for Santa Maria del Fiore, one was sketched out, as may still be seen; and I had carried thither the greater part of the marbles. Pope Julius calling me away, I received nothing for either undertaking. Afterwards, I being in Rome with the said Pope Julius, he commissioned me to make his tomb, into which was to go a thousand ducats' worth of marbles. He paid me the money, and sent me to Carrara for them; there I stayed eight months having them blocked out, and brought them almost all to the piazza of St. Peter's; a part remained at the Ripa. After I had paid the freightage of these said marbles the money received for this work came to an end. I furnished the house I had on the piazza of St. Peter's with beds and furniture with my own money, on my hopes of the tomb, and sent for workmen from Florence (some of whom are still living), and paid them with my own in advance. By this time Pope Julius had changed his mind, and no longer wished to have it done. I, not knowing this and going to him for money, was chased from the room; and for this insult I immediately left Rome, and everything I had in my house went to the bad; and these marbles which I had bought lay on the piazza of St. Peter's until the creation of Pope Leo; and on every side things went wrong. Among other things that I can prove, two pieces, of four braccia and a half [pg 145]each, on the Ripa were stolen from me by Agostino Chigi, which had cost me more than fifty gold ducats; and these could be claimed for, because there are witnesses. But to return to the marbles. From the time that I went for them, and that I remained at Carrara, until I was driven from the Palace, was more than a year, for which period I never received anything, and I paid out many tens of ducats.
CREATION OF MAN
SISTINE CHAPEL
(By permission of Messrs. Braun, Clement & Co., in Dornach, Alsace)
"Afterwards, the first time Pope Julius went to Bologna, I was obliged to take my courage in both hands and go there to beg his pardon; then he ordered me to make his portrait in bronze, which was seated, about seven braccia high. He asking me what it would cost, I said I believed I could cast it for a thousand ducats, but that it was not my art and that I could not promise. He replied to me: 'Go to work and cast it until it come well, and we will give you what will content you.' To be brief, it was cast twice. At the end of the two years that I stayed there I found myself four ducats and a half in pocket; and during that time I never received anything for all the expenses that I had, except the thousand ducats which I had said that I could cast it for; these were paid me in several installments by Messer Antonio Maria da Legnia (me), the Bolognese.
"Having hoisted the figure on to the façade of San Petronio, and returned to Rome, Pope Julius did not yet wish me to go on with the tomb, but set me to paint the vault of Sisto, and we made an agreement for three thousand ducats. The first design was for twelve apostles in the lunettes, and for the rest certain compartments filled with ornaments of the usual sort.
"After beginning the said work it seemed to me it would [pg 146]be but a poor thing. He asked me why? I told him, because they also were poor. Then he gave me a new order to do what I would, and that he would satisfy me, and that I was to paint down to the stories below. When the vault was almost finished the Pope returned to Bologna, where I went twice for money I needed, uselessly, and lost all my time, until he returned to Rome. I returned to Rome and set myself to work on the cartoons for the said vault, that is, for the ends and sides of the said Chapel of Sisto, hoping to have money to finish the work. I never could obtain anything; and complaining one day to Messer Bernardo da Bibbiena and Attalante how that I was unable to stay any longer in Rome, but that I must go away, with the help of God, Messer Bernardo said to Attalante that he must remember that he was to give me money in any case, and he had two thousand ducats of the Chamber given to me, which are the moneys, with that first thousand for marbles, that they put to the account of the tomb; and I estimate that I should have more for the time lost and the work done. And of the said moneys, Messer Bernardo and Attalante having obtained it for me, I gave to the one a hundred ducats, to the other fifty.
"Then came the death of Pope Julius, and in the first years of Leo, Aginensis, wishing to enlarge the tomb, that is, to make a greater work than the design I had at first prepared, we made a contract, and I not wishing the said three thousand ducats I had received to be put to the account of the tomb, and showing that I ought to have much more, Aginensis said to me that I was a swindler."[103]
CREATION OF MAN
DETAIL, SISTINE CHAPEL
The preliminary works for the vault of the Sistine Chapel were carried on without delay, and there is a note in Michael Angelo's hand, saying: "I record how on this day, the tenth of May, in the year one thousand five hundred and eight, I, Michael Angelo, Sculptor, have received from the Holiness of our Lord Pope Julius II. five hundred ducats of the Camera, the which were paid me by Messer Carlino, chamberlain, and Messer Carlo degli Albizzi, on account of the painting of the vault of the Chapel of Pope Sisto, on which I begin to work this day, under the conditions and contracts set forth in a document written by his Most Reverend Lordship of Pavia, and signed by my hand. For the painter assistants who are to come from Florence, who will be five in number, twenty gold ducats of the Camera a-piece, on this condition, that is to say, that when they are here and are working in accord with me, the said twenty ducats shall be reckoned to each man's salary; the said salary to begin upon the day they leave Florence to come here. And if they do not agree with me, half the said money shall be paid them for their travelling expenses and for their time."[104]
From this important record we learn that Michael Angelo, who still calls himself "sculptor," intends to engage five painter assistants, and very wisely arranges terms by which he can send them away if he does not get on with them, and also that he began to work upon May 10, 1508. This must not be taken to mean that he began to paint, but only to prepare the vault by carefully pointing the bricks and covering it with rough cast plaster ready for the fine coat called intonaca, in this case made [pg 148]of marble dust and Roman lime, prepared each day and plastered on the wall in patches sufficient for one day's work only. In true fresco painting the colour is put on the plaster only whilst it is still wet. Michael Angelo must also have prepared a general scheme to scale from his small design, approved by the Pope, and set it off with very careful measurements on the surface of the rough cast, at least as to the architectural framework. The cartoons for the figure-subjects and details he may have left until they were needed. He considerably altered the scale of the figures in his stories as he proceeded with the work; this alteration in scale is not only observable in the central subjects or pictures of the vault, but also in the decorative figures on the framework, called Athletes; those at the end, near the stories of Noah and the Flood, and where Michael Angelo began to work, are at least a head smaller than those at the other end of the chapel over the altar, where the stories relate to the Creation. This can be seen even in a photographic reproduction. Although the development of the great scheme was so much upon the traditional lines of Italian art, yet the details of arrangement and placing must have fully occupied the artist for some months. He cannot have begun actually to paint on the vault until late autumn, at least, not any of the work we see now, for his assistants did not arrive from Florence until August, and he had to experiment with their work, and find it wanting, before he dismissed them, destroyed their work, and began alone. All the work of the part of the vault executed first is by Michael Angelo's own hand, as far as can be judged from the floor of the chapel, or from the cornice level with the windows. The following receipts for the plaster, or for [pg 149]rough-coating the vault, show that painting cannot have begun so early as has been assumed:[105]
THE CREATION OF EVE
SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
"In the name of God, the 11th day of May, 1508.
"I, Piero di Jacopo Roselli, Master Mason, have this day received, the 11th of May as above said, from Michael Angelo Bonaroti, Sculptor, ten ducats in gold, full weight, on account of 'Scialbatura' on the vault of Pope Sixtus, and for rough plastering in his chapel, and doing that which was needful by order of Pope Julius; and in faith of the truth I have done this with my own hand, this day above said. Ducats 10 of gold, full weight."
This payment was made by Michael Angelo. The second receipt of Rosselli for fifteen ducats was made out on May 24, to Francesco Granacci, so he was already in Rome, helping his friend. The next payment of ten ducats was also made by Granacci on June 3, and another on June 10. On July 17 Michael Angelo himself paid the mason; so Granacci had gone to Florence by then to hire the other assistants. On July 27 Michael Angelo paid Rosselli thirty golden ducats, full weight, for rough plastering and other details. The amount paid, and the time taken, go to prove that the whole vault was plastered. Granacci[106] wrote from Florence about the assistants. Heath Wilson gives a literal translation of his rather bewildering letter.
"Very Dear Friend,—I recommend myself and wish you infinite health. This is to your Excellency, as to-day I met Raffaelino, the painter, and gathered from him in fine that if you have need of him he will come at your [pg 150]bidding, should you be pleased to pay him the salary which he has received from the Master Pietro Matteo d'Amelia, who, he says, gave him ten ducats a month. Ever faithful to your Excellency, I give the advice as from myself. If you have need to employ him, offer him your amount of salary; he is ready to do what you may command as to work. He is a good master and honest. And if for me there is anything, advise me, for I am always here to do for you those things which are useful and honourable. If I can do one thing more than another let me know; I will do it with love and solicitude. Nothing more. Christ have you in his keeping. Bene Valeti.
"This day, 22nd of July, 1508.
"Yours,
"Francesco Granacci.
"If you can employ me as above is said, I shall be willing to be with you. Nothing more.
"Giovanni Michi,
"San Lorenzo, Florence
"(Faithful service and honest man).
"Directed to the Excellent Master
Michael Angelo, Florence, at
St. Peter's, Sculptor, Rome.
"Given from the Bank of Baldassare in Campo di Fiore."
THE EXPULSION
SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(By permission of Messrs. Braun, Clément & Co., in. Dornach, Alsace)
Neither Raffaellino del Garbo nor Giovanni Michi were employed, but the next letter of Granacci, dated July 24, 1508, mentions Giuliano Buggiardini and Jacopo L'Indaco, who were both tried. Vasari informs us that [pg 151]Granacci, Jacopo di Sandro, and the elder Indaco, Agnolo di Donnino, and Aristotile da Sangallo also accepted work. We have another proof that the actual fresco painting did not begin at this period, in a document preserved in the National Archives at Florence. Heath Wilson obtained legal opinion that Michael Angelo must have been in Florence in person when this deed was executed. It runs: "In the year of our Lord, 1508, on the 11th day of August, Michael Angelo, the son of Ludovico Lionardo di Buonarroto, cancelled his lawful claim upon the estate of his uncle Francis by a deed drawn up by Ser Giovanni di Guasparre da Montevarchi, Florentine notary, on the 27th of the month of July, 1508." Another instance of Michael Angelo's generosity to his family. If Michael Angelo at once proceeded to Rome, he and his assistants may have begun work towards the end of August. During all this period we must notice how troubled he was by the affairs of his family and his household arrangements. Michael Angelo, while living like a poor man in Rome, sent money to, and purchased land for, his family in Florence, and helped to establish Buonarroto in business, but they were never satisfied, and his letters to his father and Giovan Simone show how his mind was troubled. There is a letter in the British Museum that belongs to this summer of 1508.
"Most Reverend Father,—I have learnt by your last how things go with you, and how Giovan Simone behaves himself. I have not had worse news for ten years than on the evening when I read your letter, for I thought that I had arranged their affairs so that they had reason to hope they would make a good shop with my aid. Now, [pg 152]I see, they do the contrary, especially Giovan Simone. From this I know that it is profitless to try and do him good. Had it been possible on the day when I received your letter I should have mounted on horseback and by this time should have settled everything; but not being able to do so, I write him such a letter as appears to me to be necessary, and if from now he does not change his nature, or if ever he takes from the home so much as a stick, or does anything to displease you, I pray you to let me know, because I will obtain leave from the Pope to come to you, when I shall show him his error. I wish you to be certain that all the labours which I have continually endured have been more for your sake than for my own, and the property which I have bought I have bought that it may be yours whilst you live. Had it not been for you I should not have bought it. Therefore, if it please you to let this house or the farm, do so; and with that income and with what I shall give you you will live like a gentleman. Were it not that the summer were coming on I would say come and live with me here, but it is not the season, for here in summer you would not live long. It has occurred to me to take from him (Giovan Simone) the money which he has in the shop, and to give it to Gismondo, so that he and Buonarroto may get on together as well as they can ... and if you let these said houses and the farm of the Pazolatica, and with that income and with the help that I will give you besides, you will take refuge in some place where you will be comfortable, and you will be able to keep some one to serve you either in Florence or outside Florence, and leave that good-for-nothing ... I pray you to consider yourself, and in all things whatever you wish to do—that is, for [pg 153]yourself in all you desire—I will aid you all I know and can. Let me hear about Cassandra's affairs. I am advised not to go to law about it here. I am told that I shall spend here three times as much as there; and this is certain, for a grosso goes further there than two carlini here. Besides, I have no friend here to trust to, and I could not attend to such things. It seems to me, when you desire to attend to it, that you should go by the usual way, as reason demands, and you must defend yourself as well as you are able and know how; and for the money that is necessary to spend I will not fail as long as I have any. Have as little fear as you can, for it is not a case of life and death. No more. Let me know, as I told you above.
"From Michael Angelo, in Rome."[107]
THE DELUGE
A DETAIL, SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(Reproduced by permission from a photograph by Sig. D. Anderson, Rome)
Truly his family did all they could to disturb his mind during this important period of the development of his greatest work. The mind that wrote the following letter to Giovan Simone cannot have been in a good state for work; but as he never lets a thought about his art appear in his letters, so, no doubt, when once the mood of work was upon him, all other thoughts were left without the workshop door:
"Rome, July 1508.
"Giovan Simone,—It is said that when one does good to a good man it makes him become better, but a bad man becomes worse. I have tried now many years with words and deeds of kindness to bring you to live honestly and in peace with your father and the rest of us. You grow continually worse. I do not say that you are a bad [pg 154]man, but you are of such sort that you have ceased to please me or anybody. I could read you a long lesson on your ways of living, but they would be idle words, like all the rest that I have wasted on you. To cut the matter short, I will tell you for a certain truth that you have nothing in the world. What you spend and your house-room I give you, and have given you these many years, for the love of God, believing you to be my brother like the rest. Now, I am sure that you are not my brother, else you would not threaten my father. Nay, you are a beast; and as a beast I mean to treat you. Know that he who sees his father threatened or roughly handled is bound to risk his own life in this cause. Enough, I tell you that you have nothing in the world; and if I hear the least thing about your goings on, I will come post-haste and show you your error, and teach you to waste your substance and set fire to houses and farms you have not earned. Indeed, you are not where you think yourself to be. If I come, I will open your eyes to what will make you weep hot tears, and let you know on what false grounds you found your pride.
"I have something else to say to you which I have not said before. If you will endeavour to live rightly, and to honour and revere your father, I will help you like the rest, and make you able shortly to open a good shop. If you do not do so, I shall come and settle your affairs in such a fashion that you will know what you are better than you ever did, and will understand what you have in the world, and it will be seen in every place where you may go. No more. What I lack in words I will supply with deeds.
"Michael Angelo, in Rome.
ATHLETE
SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
"I cannot refrain from adding two lines. It is this: I have gone these twelve years past, drudging about through all Italy, borne every shame, suffered every hardship, worn my body in every toil, put my life into a thousand dangers, solely to help the fortunes of my house, and now that I have begun to raise it up a little, you alone choose to destroy and ruin in one hour all that I have done in so many years, and with such labours. By Christ's body this shall not be! for I am the man to confound ten thousand such as you whenever it be needed. Be wise in time then, and do not try one who has other things to vex him."
So with hindrances enough, private and public, we must imagine the great artist climbing his scaffolding to the vault of the Pope's chapel, followed by his assistants, and setting them their task, transferring his full-size outline cartoons, prepared from the general designs, to the roof. We may fancy L'Indaco, Buggiardini, and the rest, staring with amazement at the huge figures and the great flowing lines before them, and trying to fit their dry manner of painting to the new grandeur of design. It could but end in one way. The clause prepared beforehand by Michael Angelo in the contracts came into effect, and they had to be sent away, with plenty of grumbling on their part, no doubt. Michael Angelo was too exacting in the perfection of his taste to allow any work short of the absolute ideal he had imagined. Unlike Raphael, who was working in the neighbouring stanze, and who was contented to pass, and some would have us believe to execute, ill-turned foreshortenings and false drawing, so long as his general effect was preserved and the work done [pg 156]in reasonable time. Perhaps his gentle and sunlike genius could not bear to use harsh words and shut the door against the mediocre men with whom he was surrounded. Michael Angelo could brook no imperfection of whatever kind, so that he destroyed all that his assistants had done and shut himself up alone in the chapel. He was the only man who could do the work to his satisfaction; so he did it, alone and unaided, as to the actual painting, and produced a work unequalled in perfection since Phidias worked in Athens.
The dismissal of his assistants appears to have begun about the New Year 1509. It is hinted at in this letter:—
"Dearest Father,—I have to-day received one of yours. When I read it I was sufficiently displeased. I doubt that you are more timid and fearful than you need be. I should like you to tell me what you imagine they can do to you, that is, if it should come to the worst. I have no more to say. It grieves me that you should be in such fear, so I comfort you by advising you to be well prepared against their power, with good advice, and then think no more about it; for if they took away all you have in the world you should not lack means to be comfortable as long as I was there. Therefore be of good cheer. I am still in a great quandary, for it is now a year since I received a groat from the Pope, and I do not ask for it, for my work does not go forward in such a fashion as to deserve it, as it seems to me. And this is because of the difficulty of the work, and also that it is not my profession. And so I lose my time fruitlessly. God help me. If you are in [pg 157]need of money go to the Spedalingo[108] and make him give you anything up to fifteen ducats, and let me know what remains. Jacopo,[109] the painter whom I brought here, has just left, and as he has been grumbling here about my doings, I expect he will grumble there also. Turn a deaf ear to him. It is enough. For he is a thousand times in the wrong. I have good reason to complain of him. Take no notice of him. Tell Buonarroto that I will reply to him another time.
"The day twenty 7 of January.
"Michael Angelo, in Rome."[110]
ATHLETE
SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
Buggiardini appears to have fared better than L'Indaco. He painted a portrait of Michael Angelo with a towel tied round his head like a turban, now in the Casa Buonarroti, at Florence. From the age of the sitter it appears to belong to this period; the towel may have been used to protect the hair and head of the artist from falling colour as he painted the roof above him. It is an energetic head, with jet black hair and sallow complexion, with many lines and wrinkles for so young a face, determined, sad, and scornful in expression; a slight weakness and affectation may be due to the personality of the painter. Buggiardini also executed a painting from the cartoon of the master, the Madonna and Child with Angels, number 809, of the National Gallery. The beauty and grandeur of the lines of this design are far above the imagination of any one except Michael Angelo, but the details of the [pg 158]execution of the hands and the feet are inferior to any authentic work of his. The hatchings in the shadows, especially of the draperies, are made up of short and feeble lines, and do not express the form of the folds at all in the same way as we are accustomed to see Michael Angelo express them, even in his earlier drawings, the copies from Giotto and the primitives. The form of the mouths, and the expression and shape of the heads, especially in the second angel on the right, are similar to the work of Buggiardini as seen in Florence, Milan, and the Cathedral of Pisa. Buggiardini is the only one of the assistants who seems to have reaped any benefit, beyond their wages, from the work they did for the great master. This trouble with his assistants was not the only difficulty that Michael Angelo had to contend with in the execution of his work. Vasari says that he shut himself alone in the chapel, without any one to help him even in the grinding of his colours; but, as he adds, that he took great precautions to prevent the workmen informing the public as to what he was doing, we must assume that Vasari was repeating a fable that had grown up about the marvellous work forty years after it was executed, much as we might at this day repeat stories of the making of the Wellington Monument by Alfred Stevens. The carpenters and plasterers Michael Angelo employed would soon learn to perform the more mechanical part of his work, such as laying the intonaco, pricking the cartoons, and grinding colours, and as they could not have inserted into the work any tradition contrary to the new manner of the artist, would be preferred by him to second-rate artist assistants; no doubt, too, the boy he employed in household work would be made to help. The trouble he had [pg 159]in his household arrangements before the time of his trusted servant, Urbino, may be illustrated by a letter relating to the boy he got from Florence about this time. He never would have a woman to work for him in any way.
ATHLETE
SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
"To Lodovico di Buonarrota Simoni, in Florence.
"Rome (January 1510).
"Most Revered Father,—I answered you about the business of Bernardino, as I wished first to settle the affairs of my household as you know, and so I now reply to you. I sent first for him because I was promised that within a few days he would be ready and that I might get to work. Afterwards I saw that it would be a long business; in the meantime I am seeking another suitable one to get out of it. I won't have any work done until I am ready, but tell him how the matter stands. About the boy who came, that rascal of a muleteer did me out of a ducat. He took an oath that he had agreed for two broad golden ducats, and all the lads who come here with the muleteers do not give more than ten carlinos. I was more angry than if I had lost twenty-five ducats, because I see it is the fault of the father, who wanted to send him on muleback in state. Oh! I had never such good fortune! not I. Although the father declared, and the son likewise, that he would do anything, attend to the mule, and sleep on the ground if necessary; and now I have to look after him. Did I need any more bothers than I have had since my return? Here I have my boy, whom I left here, ill since the day I returned until now. He is now better it is true, but he has been between life and death, given up by the doctors, so that for about a month I have not been in bed, let alone many others. Now I have this [pg 160]nuisance of a boy, who says, and says again, that he does not want to lose time, that he must learn. And he told me that he would be satisfied with two or three hours a day. Now all day is not enough, so that he will be drawing all night also. These are counsels of the father. If I say anything he would declare that I did not wish him to learn. I want some one to mind the house, and if he did not feel like doing it they should not have put me to this expense. But they are no good, no good at all, and are working for their own ends; but enough. I beg you to have him taken away from before me, for he annoys me so much that I cannot stand him any longer. The muleteer has had so much money that he can very well take him back again; he is a friend of his father's. Tell the father to send for him. I'll not give him another farthing, for I have no money, I will have patience until he sends for him, and if he is not sent for I will turn him out, for I have done so already, on the second day after his arrival and other times as well, and he won't believe it.
"For the business of the shop I will send you a hundred ducats next Saturday. With this, if you see that they are diligent and do well, give it to them and make me their creditor, as I was to Buonarroto when he went away. If they are not diligent, and do badly, place it to my account at Santa Maria Nuova. It is not yet time to buy.
"Your Michael Angelo, in Rome.
"If you are speaking to the father of the boy, put the matter nicely, mannerly; that he is a good lad, but too genteel, and that he is not fit for my work, and that he must send for him."[111]
ATHLETE
SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
The more gentle tone of the postscript is very characteristic. Outwardly he would be rough, consumed with anger and indignation; but inwardly his nature was kindly to a degree to those he had about him.
Condivi tells us of the delay in the works in the Sistine due to the mould on the surface of the fresco, and of the haste of Julius. The progress was fast enough, one would have thought, even for that exacting Pontiff; for although the whole work consists, on counting heads, of some three hundred and ninety-four figures, the majority ten feet high; the prophets and sibyls, twelve in number, would be eighteen feet high if they stood up; yet by the following letters to his brother Buonarroto, of October 1509, we know he had finished the first half, consisting probably of some two hundred figures, even then; or assuming that he began to paint when the assistants were dismissed in January 1509, he worked at the rate of about a figure a day.
To Buonarroto di Lodovico di Buonarrota, in Florence.
From Rome, the 17th of October, 1509.
"Buonarroto,—I got the bread: it is good, but it is not good enough to make a trade of, for there would be little gain. I gave the knave five carlini, and he would hardly hand it over. I learn by your last how Lorenzo[112] will pass this way, and how I am to give him a good reception. It appears you do not know how I am situated here, all the same I excuse you. What I can do, I will. About Gismondo and how he intends to come here to advance his business, tell him from me not to have any designs on me, not because I do not love him as a [pg 162]brother, but because I am unable to help him in anything. I am obliged to love myself more than others, and I have not enough for my own needs. I live here in great distress and with the greatest fatigue of body, and have not a friend of any sort, and do not want one, and have not even enough time to eat necessary food; therefore, do not annoy me any more, for I cannot bear another ounce.
For the shop I encourage you to be careful. It pleases me to hear that Giovanni Simone begins to do well. Endeavour to advance a little, or, at least, maintain what you have got, so that you will know how to manage larger affairs afterwards; for I have a hope, when I return to you, that you will be men enough to manage for yourselves. Tell Lodovico that I have not replied to him because I had not the time, and not to wonder if I do not write.
"Michael Angelo, Sculptor, in Rome."[113]
To the same.
From Rome (Oct. 1509).
"Buonarroto,—I hear by your last how that all are well, and how Lodovico has another office. It all pleases me, and I encourage him to accept it if it will allow him to return when necessary to his post in Florence. I am here just as usual, and shall have finished my painting by the end of next week, that is, the part of it I began; and when I have uncovered it I believe I shall receive my money, and I will endeavour again to get leave to come to you for a month. I do not know whether it will be, but I need it for I am not very well. I have no time to write more. I will tell you what happens.
"Michael Angelo, Sculptor, in Rome."[114]
THE DELPHIC SIBYL
SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(Reproduced by permission from a photograph by Sig. D. Anderson, Rome)
The work was exposed to view upon November 1, 1509. So at the longest possible estimate of time from May 10, 1508, to November 1, 1509, Michael Angelo took four hundred and sixty-two working days to paint it. The more probable, in fact, almost certain estimate of the time occupied in painting the fresco, as we now see it, is from the time his assistants left him, about New Year's Day 1509, to November 1 in the same year, or two hundred and thirty-four working days. As the plaster could only be painted on whilst wet, we can tell, by the marks of the divisions between the separate days' plasterings, how many days the larger individual figures took. One of the largest and most prominent, as well as one of the finest and most finished, the Adam in the Creation of Man, was painted in three sittings only. The lines of the junctions of the plaster may be seen in a photograph; one is along the collar bone, and one across the junction of the body and the thighs. There is also a division all round the figure, an inch or so from the outline, so we know that the beautiful and highly finished head and neck were painted in one day; the stupendous torso and arms in another; and the huge legs, finished in every detail, in a third. Such power of work and of finish is utterly inconceivable to any artist of to-day. Some will even excuse the imperfection of the study of a head by saying that they had only three or four sittings.
Condivi asserts, and Vasari follows him, that the part uncovered in November 1509, was the first half of the whole vault, beginning at the large door of entrance and ending in the middle. But Albertini states in his [pg 164]Mirabilia Urbis[115] that the upper portion of the whole vaulted roof had been uncovered when he saw it in 1509, and this statement is corroborated by the work itself. There is a distinct enlargement of the style from the Sin of the Sons of Ham through the series of the Creation and the Athletes to the Prophets and Sibyls, and again from the first of these, near the large door, to those near the altar wall. So it may have been the complete work on the flat part of the vault that was shown to the world, including the story of the Creation and Fall of Man; and it was not, therefore, so very unreasonable of Bramante to propose that Raphael should continue the work, for he probably did not know of Michael Angelo's intention of commemorating the promise of the Redeemer by his prophets and sibyls upon the curved surface of the vaulting. Michael Angelo was naturally indignant at his action, but Julius, who probably was the only man who knew Michael Angelo's scheme, commanded him to complete his work.
We gather from a letter to his father that the scaffolding for completing the painting of the vault was not put up on September 7, 1510.
THE PROPHET JOEL
SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
To Lodovico di Buonarrota Simoni, in Florence.
From Rome, September 7, 1510.
"Dearest Father,—I have received your last, and hear with the greatest anxiety that Buonarroto is ill; therefore, as soon as you see this, go to the Spedalingo[116] [pg 165]and make him give you fifty or an hundred ducats; you may need them. Arrange that all things necessary be provided in good time, and that there be no lack of money. Let me tell you how that I am waiting to receive from the Pope five hundred ducats, well earned, and he should give me as much again to put up the scaffolding and go on with the other part of my work. And he has gone from here without leaving me any orders. I have written him a letter. I do not know what will follow. I should have come to you immediately on the receipt of your last, but if I left without permission I doubt the Pope would be angry, and I should lose all that I ought to have. Nevertheless, let me know immediately if Buonarroto should still be very bad, because if you think I ought to come I will ride post and be with you in two days, for men are worth more than money. Let me know at once, for I am very anxious.
"On the 7th day of September.
"Your Michael Angelo, Sculptor, in Rome."[117]
The following note tells of the end of the work:
"I have finished the Chapel which I painted. The Pope is very well satisfied, but other things do not happen as I wished. Lay blame on the times, which are unfavourable to art." It is a note by Michael Angelo in the Buonarroto manuscripts of the British Museum, but undated. It is probably of October 1512, and marks the close of this period of enormous work. The decoration of the Sistine Chapel now consisted, firstly, on the flat of the vault, of Michael Angelo's history of the Creation and the Fall of Man, of the Punishment of the Flood, [pg 166]and the Second Entry of Sin into the World; secondly, on the pendentives, of the Prophets and Sibyls proclaiming the coming of a Redeemer; and thirdly, of the Ancestors of Christ, filling the arches of the windows and the arches on the two end walls. Those on the altar wall are now covered by angels bearing the instruments of the Passion of Christ, parts of the great fresco of the Last Judgment, finished by Michael Angelo thirty years afterwards. At Oxford there are two drawings after these two destroyed frescoes of the Ancestors of Christ series. Fourthly, at the four corners the four great Deliverances of the Chosen People, emblems of the Redemption; fifthly, below, between the windows, a row of the figures of the Popes by Sandro Botticelli and others; these are still in existence, except the three that were on the wall of the high altar, now occupied by the Last Judgment. They were the earliest of the Popes, St. Peter probably in the centre. Lastly, below again, the great series of frescoes of the History of Christ and the History of Moses by Sandro Botticelli, Domenico del Ghirlandaio, Cosimo Rosselli, Pietro Perugino, Bernardino Pintoricchio, Luca Signorelli, and Bartolomeo della Gatta. This splendid series forms a worthy predella to the epic work of Michael Angelo above; that they are worthy the one of the other is the highest compliment that can be paid to either. These stories well repay prolonged study, and help to keep our mind fresh to enjoy the idea of the advance Michael Angelo made in the art of painting. It is very instructive to compare his work with these frescoes of men who were almost his contemporaries. Above the altar three of this series were destroyed to make way for the Last Judgment; they were all three by Perugino, and represented the Assumption of the Virgin in the centre, the Nativity [pg 167]on the right, and the finding of Moses on the left. At the opposite end, over the great door, were two pictures by Domenico del Ghirlandaio, representing the Resurrection of Christ, and Michael contending with Satan for the Body of Moses, completing the series of the lives of the Redeemer and of his prototype in the Old Testament: Moses, the Deliverer. These last two works were destroyed for the ridiculous caricatures of Arrigo Fiammingo and Mattei da Lecce. Ultimately the Tapestry woven after the cartoons by Raphael, now at South Kensington Museum, completed the cycle of decoration down to the ground level.
THE PROPHET EZEKIEL
SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
When Pope Julius prevented Michael Angelo from going on with his beloved project of the Tomb and made him paint the vault, the master set to work to produce a similar conception to the Tomb in a painted form. The vault became a great temple of painted marble and painted sculptures raised in mid-air above the walls of the chapel. The cornices and pilasters are of simple Renaissance architecture, the only ornaments he allowed himself to use being similar to those he would have used as a sculptor. Acorns, the family device of the della Rovere, rams' skulls, and scallop shells, and the one theme of decoration that Michael Angelo always delighted in—the human figure. The Prophets and Sibyls took the positions occupied by the principal figures designed for the Tomb, like the great statue of Moses. The Athletes at the corner of the ribs of the roof were in place of the bound captives, two of which are now in the Louvre, and the nine histories of the Creation and the Flood fill the panels like the bronze reliefs of the Tomb. The detail and completeness of this fresco are the best refutation of the [pg 168]frequent criticism that Michael Angelo did not finish his work. The fact is, that he finished more than any one. Had Michael Angelo done no work but this vault of the Sistine Chapel, it would have represented an output equal in quantity alone to that of the most prolific of his brother Italian artists. It is veritably a large picture-gallery of his works in itself. An idea of its numerical magnitude may be got by dividing it up into its component units and making an inventory of them. The vault itself, according to Heath Wilson, is one hundred and thirty-one feet six inches long, by forty-five feet two and a half inches wide at the large door end, and forty-three feet two and a half inches at the altar end, an area of nearly six thousand square feet, which apparently does not represent the arch measurement but only the plane covered by the arch, nor does it take account of the triangular and semicircular spaces above the windows. This vast surface is divided into:—
Four large pictures stretching over more than one-third of the width of the roof, and containing from five to more than forty-five figures, some of them twelve feet in height.
Five pictures, half the size of the last, with from one to eight figures in each.
Twenty colossal nude figures of Athletes.
Ten circular medallions.
Seven large figures of Prophets.
Five large figures of Sibyls; these Prophets and Sibyls would be eighteen feet high if they stood upright, and most of them have secondary figures of angel boys between them, twenty-three in all.
Twenty-four decorative pilasters of two children each, in monochrome.
THE PROPHET DANIEL
SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
Four large triangular compositions representing the Redemptions of Israel, and containing from five to twenty-two colossal figures.
Eight triangular spaces above the windows, representing the Ancestors of Christ, containing from two to four colossal figures.
Twenty-four groups in the semicircular spaces above the windows, also of the Ancestors of Christ, of from one to four colossal figures.
Ten large figures of children forming brackets under the figures of Prophets and Sibyls, at the springing of the arches between the windows.
Twenty-four bronze-coloured colossal figures filling up the spaces in the architectural framework.
Thus, the vault may be regarded as a gallery of one hundred and forty-five separate pictures by Michael Angelo. There is one reservation, and that is, that the twenty-four groups of two children forming pilasters are in pairs, of the same outline but reversed; as they are differently lighted they may still be taken as different pictures. These pilasters form the sides of the thrones of the Prophets and Sibyls, and repeating them in reversed outline on either side of the same throne has a very valuable decorative effect, well known to the old Italian workmen, who frequently repeated the forms of their fruit and flower decorations in this manner, by the expedient of reversing the paper-pricking from one and the same cartoon. It is interesting to find Michael Angelo resorting to this simple trick to get the effect of balance in figure decoration. The light and shade of the reversed figures follow the general scheme of the illumination, so that the figures traced from the same cartoons look very dissimilar when painted, but if the [pg 170]outlines are traced from a photograph, and reversed on the corresponding figures, they will be seen to coincide. It seems impossible to explain the exactness in any other way, a few measurements on the vault itself would make it certain. Probably the same method was employed in transferring the twenty-four bronze-coloured decorative figures also.
The historical sequence of the events in the nine pictures on the central space of the vault represents the Story of the Creation, the Fall, the Flood, and the second entry of Sin into the world, demonstrating the need for a scheme of Salvation, promised by the Prophets and Sibyls in the second part of the decoration. The series represented is an old invention, and all the scenes may be found in Byzantine and early Italian works; but the new treatment gives them a character of grandeur only equalled by the Old Testament narrative which they illustrate. All the human figures and most of the angels appear to be dominated by an idea of impending doom, but they nobly act their part in a fateful present, although they know that the future cannot be changed by any effort of theirs, however noble it may be. They are all fatalists, but all noble in their pessimism; they reflect the mind of the artist. The individual motives of the figures, their grouping and their action, are frequently taken from earlier art, especially sculpture, and they show how carefully and reverently Michael Angelo studied the works of his predecessors, Massaccio, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donatello, and Jacopo della Quercia.
THE LIBYAN SIBYL
SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(Reproduced by permission from a Photograph by Sig. Anderson, Rome)
THE PROPHET JEREMIAH
SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
The first division above the High Altar represents the creation of light. God separates light from darkness, and brings order out of chaos. In the second division, one of the larger pictures, God creates the sun and moon; He [pg 171]passes on and spreads His hand in blessing over a segment of the earth where the trees and herbs spring forth. In the third, God gathers together in one place the waters which were under the firmament. In these works Michael Angelo designed a figure of the Creator that has remained ever since the only possible pictorial symbol of God the Father. He is like an old man in appearance and in wisdom, but as alert and powerful as a young man. The creation of Adam is the central composition of the ceiling. The Deity, accompanied by six angels, gives life to Adam by the touch of finger tips. The figure of Adam is the most beautiful in modern art. It appears to have been inspired by a Greek intaglio. The angels are much varied in type. They are without the tinsel and gold embroidery used by earlier artists to represent celestial glory. The simple and solemn lines of the landscape showing the curved surface of the globe give a cosmic character to the scene, and the beautiful indigo blue of the distance forms a fine background for the supremely modelled flesh. This composition is the first in the order of execution in which Michael Angelo fully realised his scheme of decoration, as to scale and form, making a few figures fill the space allotted to them with ease and freedom of movement. Truly the space occupied appears to have been arranged and cut specially to suit the figures, and not the figures made, as was the fact, to fit the space. The next compartment, the creation of Eve, is only less beautiful than that of the Adam. It is small, and the space is a little crowded: the composition is taken exactly from the beautiful bas-relief by Jacopo della Quercia at Bologna. The Almighty is shrouded in a voluminous mantle; Eve joins her hands in worship. The figure is modelled with [pg 172]a delicious softness, and the pearly colour is a delightful rendering of the lighter flesh tints of woman, something like the quality sought by Correggio in later times. The Adam reclining in the corner fills that part of the space as a good medal design fits its circumference; the grey of the shadow, especially in the darker parts, envelops the figures in a way that had never been attempted in fresco painting, but is somewhat like a hand in shadow by Rembrandt. The representations of the Fall and the Expulsion fill the next compartment, a large one. Here we have another rendering of a female nude; the type, and especially the modelling of the flank, is a prophecy of the figure of Dawn in the Sacristy of San Lorenzo. The upper part of the serpent has a woman's form, and the junction is most admirably managed after the manner of the sea maidens in Græco-Roman art. In this story is the only foreground tree in full leaf ever painted by Michael Angelo, and yet it is as supreme as everything else. It is remarkable that the Paradise of Michael Angelo should be such a rocky place, like the side of a marble mountain, for in his time such places were regarded with distaste. The landscape into which Adam and Eve are expelled is a lone flat desert, where no marble could be found. This part of the composition is taken almost exactly from Massaccio's version in the Brancacci Chapel. The Sacrifice of Noah fills the next, a smaller compartment. It is placed, historically, before the Deluge, and must be taken to represent how Noah, the just man and perfect, and his family, found grace in the eyes of the Lord. As there are five male persons present, this scene cannot represent the sacrifice immediately after the Flood, nor is any rainbow to be seen as was usual in the traditional representations of that subject, [pg 173]like the one in the Chiostro Verde at Santa Maria Novella. Raphael also gives more figures than can be accounted for as having been in the ark in his composition of the sacrifice of Noah, in the series called the Bible of Raphael in the Loggia. The large composition of the Deluge gives us some idea of what the cartoon of Pisa may have been like. There never was a collection of naked figures so many and so beautiful. One is filled with sorrow at the idea of their being drowned. They are all, too, engaged in noble works; charity, energy, and inventiveness are amongst the virtues they exhibit; there is no panic, or struggling one with another; no anger or selfishness, excepting only in the boat in the middle distance; a woman helps her children, a man his wife, an old man bears a young man in his arms, Priam carrying Æneas, an even more pathetic imagination than Homer's; others attempt to save their household goods; others erect a tent; others, again, attempt to scale the sides of the ark or break into it with axes—one cannot but hope they will succeed. The female figures are especially beautiful in this picture, and again we have a foretaste of that wonderful modelling of the flank and thigh seen to perfection in the tombs at San Lorenzo. The weird sea and sky, the ark and the dead tree, show what Michael Angelo could do when he liked, in departments of art other than the human figure. The individual figures in the Deluge are difficult to see on account of the smallness of scale in this part of the vault. It must have been after seeing them from the floor of the chapel, by removing some of the boards of his scaffolding, that Michael Angelo determined to alter the scale in the remaining compositions. In no other way can we account for the change in the size of the Athletes, at [pg 174]any rate. The difference of scale between those surrounding the Sin of Ham over the large door, and those surrounding the separation of Light from Darkness over the High Altar, must be almost two feet. The increase is gradual along the ceiling. Similarly the Sybilla Delphica is very much smaller than the Sybilla Lybica, and the Prophet Joel than the Prophet Jeremiah. The last composition of this series—a small one—represents the Sin of Ham, and was the first painted. The vat and the wine jug are wonderful still-life, reminding us of Bassano.
THE FLOOD
A DETAIL, SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(Reproduced by permission from a photograph by Sig. D. Anderson, Rome)
The twenty Athletes that decorate the corners of these central compositions, and support bronze medallions held in place by oak garlands or by draperies, are nothing but the most direct of transcripts from the nude model, but the most noble that have been executed in the art of painting. They are finished to the smallest detail, and are as truthful to nature as it was possible for a man with an innate sense of grandeur of line to make them. Italian models have been posed in the positions of most of them, and drawings from them compared with the photographs of these figures; they are marvellously true, to the very wrinkles of the skin under the arms and about the knees, and the drawing of the curves and creases of the torso as the body bends. So naturalistic are they that Michael Angelo must have posed a model and made drawings in the chapel itself, perhaps even on the scaffolding, and worked straight away. He appears to have used only three models for this purpose. The Athletes drawn from the same model can easily be distinguished; they are actual portraits. One was the man who sat for the Adam, and was of a noble proportion with a small head, a beautiful brow, and a solemn mouth. His hair was wavy and of a wispy character; he [pg 175]had broad shoulders; his extremities were small, the thighs large and well developed, showing the individual muscles by large forms with flat planes. He may be seen, as we have said, in the Adam, and in the four figures surrounding the fresco representing God dividing the Light from the Darkness; in the two figures near the Adam in his creation of Eve; and best of all, for comparison, in the figures near the foot of Adam in the creation of Man. Another model was of a rounder and more bacchanalian character, not unlike the Dancing Fawn in the Uffizi; but he was not in such good training. He was decidedly fat, his face was mobile, and very easily took jovial expressions, his cheeks dimpled, his eyes round and large, the pupils very dark and the whites very white; his hair went into short, soft, frizzy curls; his shoulders were small and round, the arms feeble, the thighs short, round, and formless; his back was well developed, the folds of the skin in the torso, when he bent, were very large and fat in line. It was probably for this that Michael Angelo chose him. He is well seen in three of the figures surrounding the third panel from the High Altar representing The Spirit of God upon the Face of the Waters, and the two figures nearest to the Adam and Eve in the scene of the Expulsion. The other model was of more ordinary but of still very fine proportion. His head was rather large, and his mouth petulant in expression, the upper eyelids very thick; his hair is broken into large, hard curls. He is seen in the figures surrounding the Sin of Ham, and was probably the first employed for this work. These Athletes are the very epitome of the work of Michael Angelo. If a man does not love them he cannot care for the work of Michael Angelo. They express his highest idea of beauty—man [pg 176]created in the image of God, as he testifies in this vault, and in the sonnet ending:—
Nè Dio, suo grazia, mi si mostra altrove,
Più che'n alcun leggiadro e mortal velo;
E quel sol amo, perchè'n quel si specchia.
Nor hath God deigned to show himself elsewhere
More clearly than in human form sublime
Which, since they image Him, alone I love.[118]
No leaves or branches, minor works of the Great Artist, still less draperies of cloth or even of gold brocade, the works of the hand of man, shall cover any portion of the Divine Image. So all these figures are frankly naked, the genii of the Beauty of the Human Race.
The festoons these Athletes carry support large medallions painted like bronze. They were probably the portion that Michael Angelo intended to finish with gilding, but owing to the impatience of the Pope they were left in their present state. They are a most valuable part of the decorative scheme. Continuity is given by the repetition of these bronze-coloured circles.
THE BRAZEN SERPENT
SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
A great cornice divides the scheme of the flat part of the vault already described, and perhaps the first portion executed, from the curved part containing the Prophets and Sibyls. They are larger in scale and freer in style than any portion of the flat part of the vault, as though with practice Michael Angelo's hand had grown even bolder than before. He may, too, have thought the new scale of figures easier to see from the floor of the chapel, for we must remember that this was his first experiment in vault painting, and no doubt he would be glad to see its effect from below when he was ordered to remove the [pg 177]scaffolding, and he must have learnt by it. The Prophets and Sibyls appear to be the last word of Michael Angelo in decorative painting, as Raphael knew, for he assimilated the teaching both in the beautiful figures of Sibyls at Santa Maria della Pace and the Prophet Isaiah of San Agostino. The motives of the genii or angels, wise children whispering in the ears of the foretellers, seem to be inspired by the sculpture of Giovanni Pisano as seen in the pilasters of the pulpit of the Church of San Andrea at Pistoia.
It would be endless to try and tell all the thoughts and emotions, both literary and artistic, suggested by the contemplation of these figures and by the groups representing the Ancestors of Christ. Suffice it to say, that all the thoughts that come into the minds of the beholders are as nothing compared to the thoughts that passed through the mind of the solitary artist composing and painting upon the high scaffolding of the quiet chapel.
The series of the Ancestors of Christ illustrate the life of a being upon this earth, from the terrible moment when the pregnant woman first feels the pangs of approaching labour, in the semicircle of the window (inscribed Roboam, Abias) to the lean and slippered pantaloon, who needs a stick to help him rise from his seat (over the window inscribed Salmon, Boaz, Obeth); there is the happy mother sleeping with her infant wrapped in swaddling-clothes (Salmon, Boaz, Obeth); and the old man playing with the children, (Eleazr, Matthew); the student attentively poring over his book regardless of the female figure, possibly Inspiration, speaking to him from the other side of the window (Naason). These figures, the Ancestors of Christ, are more slightly painted than the rest of the vault. They loom out of the darkness, caused by contrast to the light of the [pg 178]windows they surround, grow in and out of the background and have an atmospheric effect unequalled in fresco painting. Those who walk from the Ponte Saint Angelo up the Borgo to the Vatican any morning early may see at the back of the dim recesses of the arched cellar-like shops such groups as these. The series may be regarded as the sketch-book of Michael Angelo, in which he recorded his impressions of the life about him as he trudged to his work.
The four triangular compositions that fill the corners of the chapel, the four great Redemptions of Israel, are absolute masterpieces of space arrangement, different methods of overcoming the same difficulty being used in each picture, from the two principal figures and the tent in the David and Goliath to the marvellous crowd of twisted limbs in the story of the Brazen Serpent. In the composition of the Death of Holofernes Judith covers with a napkin the severed head, which is carried in a basket on the head of her handmaid; a most lovely group, said to have been taken from an intaglio representing a vintage scene, in which a nymph fills with grapes a basket supported on the head of a companion.
Under each of the Prophets and Sibyls, upon the side walls, is a decorative putto supporting the name plate, standing at the springing of the arches, as in Donatello's bas-relief representing Christ before Pilate, in the pulpit of San Lorenzo. These ten beautiful figures are seldom noticed, but evidently Raphael thought them worthy of study, as may be seen in the lovely child-figure attributed to him in the Accademia di San Lucca.
JUDITH WITH THE HEAD OF HOLOFERNES
SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(By permission of Messrs. Braun, Clement & Co., in Dornach, Alsace)
The whole vault contains hardly one unworthy human being, the only sins they commit are the Sins of Adam [pg 179]and of Ham, necessary for the story. They are all beautiful and all holy. Can Michael Angelo have had any thought of the doom of these his creations, as exemplified by him on the altar wall, twenty-two years afterwards? The great work was finished, the public saw it, and, as Michael Angelo says, "the Pope was very well pleased."
CHAPTER VII
THE RISEN CHRIST OF THE MINERVA
Julius II. died on February 21, 1513. He will ever be remembered as the man who compelled Michael Angelo to paint the Sistine vault. He was the best friend Michael Angelo ever had, notwithstanding their bickerings, and he understood him as no one ever did afterwards; but he bequeathed to him the Tragedy of the Tomb. In 1514 Michael Angelo signed the agreement for a new commission:—
"Deed with Michael Angelo for the figure in marble[119] of a Risen Christ for the Church of the Minerva, in Rome. The 14 day of June, 1514. Let it be known and manifest to whoever reads this scrip, how Messere Bernardo Cencio, Canon of St. Peter's, and Messeri Mario Scappucci and Metello Vari, have ordered Michael Angelo di Lodovico Simoni, Sculptor, to carve a figure in marble of Christ as large as life, nude, standing, bearing a cross, in whatever attitude the said Michael Angelo thinks good, for the price of two hundred gold ducats of the Camera, to be paid in this manner, that is to say: At the present time one hundred and fifty gold ducats of the Camera, and the remainder, that is fifty similar ducats, the said Messeri Mario and Metello delli Vari promise to pay when [pg 181]the work is finished. As soon as the said Michael Angelo begins to work on the said figure, which he promises to place in the Minerva in whatever position the before-mentioned shall approve; and at his own expense to make a niche where the said figure is to be placed; and every other adornment that should be needful, it is understood that the before-mentioned Messer Bernardo and Messer Mario shall supply at their own expense. This figure the said Michael Angelo promises to do by the end of the next four years, more or less as appears to him good, engaging, however, that he will not exceed four years."
ONE OF THE ANCESTORS OF CHRIST, OVER THE WINDOW INSCRIBED "JESSE"
SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
Then follow their affirmations in due form. Metello Vari dei Porcari, a Roman of an old family, appears to have been the real patron to whom Michael Angelo was responsible. The first block of marble was found to be faulty, so another one had to be carved. The work was not completed until 1521. It is now in the Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva at Rome.
In 1515 Michael Angelo was still at work on the Tomb, but apprehensive of interruption from Pope Leo.
To Buonarroto di Lodovico Simoni, in Florence.
"Buonarroto,—I have written the letter to Filipo Strozzi; see if you like it and give it to him. If it is not well, I know he will hold me excused, for it is not my profession; enough if it serves its purpose. I wish you to go to the Spedalingo[120] of Santa Maria Nuova, and tell him to pay to me here one thousand and four hundred ducats of what he has of mine, because I must make a great effort this summer to finish my work quickly, because I expect [pg 182]soon to have to enter the Pope's service. And for this I have bought perhaps twenty thousands of bronze for casting certain figures. I must have money; so when you see this arrange with the Spedalingo to have it paid over to me; and if you are able to arrange with Pier Francesco Borgerini, who is there, that he should have it paid to me by his people here, I should be glad, for Pier Francesco is my friend and will serve me well; and do not talk about it for I wish it to be paid to me here secretly; and for what remains at Santa Maria Nuova, accept security from the Spedalingo, on account. I wait for the money. No more.
"On the 16th day of June, 1515.
"Michael Angelo, in Rome."[121]
So now, besides the Moses and the Captives in marble, the panels in relief were, perhaps, ready for casting. The lower portions of the architectural base, now in San Pietro in Vincula, were also probably finished. Half the period spent by Michael Angelo in quarrying and road-making for Pope Leo would have sufficed for the completion of the Tomb, which would then have been a monument of Michael Angelo's power as a sculptor, fit to rank with the monument of his power as a painter in the Sistine Chapel: a monument containing four figures, equal in execution and size to the Moses, twelve figures like the Slaves, altogether some forty statues and numerous bronze bas-reliefs besides. It is a great misfortune that we have no bronze bas-reliefs by Michael Angelo, for all his works prove that his genius would have been well expressed in this art.
ONE OF THE ANCESTORS OF CHRIST, OVER THE WINDOW INSCRIBED "IORAM"
(Reproduced by permission from a photograph by Sig. D. Anderson, Rome)
The early years of the Pontificate of Leo X. were wasted over the project for the facade of San Lorenzo. Michael Angelo was continually at Carrara. In a letter, dated May 8, 1517, to Domenico Buoninsegna, Michael Angelo writes with enthusiasm about his new scheme, and undertakes to carry it out for 35,000 golden ducats in six years. Buoninsegna replied that the Cardinal expressed the highest satisfaction at "the great heart he had for conducting the work of the façade." The friendly relations of Michael Angelo with the natives of Carrara continued until the Pope obliged him to leave their quarries and open up those of Pietra Santa, in Tuscan territory, by which act Michael Angelo lost much time. He had positively to make roads down the mountains and over the marshes before he could get a single block to the river. The Marquis of Carrara became his enemy, and the contracts with the people of Carrara caused him much annoyance and great loss. The orders from Rome were peremptory and had to be obeyed.[122] Ten years of the best of Michael Angelo's working life were wasted; the numberless delays of this period, and the delays over the Tomb of Julius, positively seem to have changed the character of the artist from a man of action to a man of thought. Possibly advancing age had something to do with it; but the fact remains that the man who executed the bronze statue of Julius in two years, and painted the vault of the Sistine in less than three years, took seven years to finish the Last Judgment, which covers a surface about one-third [pg 184]the extent of the vault, and also is in a much more favourable position for painting.
There is a document shown in the rooms of the State Archives at the Uffizi that belongs to this period; it is a memorial addressed by the Florentine Academy to Pope Leo X., asking him to authorise the translation of the bones of Dante from Ravenna, where they still rest under "the little cupola, more neat than solemn," to Florence. It is dated October 20, 1518. All but one of the signatures appended are written in Latin; that one is as follows:—"I, Michael Angelo, the sculptor, pray the like of your Holiness, offering my services to the divine poet for the erection of a befitting sepulchre to him in some honour-place in this city." Michael Angelo's devotion to Dante was well known to his contemporaries; he is known to have filled a book with drawings to illustrate the "Divina Com media"; this volume perished at sea, whilst in the possession of the sculptor Antonio Montanti, who was shipwrecked on a journey from Leghorn to Rome.
On April 17, 1517, Michael Angelo bought some ground in the Via Mozza, now Via San Zanobi, Florence, from the Chapter of Santa Maria del Fiore, to build a workshop for finishing his marbles; the purchase was completed on November 24, 1518. This studio remained in his possession until his death. He describes it to Lionardo di Compago, the saddle-maker, as an excellent workshop, where twenty statues can be set up together.
Meanwhile he went on working at Pietra Santa for the façade. In August 1518, he writes:—--
ONE OF THE ANCESTORS OF CHRIST, OVER THE WINDOW INSCRIBED "ASA"
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
"The place of quarrying is very rugged, and the workmen are very ignorant of this sort of work. So for some [pg 185]months I must be very patient until the mountains are tamed and the men are mastered. Then we shall get on more quickly. Enough, what I have promised that will I do by some means, and I will make the most beautiful thing that has ever been done in Italy if God helps me."
The melancholy end of this scheme is told in a Ricordo in the Archivio Buonarroti, March 10, 1520.
"Now Pope Leo, perhaps, to carry out more quickly the above-mentioned façade of San Lorenzo than according to the agreement he made with me, and I consenting, sets me free, and for all the above-said money that I have received, are counted the road that I have made to Pietra Santa, and the marbles that were quarried there and rough-hewn as may be seen to-day; and he declares himself content and satisfied with me, as is said, about all the money received for the said façade of San Lorenzo, and every other work that I have had to do for him until this tenth day of March, 1519; and so he leaves me my freedom, and not obliged to render account to any one for anything that I have had to do for him or with others for him."[123]
We have a series of most interesting letters from Sebastiano del Piombo, Michael Angelo's favourite gossip in Rome; most of them are dated from 1520 to 1533, and give Michael Angelo at Carrara news of Sebastiano and the art world of Rome, They often relate to designs that Sebastiano wished to get from Michael Angelo in order that he might be entrusted with commissions from the Pope that would otherwise be given to the scholars of Raphael. In one, dated October 27, 1520, he says:—
"For I know how much the Pope values you, and when he speaks of you it is as if he were speaking of his own brother, almost with tears in his eyes; for he has told me that you were brought up together, and shows that he knows and loves you. But you frighten everybody, even Popes!"[124]
Michael Angelo seems to have taken exception to the remark, for Sebastiano in his next letter but one says:—
"As to what you reply to me about your terribleness, I for my part do not find you terrible; and if I have not written to you about this, do not wonder, for you do not appear to me terrible except only in art—that is to say, the greatest master that has ever been; so it seems to me if I am in error I am to blame. I have no more to say. Christ keep you safe. 9th day of November, 1520. Remember me to friend Leonardo and to Master Pier Francesco.
"Your most faithful gossip,
"Bastiano, Painter, in Rome.
"The Lord Michael Angelo de Bonarotis, the most worthy sculptor, Florence."[125]
After Michael Angelo had been dismissed from the work of the façade of San Lorenzo he appears to have remained quietly at Florence, possibly engaged upon the marbles for the Tomb of Julius II. About the same time, at the instigation of the Cardinal de' Medici, he began to design the new sacristy and the tombs at San Lorenzo.
THE PROPHET JONAH
SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
In the Ricordi, which run from April 9 to August 19, 1521, he says that on April 9 he received two hundred ducats from the Cardinal de' Medici to go to Carrara and lodge there, to quarry marbles for the tombs which are to be placed in the new sacristy at San Lorenzo. "And there I stayed about twenty days and made out drawings to scale, and measured models in clay for the said tombs." On August 16 the contractors for the blocks, all of which were excavated from the old Roman quarry of Polvaccio, came to Florence, and were paid on account.
The statue of the "Risen Christ" was forwarded to Rome during the summer. The smaller detached, or more easily broken portions, were left in the rough to prevent accidents during the journey, and Pietro Urbino went to Rome with orders to complete the work there. Sebastiano del Piombo, like the good friend he was, kept Michael Angelo informed of the progress of the young scamp of a pupil, from whom his master had extracted a promise that he would avoid the company of dissolute Florentines in Rome more than he had previously done. On November 9, 1520, Sebastiano writes that his gossip, Giovanni da Reggio, "goes about saying that you have not done the figure yourself, but that it is the work of Pietro Urbino. Be sure that it may be seen to be from your hand, so that poltroons and babblers may burst." This was written whilst the work was still at Florence. On September 6, 1531, after it had arrived at Rome, Sebastiano says of Pietro: "Firstly, you sent him to Rome with the statue, to finish and erect it. What he did and did not do you know; but I must let you understand that wherever he has worked he has maimed it. Chiefly, he has shortened the [pg 188]right foot, and it is plainly seen that he has cut off the toes. He has shortened the fingers of the hands, too, more especially those of the one which holds the cross, the right; Frizzi says, it seems to have been worked by a cake-maker, not carved in marble. It looks as if it had been made by one who worked in dough, it is so stunted. I do not understand these things, not knowing the manner of working in marble; but I can very well tell you that those fingers look to me very stumpy. I can tell you, too, that it is easy to see he has been working on the beard. I believe a baby would have had more discretion; it looks as though he had done the hair with a knife without a point; but this can easily be remedied. He has also cut one of the nostrils, so that with a little more the whole nose would have been spoiled, so that no one but God could have mended it, and I believe God inspired you to write your last letter to Master Zovane da Reggio, my comrade, for if the figure had remained in the hands of Pietro he would undoubtedly have ruined it." Michael Angelo transferred the work of finishing from Pietro to Federigo Frizzi. Sebastiano goes on to say: "Pietro is most malignant now that he is cast off by you. He does not seem to value you or any one else alive, but thinks he is a great master; he will find out what he is fast enough, for I believe the poor young man will never know how to make statues. He has forgotten the art. The knees of your statue are worth more than all Rome."
Frizzi mended up the mistakes and finished the work on the hair, face, hands, feet, cross, and the parts undercut. Michael Angelo was evidently anxious as to the result of this touching up, and as he was much attached to Vari, he offered to make a new statue, but the courtly [pg 189]Roman replied that he was entirely satisfied with the one he had received. He regarded it and esteemed it as a thing of gold, and said that Michael Angelo's offer proved his noble soul and generosity, inasmuch as when he had already made what could not be surpassed and was incomparable, he still wanted to serve his friend better.[126]
This Christ of the Minerva is like a late Greek embodiment of the Christian ideal; it is a work that has been a good deal criticised, particularly as to the details, which the letters just quoted prove to have been finished by assistants away from the supervision of the master. The arms and torso, and, as Sebastiano justly says, the knees, are very splendid, and if the spoiled head and extremities were broken away the fragment, that is to say, the part really executed by the master, would be as famous as many a fine work of Greece or of Old Rome. As it stands near a column in the centre of the church in a subdued light it has a presence of great beauty and sweetness, never allied with so much power before, notwithstanding that brazen draperies and a sandal hide much of the reverent workmanship.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SACRISTY OF SAN LORENZO
After the death of Leo X., on December 1, 1521, Adrian IV. was elected to fill the seat of St. Peter. He was not an Italian and loved not the arts. He is recorded to have called statues "idols of the Pagans," and he spent no money on pictures or frescoes. No wonder the artists who were accustomed to the patronage of the Popes rejoiced when he died, notwithstanding his goodness, and hailed his physician as saviour of the Fatherland. The Cardinal Giuliano de' Medici was elected in his stead, under the name of Clement VII., and Michael Angelo expressed the feelings of most of his countrymen and all the artists when he wrote to his friend, Topolino, at Carrara "You will have heard how the Medici is made Pope; it seems to me that all the world is glad of it, so I imagine that here (Florence) many things will soon be set going in art. Therefore, serve well and with faithfulness, so that we may have honour."[127]
THE TOMB OF LORENZO DE' MEDICI, DUKE OF URBINO
THE NEW SACRISTY, SAN LORENZO, FLORENCE
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
In the year 1523 the Senate of Genoa banked 300 ducats towards the expenses of a colossal statue of Andrea Doria, the great sea-captain, to be carved by Michael Angelo. Unfortunately Michael Angelo was unable to execute this congenial task. There is a magnificent [pg 191]portrait of this prince, as Neptune, by Sebastiano del Piombo in the private rooms of the Doria Palace at Rome. The admiral points down with Michael Angelesque forefinger as though he were condemning his enemies to descend to the lowest depths of the sea. It looks as if it had been inspired by a drawing of Michael Angelo's, possibly for this statue, which may have been designed as a nude figure of Neptune; the parapet in front of the picture is decorated with a painted bas-relief of a Roman galley.
Michael Angelo's last known letter to his father is supposed to have been written in June 1523.[128] It is a bitter complaint of the testy manner in which his father always treated him, and the continual interruptions of his work. It must have been a great grief to Michael Angelo when the old man came to die if he had not made up this quarrel with him, for he loved him in a way that is marvellous to us when we consider the character of the old man as evidenced in the correspondence.
Clement VII. lost no time, after he was elected Pope, in setting Michael Angelo to work, but again it was against the inclination of the artist, who passionately desired to complete the Tomb of Julius, partly for the love of his memory and partly to free himself from the importunity of the executors, who threatened him with a lawsuit. Michael Angelo replied to the agent of Clement, Francesco Fattucci, who requested plans for the Laurentian Library: "I understand from your last that his Holiness our Lord wishes that the design for the Library should be by my hand. I have heard nothing and do not know where he wishes it to be built. True, Stefano talked to [pg 192]me about it, but I did not give my mind to it. When he returns from Carrara I will inform myself about it from him, and will do all I can, although it is not my profession."
Clement, who really seems to have had a regard for the artist, and wished to bind him to his interests, desired to provide for him for life. If Michael Angelo would have consented to make the vows of celibacy he would have given him an ecclesiastical appointment, failing that he offered him a pension. Michael Angelo only asked for fifteen ducats a month. Fattucci, on January 13, 1524, rebuked him for this modesty, and wrote that "Jacopo Salviati has given orders that Spina should be instructed to pay you a monthly provision of fifty ducats." A house also was assigned to him at San Lorenzo, rent free, that he might be near his work. Stefano di Tomaso, miniatore, was Michael Angelo's right-hand man at this time, and his name continually recurs in the Ricordi. He was not altogether a satisfactory servant, and in April 1524, Antonio Mini seems to have taken his place. This helps us to date the roofing of the sacristy of San Lorenzo, as in an undated letter to Pope Clement Michael Angelo says that Stefano finished the lantern and it was universally admired. This is the work of which it is recorded that when folk told Michael Angelo it would be better than the lantern of Brunelleschi, he replied: "Different, perhaps; but better, no!" In the British Museum there is a drawing with a bit of advice to young artists, personified in his new pupil, Antonio Mini. It is in Michael Angelo's own hand:—
Disegna Antonio, disegna Antonio, disegna e non perder tempo.
Draw Antonio, draw Antonio, draw and do not lose time.
[pg 193]And now in August 1524,[129] the Tombs of the Medici in the new sacristy were fairly under way. There are several preliminary designs in the Print Room of the British Museum, the Albertina at Vienna, and the Uffizi, Florence.[130] The first idea was for the tombs to be isolated in the centre of the chapel, but we gather from a letter, written in May 1524,[131] that it had already been decided to have mural monuments. The sarcophagi were to support portrait statues of the Dukes and Popes, of Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano. At the foot were to be six rivers, two under each tomb—the Arno, Tiber, Metauro, Po, Taro, and Ticino. The drawings go to prove that the architectural background, as we see it now, is as incomplete as it looks. Some of the drawings have elaborate candlesticks at the top; others a circular panel supported by putti. In several the first ideas for some of the final forms may be seen, but one point is very important: in almost every case the sarcophagi are large enough to support the figure or figures to be placed upon them, and never do we see that uncomfortable arrangement by which the figures appear to be sliding off their supports. Letters to Fattucci in October 1525, and April 1526,[132] give us an idea of the progress of the works. "I am working as hard as I can, and in fifteen days I intend to begin the other captain. Afterwards the only important things left will be the four rivers. The four figures on the top of the [pg 194]sarcophagi, the four figures on the ground which are the rivers, the two captains and Our Lady, who is to be placed upon the tomb at the head of the chapel; these are the figures I mean to carve with my own hand, and of them I have begun six; and I have sufficient spirit to finish them in a convenient time, and bring partially forward the others which are not of so much importance." The six he had begun are those that are now in the chapel. The Giuliano and Lorenzo, Day and Night, Dawn and Evening. The Madonna, perhaps Michael Angelo's finest work in sculpture, was also carved by his own hand; the two other works, now in the chapel representing the patron saints of the Medici family, Cosmo and Damiano, were carved by Montelupo and Montorsoli; they do not seem to have anything of Michael Angelo about them, not even in design.
Meanwhile Francesco Maria, Duke of Urbino, the executor of Julius, was pressing the affair of the Tomb; he threatened a lawsuit to recover money advanced for the work. Michael Angelo appeals to the Pope in a letter addressed to Giovanni Spina, of April 19, 1525:—
THE TOMB OF GIULIANO DE' MEDICI, DUKE OF NEMOURS
THE NEW SACRISTY, SAN LORENZO, FLORENCE
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
"It seems to me it is no good sending a power of attorney about the Tomb of Pope Julius, because I do not want to plead. They cannot bring a suit against me if I acknowledge that I am in the wrong; so I assume that I have sued and lost, and have to pay; and this I am disposed to do if I am able. Therefore, if the Pope will help me in this, as intermediary, and it would be the greatest blessing to me, seeing that I am not able to finish the said Tomb of Julius, both on account of my age and infirmity, he might express his will that I should repay what I have [pg 195]received for doing it, so as to release me of this burden, and so that the relatives of Pope Julius, with this repayment, may have the work done to their satisfaction by any one they like. Thus his Holiness our Lord could please me very greatly. Still, I wish to pay back as little as possible in reason. Making them listen to some of my arguments, such as the time spent for the Pope at Bologna, and other time lost without any payment, as Ser Giovanni Francesco, whom I have informed of everything, knows. As soon as I know clearly what I have to restore, I will make a division of what I have, sell, and arrange my affairs so as to repay all. Then I shall be able to think of the Pope's business, and work. If this is not done I cannot work. There is no way more safe for myself, nor more agreeable, nor more likely to clear my spirit. It can be done amicably without a lawsuit. I pray to God that the Pope may become willing to arrange it in this fashion, for it does not seem to me that any one else can do it."[133]
Michael Angelo had a wholesome fear of the law, not because he was guilty but because of the power of his antagonist. There can be no doubt that he was perfectly honest in these transactions, and, as Pope Clement said, he was rather creditor than debtor. Clement appears to have arranged matters to some extent with the executors, and we have a hint of the new arrangement in a letter by Michael Angelo to Fattucci,[134] dated Florence, October 24, 1525:—
"Messer Giovan Francesco,—In reply to your last, the four statues I have in hand are not yet finished, and [pg 196]much has still to be done upon them. The four others, for rivers, are not begun, because the marble was wanting, but now it has come. I do not tell you how because there is no need. With regard to the affair of Julius, I wish to make the Tomb like that of Pius in St. Peter's, as you have written, and will do so little by little, now one piece and now another, and will pay for it out of my own pocket, if I hold my pension and my house, as you have written; that is to say, the house where I lived yonder in Rome, with the marbles and movables therein. So that I should not have to give to them, I mean to the heirs of Julius, in order to be quit of the Tomb contract, anything of what I have received hitherto, except the said Tomb, completed, like that of Pius in Saint Peter's. Moreover, I undertake to perform the work within a reasonable time, and to finish the statues with my own hand." He now turns to his annoyances at San Lorenzo: "And given my pension as was said, I will never stop working for Pope Clement with what strength I have, though that be little, for I am old. At the same time I must not be slighted and affronted as I am now, for it weighs greatly on my spirits, and has prevented me from doing what I wished to do these many months; one cannot work at one thing with the hands, and at another with the brain, and especially in marble. 'Tis said here that these annoyances are meant to spur me on; but I maintain that those are scurvy spurs that make a good steed jib. I have not touched my pension during the last year, and struggle with poverty. I am alone in my troubles, and have many of them, which keep me more busy than my art, for I cannot keep a servant for lack of means."
[pg 197]There is a kind letter from Michael Angelo to Sebastiano del Piombo that belongs to this period, May 1525.[135] It refers to a picture by Sebastiano, probably the portrait of Anton Francesco degli Albizzi, referred to in letter cccxcvi.:—
"My Most Dear Sebastiano,—Last evening our friend the Capitano Cuio[136] and certain other gentlemen were so good as to invite me to sup with them, which gave me very great pleasure, since it took me a little out of my melancholy, or rather folly. Not only did I enjoy the supper, which was very good, but I had far more pleasure in the conversation, and more than all it increased my pleasure to hear your name mentioned by the said Capitano Cuio; nor was this all, for it further rejoiced me exceedingly to hear from the Capitano that, in art, you are peerless in the world, and that so you were esteemed in Rome. If I could have rejoiced more I would have done so. So you see my judgment is not false, therefore do not any more deny that you are peerless, when I tell it you, for I have too many witnesses. And behold there is a picture of yours here, God be thanked, which wins credence for me with every one who can see daylight."
From the Ricordi we learn that Michael Angelo was busy with the Library of San Lorenzo. He had in his employ stone hewers and masters in various crafts: Tasio and Carota for wood carving, Battista del Cinque and Ciapino for carpentry, and Giovanni da Udine, a pupil of Raphael, for the grotesque decoration for the dome of the chapel. Clement added a postscript in his own hand to one of his secretary's letters: "Thou knowest that Popes [pg 198]have no long lives; and we cannot yearn more than we do to behold the chapel with the tombs of our kinsmen, or, at any rate, to hear that it is finished. And so also the library. Wherefore we recommend both to thy diligence. Meanwhile we will betake us (as thou said'st erstwhile) to a wholesome patience, praying God that He may put it into thy heart to push the whole forward together. Fear not that either work to do or rewards shall fail thee while we live. Farewell; with the blessing of God and ours.—Julius." (Clement signs with his baptismal name.)[137]
The Pope set Michael Angelo to make a Sacrarium for the relics belonging to San Lorenzo. It was placed above the entrance door of the church, and the details of that portion of the interior were altered for it. A design by Michael Angelo at Oxford is for part of these alterations. Another commission Clement desired Michael Angelo to undertake was of a curiously absurd character. Fattucci wrote to say that the Pope wished a colossal statue to be erected on the piazza of San Lorenzo, opposite the Stufa Palace. The giant was to top the roof of the Medician Palace, with its face turned in that direction and its back to the house of Luigi della Stufa. Being so huge it would have to be constructed of separate pieces fitted together. This project, evidently intended as a truly Florentine insult to the house of Stufa, did not please Michael Angelo, and his letter, of October 1525, in reply is an instance of his heavy, elephantine humour:—
LORENZO DE MEDICI, DUKE OF URBINO
THE NEW SACRISTY, SAN LORENZO, FLORENCE
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
"To my dear friend Messere Giovan Francesco, priest of Saint Mary of the Flower of Florence, in Rome.
"Messer Giovan Francesco,—If I had as much strength as I have had pleasure from your last letter, I should expect to carry out, and that quickly, all the things you write to me about, but as I have not I will do what I can.
"About the colossus of forty braccia, of which you tell me, that is to go, or rather to be erected, at the corner of the loggia of the Medician garden, opposite the corner of Messer Luigi della Stufa, I have thought of it not a little, as you told me, and it seems to me that it would not do in that corner, for it would take up too much of the roadway; but in the other corner, where the barber's shop is, it would turn out much better according to my way of thinking, because it has the piazza in front of it and would not be so much in the way; and perhaps as they would not allow the shop to be removed, for love of the income from it, I have been thinking that the said figure might be in a sitting position, and the seat high, the said work to be hollow within, as is right when working in pieces, so that the barber's shop would come underneath, and the rent would not be lost. And again, so that the said shop may have wherewithal to dispose of its smoke as it has now, it occurred to me to give the said statue a horn of plenty in its hand, hollow within, which would serve for the chimney. Then having the head of the said figure empty, like the other members, of that also I believe we could make some use, for there is here in the piazza a huckster, very much my friend, who tells me in secret that it would make a very fine dovecot. Another fancy strikes me that would be [pg 200]much better, but we should have to make the figure ever so much larger. And it might be done, for a tower is built up of pieces; and that is, that the head should serve as campanile for San Lorenzo, which needs one badly. And the bells hanging within, the sound clanging from the mouth, it would seem that the said colossus were howling for mercy, and especially on feast days, when they ring oftenest and with the largest bells.
"About the transport for the marbles for the above-mentioned statue, so that no one shall know of it, meseems they should come by night and well covered up, so that they may not be seen. There will be danger at the gates, and we must provide for it somehow; at the worst, we shall have San Gallo.[138]
"As to doing, or not doing, the things that are to do, and which you say may stand over, it is better to let them be done by those who will do them, for I have so much to do that I do not care to undertake more. To me it will suffice if it be something worthy.
"I do not reply to all you say, for lo Spina comes shortly to Rome, and will answer your letter by word of mouth, and more in detail than I can with the pen.
"Your Michael Angelo, Sculptor, in Florence."
This letter had its desired effect, nothing more was heard of the colossus.
The Sack of Rome in 1527 by the rabble of Germany and Spain, called the Imperial army, naturally stopped all artistic work, for war is the worst enemy of art. Clement was besieged in the Castle Saint Angelo for nine [pg 201]months, and the Medici lost their power in Florence. The Cardinal of Cortona, with the young princes Ippolito and Alessandro de' Medici, fled, and Niccolo Capponi was elected President of the Popular Government. Michael Angelo was in Florence all this time. A Ricordo given in Lettere, p. 598, says: "I record how, some days ago, Piero di Filippo Gondi asked to enter the new sacristy at San Lorenzo to hide there certain goods of his because of the peril in which we now find ourselves. This evening of the 29th of April, 1527, he has begun to bring in certain bundles. He says they are linen of his sisters, and I, not to witness what he does, or where he hides the stuff, have given him the key of the said sacristy this said evening."
Upon July 2, 1528, Michael Angelo's favourite brother, Buonarroto, died of the plague. Gotti tells how Michael Angelo held his brother in his arms[139] while he was dying, notwithstanding the great risk to his own life, and took care of his family after his death. There are minutes of the expenses he incurred; the clothes were burnt to avoid infection; he repaid the widow Bartolommea her dowry, placed his niece Francesca in a convent until she was of an age to marry, and provided for his nephew Lionardo, as if for a son of his own.
The citizens of Florence, fearing the anger of the Pope and his new allies, now that their power was in the ascendant, prepared to endure a siege. Michael Angelo was appointed general over the construction of the walls and defences of the city in 1529. He had many difficulties with the council; often they objected [pg 202]to his plan of fortifying the heights of San Miniato. Michael Angelo went to Pisa and Arezzo to superintend the strengthening of the works there. He was sent also to Ferrara with letters from the Signori and the Ten to the Duke, the greatest Italian authority upon fortification, and to their envoy, Galeotto Giugni, who wrote to inform the Florentines that Michael Angelo refused to abandon the inn and receive the hospitality of the Duke, who with great honour personally conducted him over the fortresses and walls of Ferrara; no doubt at the same time showing him his art collections. It would be interesting to know if Michael Angelo looked upon the portrait-head of Julius II., broken from his Bologna statue, when the bronze was turned into a cannon. Perhaps he also saw La Giulia, the cannon herself. It may be that amongst the engraved gems in the Duke's collection was one representing "Leda and the Swan," and that Michael Angelo talked with the Duke as to the possibilities of this composition for pictorial treatment. Soon after Michael Angelo returned to Florence he received warning from a mysterious person that there was treachery in the garrison, so he fled to Venice. He had no idea of wasting his life uselessly when he thought certain destruction was before the city, and so he determined to leave Italy and accept the overtures that had been made to him from the Court of France. The courage that fears not to undertake the greatest and most difficult works is of a different temper from that of a soldier, a bravo, or a Benvenuto Cellini; all the noble and virtuous qualities cannot belong to one hero. Unfortunately, the judgment of Michael Angelo turned out to be right after all. Nevertheless, hearing better news, and hoping against hope, he courageously returned to Florence in her [pg 203]extremity and went on with the fortifications. Some of the works at San Miniato still remain. Vauban is said to have found them of such interest that he surveyed and measured them. During this sad time Michael Angelo laboured in secret at the tombs of the Medici. The sad and despairing thoughts of the artist are evident in the work he produced. No one can enter that solemn sacristy without feeling the spirit of deepest sadness brooding over all—Il Penseroso, and the figures of Day and of Night, of Morning and of Evening.
The city fell in August 1530. Marco Dandolo, of Venice, when he heard of it, exclaimed aloud, "Baglioni has put upon his head the cap of the biggest traitor upon record." The prominent citizens who escaped, including Michael Angelo, were outlawed and their property confiscated. Many who remained in the city were imprisoned, tortured, and beheaded. Michael Angelo hid himself, the Senator Filippo Buonarroti says, in the bell-tower of San Nicolo beyond Arno.[140] After the fury was over and Clement's anger abated, Michael Angelo, hearing a message of peace from the Pope, came forth from his hiding-place and resumed work on the statues at San Lorenzo, moved thereto more by fear of the Pope than by love of the Medici. During November or December his pension of fifty crowns a month was renewed, the Pope's agent in Florence being Battista Figiovanni, Prior of San Lorenzo.
In 1528 a block of marble had been assigned to Michael Angelo, from which he determined to extract a heroic [pg 204]group of Hercules and Cacus. There is a small wax model of this composition at South Kensington, attributed to Michael Angelo, which may be for this design. The Medici Government handed over the blocks to the craven Baccio Bandinelli, who produced the horrible work, representing the same subject, now in front of the Palazzo Vecchio.
The Leda for the Duke of Ferrara,[141] but presented by Michael Angelo to his pupil Mini, was painted during the siege. It was probably a design from some antique gem in the Duke's cabinet. The original, and a copy by Benedetto Bene, were taken to Paris by Antonio Mini, where they passed into the possession of the King. Michael Angelo's Leda hung at Fontainebleau until the time of Louis XIII., when a Minister of State, M. Desnoyers, ordered its destruction, as it seemed to him to be an improper picture. Pierre Mariette informs us that the picture was only hidden away, and that it reappeared and was seen by him. It was restored and sent to England. In the offices of the National Gallery is the best edition of this picture. The head and arm are repainted, but the thigh and hip are modelled in a magnificent style that reminds us of the figure of Night in the Medician tombs that he was at this very time carving. From the power of this portion of the work we may assume that it is the damaged and much restored original by Michael Angelo.
THE HEAD OF THE DAWN
THE NEW SACRISTY, SAN LORENZO, FLORENCE
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
Vasari informs us that about this time "he began a statue, of three cubits, in marble. It was an Apollo drawing a shaft from his quiver. This he nearly finished. It stands now in the chamber of the Prince of Florence, a [pg 205]thing of rare beauty, though not quite completed." This work was presented by the artist to Baccio Valori, the powerful agent of the Medici. It is now in one of the upper rooms of the Bargello, in Florence. The rough hatchings of the chisel lines are everywhere visible; the figure is palpitating with life under a veil of hewn marble; the pose of the young god as he glides along and turns his head over his shoulder is one of the most beautiful and graceful Michael Angelo ever imagined. Until 1533 Michael Angelo worked at the Medici monuments. The ever recurring trouble about the Tomb of Julius distracted him in 1532; a new contract was made out in the May of that year, and Michael Angelo evidently expected that he would have to go to Rome about it. This may be gathered from the important letter written on February 24, 1531, by Sebastiano del Piombo, in Rome, to Michael Angelo, in Florence; it marks the renewal of the intercourse of the two old friends after the dangers and troubles they had passed through during the siege of Florence and the sack of Rome. Sebastiano's previous letter, as far as we know, is dated April 25, 1525:—
1531, 24th February.
"My Dearest Comrade,—By Master Domenico, called Menichella, who has been to see me on your behalf. God knows how dear it was to me. After so many sorrows, hardships, and dangers, Almighty God has left us alive and well in His mercy and pity. A fact truly miraculous when I think over it; everlasting thanks to His Divine Majesty, and if I could express to you with my pen the anxiety and worry I have had on your account you would marvel at it. The Signor Fernando di Gonzaga will bear me witness, and God knows what sorrow I had [pg 206]when I heard you had been to Venice. If you had found me at Venice things would have been very different; but enough. Now gossip mine, now that we have been through fire and water, and experienced things one could never have imagined, let us thank God for all things, and for the little life that is left to us; at least, let us spend it in what quiet we may. Verily, we must put no faith in fortune, she is so perverse and sad. I am come to this; for aught I care the universe may be ruined. I should laugh at everything. Menichella will tell you by word of mouth of my life and how I am. I do not as yet seem to myself to be the same Bastiano that I was before the sack. I cannot collect my thoughts. I say no more. Christ keep you well.
"The 24th day of February, 1531, in Rome.
"About your coming here, according to what Master Menichella tells me, it does not seem to be necessary, unless you come for a jaunt or to put your house in order; which, in truth, is going to the bad in more ways than one, as in the roofs and other things. I suppose you know that the workshop, with the carved marbles in, has tumbled to pieces; it is a great pity. You will be able to remedy this and make some arrangements. As for me I should dearly love to enjoy your company for a while; truly I am dying to see you. I am all impatience; but do as you think best.
"Your very faithful gossip,
"Sebastiano Lucianis.
"Lord Michael Angelo de Bonarotis,
"Most rare Sculptor, in Florence."
APOLLO
THE NATIONAL MUSEUM, THE BARGELLO, FLORENCE
(By permission from the photograph by Sig. G. Brugi, Florence)
Sebastiano continued his good services to his friend [pg 207]with regard to the Tomb of Julius all through 1531. The course of events may be followed in his letters. The Pope was interested, and always consulted, in the affair, and most favourably disposed to Michael Angelo. All this anxiety preyed upon the master and injured his health. Paolo Mini, the father of Antonio, Michael Angelo's assistant, wrote to Baccio Valori on September 29[142]: "Michael Angelo will not live long unless some measures are taken for his benefit. He works very hard, eats little and poorly, and sleeps less. In fact, he is afflicted with two kinds of disorder: the one in his head, the other in his heart. Neither is incurable, since he has a robust constitution; but, for the good of his head, he ought to be restrained by our Lord the Pope from working through the winter in the sacristy, the air of which is bad for him;[143] and for his heart, the best remedy would be if his Holiness could accommodate matters with the Duke of Urbino." On November 21 Clement addressed a brief to his sculptor, whereby Buonarroti was ordered, under pain of excommunication, to lay aside all work, except what was strictly necessary for the Medician monuments, and to take better care of his health. On the 26th Benvenuto Valpaio added that his Holiness desired Michael Angelo to select some workshop more convenient than the cold and cheerless sacristy.
Sebastiano's letters during 1533 often refer to an edition of some madrigals written by Michael Angelo and set to music by Bartolomeo Tromboncino, Giacomo Arcadelt, [pg 208]and Constanzo Festa.[144] Gottif[145] publishes an essay by Leto Puliti on this music with the score of three of the madrigals. Many of Michael Angelo's poetical compositions may be referred to this period of comparative inaction as to painting and sculpture. All through his life he wrote sonnets and poems when his other work did not proceed quickly.
In 1535 Michael Angelo finally left Florence. His father and his favourite brother were dead, and so he left the shadow of the great Duomo, all Florentines love, for ever. At Rome he dreamed a dream of another Dome, that has given to that city the feature by which we know it best, and to Romans a possession not less beloved than Bruneleschi's gift to the Florentines.
THE HEAD OF THE NIGHT
THE NEW SACRISTY OF SAN LORENZO, FLORENCE
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
When Michael Angelo left, the works at San Lorenzo were all unfinished; the façade was not begun, the Sagrestia Nuova, the ground plan of which is similar to Bruneleschi's Sagrestia Vecchia, was left in the rough, and the Library he designed to hold the priceless Medician manuscripts, collected by Cosimo Pater Patriæ and Lorenzo the Magnificent, now known as the "Biblioteca Laurenziana," was only begun. As Michael Angelo's designs and working drawings were of the roughest description, and he usually left a great deal to be settled after he had seen the effect of the earlier part of his works, we cannot blame him only for certain faults, such as, for instance, the awkward approach to the Library. If he had completed the work he very likely would have made an entrance from the piazza, as roomy and convenient, as the curious staircase in the corner of the cloister is awkward and cramped. It was [pg 209]completed by Giorgio Vasari, whose letters to Michael Angelo about this difficult work, and Michael Angelo's chaotic replies, belong to a much later period. The curious manner of cutting up the wall by pilasters and framed spaces cannot properly be judged without the bronze bas-reliefs that they were intended to contain. Considered as a method of hanging or displaying a collection of works of art they are admirable, and might well serve for the interior decoration of a great museum. The vestibule, with its curious stairway, large consoles, and green and white colour, leaves an impression of power and eccentricity in architecture like the effect of the serious caricatures of Leonardo da Vinci in drawing. The buildings at San Lorenzo should be regarded as the prentice work of the architect of the Dome of St. Peter's. The decorations of the Sagrestia Nuova, too, were left unfinished; the statues of Day, Night, Morning, and Evening were left where he had worked upon them, on the floor of the chapel. From Vasari's letter to him of 1562, instigated by the Duke Cosimo, who desired to complete the work according to Michael Angelo's designs, asking for help and advice,[146] we gather that Michael Angelo intended to have placed statues in all the niches above the sepulchres, and in the frames above the doors works of painting, stucco for the arches, and painting to adorn the flat walls and semicircular spaces of the chapel. Michael Angelo, on account of his great age, was unable or unwilling to assist in the work. The present sarcophagi cannot have been intended to hold the allegorical figures in the way they do, for the under surfaces of the statues do not fit the top of the [pg 210]mouldings, and certainly the rough stones that project over them, forming a base for the feet, must have been intended to be supported by solid marble, and not to rest uneasily on air. The sarcophagi are of a greyer marble than the figures or than the panelling behind them. The architectural ornament appears to be of three dates: First, the niches and panels of the walls; second, the sarcophagi and their supports; third, the doors of the chapel and niches over them. In the first, the grotesque heads in the mouldings are like the dull grotesques Michael Angelo appears to have designed in the architecture of the Tomb of Julius and on the armour of the captains in this chapel. In the second, the four-horned skulls of rams on the sides of the supports of the sarcophagi are very feeble and poor in design. If we compare them with the powerful and true drawing of the rams' heads used in the frame-work of the vault of the Sistine Chapel, we shall see that it is impossible for Michael Angelo to have designed them, or even let them pass whilst he was superintending the works. The shell and rope patterns are even worse and more feeble; they are easily seen to be executed by different hands. The simple bosses of the base under "Dawn and Evening" are still unfinished: that would go to prove that Michael Angelo had designed them and seen them cut as far as they go—not necessarily that he had seen them in position—and that the academicians, when they did their best to complete the chapel, rightly decided to leave them as they were. The base under Day and Night has no bosses; they had not been begun as in the former case; we may presume the academicians thought it best to have them flat. These simple bases are the most effective portions of the architectural scheme of the monument, in character [pg 211]with the allegorical figures, reminding us of the plinths or seats provided for the Athletes and the Prophets of the Sistine. Perhaps they were the only portions, except the figures and the panelling of the walls, seen by Michael Angelo himself. The supports and lid of the sarcophagi, and the sarcophagus of Giuliano, are of different marble to the actual receptacle of the body of Lorenzo, that is under Dawn and Evening. The quiet mouldings of the latter are much finer and more in character with the walls. The lids are of a white sugary marble, the mouldings coarse and semicircular in section, and the volutes and circular endings of the lids are of a perfectly stupid design. These lids cannot have been seen by Michael Angelo; and, therefore, he cannot have seen the figures in their places upon them. The sarcophagus under the Day and Night has been copied from the one seen by Michael Angelo: its mouldings are still beautiful, but heavier, more deeply cut, and of less subtle line in the section. The difference is perceptible to the eye and evident with the aid of a good foot-rule. This sarcophagus is of a different marble, as has been said. As to the third period, the garlands and little pretty vases over the doors of the chapel, and the consoles and niches above, are like nothing else in the world but those carved frames that in Florence to this day are called "Vasari frames."
The marble candlesticks upon the altar of the chapel are of different marble from the altar on which they stand, and appear to be of an earlier date. The grotesques on the bases are of good design, and the drill holes of the marble cutting are simply left to tell their story of how the work was done, instead of being cut away and hidden as in later work. May they not have been designed in [pg 212]Michael Angelo's time, possibly for the brackets on the cornice of the panelling behind the tombs? On the altar is the inscription:
PAULUS V. PONT. MAX.
MDCX.
The figures of Giuliano and Lorenzo are perfectly finished; they cannot be regarded as portraits, but as symbols. The armour of the warrior Giuliano is magnificently designed, and must have been founded upon some antique example. The grotesque upon the breastplate is not unlike a grotesque in a similar place upon an antique marble bust in the Naples Museum. The helmeted Lorenzo, Il Penseroso, broods over what might have been, had he acted his part in Florence. Under his elbow rests a box of peculiar design, possibly the representation of a political instrument used in the offices of his family's unwise government. The unfinished head of Day is an example of how the master appears to complete his work from the first stroke of his chisel. The vigorous giant, just rising to his work, looks over his shoulder at the bright sun. The rough chiselling of the face suggests already the dazzle of the light in his eyes; how he tears his right hand as yet half stone from out his stony breast! With his left hand behind his back he appears to count the quattrini of his wage; this action of the thumb placed on the second finger is Michael Angelo's favourite one for the hand; it may be seen many times in this chapel alone. The shortness of the feet in the figure of Day appears to be due to a miscalculation as to the size of the block; but, perhaps, had the head and torso been thinned down in the finishing [pg 213]they would have been correct in proportion. At the same time, the feet are finished most carefully and beautifully, and are so true that photographs of them look almost like photographs from the finest of living models.
NIGHT
THE NEW SACRISTY OF SAN LORENZO, FLORENCE
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
How much has been written about the Night and her meanings! We have good proof that her maker intended her to have some of these many meanings in the reply of Michael Angelo to Giovan Battista Strozzi's complimentary verses:—
La Notte, che tu vedi in si dolci atti
Dormire, fu da un Angelo scolpita
In questo sasso, e perchè dorme ha vita;
Destala, se no'l credi, e parleratti.
The Night, that thou seest, so sweetly sleeping,
Was by an angel carved in the rude stone,
Sleeping, she lives, if thou believ'st it not,
Wake her, and surely she will answer thee.
The reply of Michael Angelo is in a much higher vein, and teaches us to look to a far different aim in his work than the mere form represented:—
Grato m'è 'l sonno e più l'esser di sasso;
Mentre che 'l danno e la vergogna dura
Non veder, non sentir m'è gran ventura;
Però non mi destar; deh! parla basso!
Dear is my sleep, more dear to be but stone;
Whilst deep despair and dark dishonour reign
Not to hear, not to feel is greatest gain;
Then wake me not; speak in an undertone.
No one ever before gave such tragic beauty to the worn and tired figure of a woman who has lived through her many days of toil and suffered many labours. It is believed by a medical authority that the master meant [pg 214]the statue to represent rest after a labour, but it is rather the nightmare-troubled sleep of a tired woman, whose beautiful firm hips and worn breasts prove her to have bravely met and passed through many cares, and suckled many children. A horrid mask, symbolising these memories, in bad dreams, grimaces beside her left hand. The eyes of the mask are cut double so that the thing alters its glance as you move about the chapel, fascinates and is intolerable. The noble and splendid thighs of the woman again realise a favourite problem of Michael Angelo's. He represented these powerful limbs in the Flood and other parts of the Sistine vault, and in the Leda. Beneath is seen an owl; never before in sculpture has a bird been represented with such power and dignity, save only by the Greeks in the eaglets head on the coin of Eiis. There are wreaths of poppy heads, symbols of sleep, and a moon and stars to crown the head that is like the head of a greater than Diana.
Evening, a brawny, hard-worked man, looks across the chapel with pity towards the Night. He appears to be in the act of straightening and stretching out his limbs, lately bent by the toils of the day, in longed-for rest.
THE MADONNA AND CHILD
THE NEW SACRISTY, SAN LORENZO, FLORENCE
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
The virgin Dawn lifts her weary head, as it were, in despair, that another day of shame and reproach is beginning; her long, lithe limbs and narrow hips contrast with the ample girth and muscular power of the Night. The modelling of the torso of this figure is, perhaps, the finest piece of workmanship in the chapel, and should be studied from every point of view, even from the back of the monument. The muscular forms and the disposition of the lines are so beautiful and true that it is a veritable marvel and wonder of the world. The right proportion of [pg 215]development necessary for a figure of that colossal size to move and live has never been so well calculated. The head is so beautiful that it cannot be spoken about; but must be seen in the position Michael Angelo designed it for, and not tilted upright on an ordinary pedestal as it is always seen in the art schools. All the four figures struggle with the trials, difficulties, and despair of their lives, as who should say, to such a pass has Medici rule reduced existence in Florence.
One other statue in the Chapel is entirely by the hand of the master, a Madonna suckling the child Jesus, a strong boy straddling across her knee and turning right round to reach the breast. Although unfinished, it is one of Michael Angelo's noblest works; it is a notable example of compactness of design, and of how he left the shape of the block of marble evident in his finished work.
CHAPTER IX
THE LAST ACT OF THE TRAGEDY OF THE TOMB, AND THE DAY OF JUDGMENT
As soon as Michael Angelo arrived in Rome, in 1535, he set to work to complete his contract for the Tomb of Julius, and marbles that had waited in silence for his liberating hand began to resound with the clink of the iron. The two Slaves in the Louvre appear to have been worked upon once again at this date, if we may judge by their likeness to the work in the Dawn and the Day. After the death of Clement the new Pope, Paul III., Farnese, sent for him and requested him to enter his service, as Condivi tells us.[147] Paul III., in a brief dated September 1, 1535,[148] appointed Michael Angelo chief architect, sculptor, and painter at the Vatican; he became a member of the Pope's household, with a pension of 1200 golden crowns, raised on the revenue from a ferry across the river Po, at Piacenza. This was so unremunerative, however, that it was exchanged for a post on the Chancery at Rimini. And now the doors of the Sistine Chapel once more close upon the master, not to be opened again until the Christmas of 1541.
THE DAY OF JUDGMENT
(From a print in the British Museum)
Michael Angelo had to destroy three frescoes by Perugino and two lunettes of his own upon the altar [pg 217]wall of the Sistine Chapel for his new scheme. He is said to have had the wall rebuilt of well-baked bricks, so possibly the old frescoes had suffered from damp and dirt. Vasari says Fra Sebastiano del Piombo prepared the wall for Michael Angelo, and secretly had it grounded for oil painting, no doubt hoping himself to be employed in the work, as oil was his special medium. Michael Angelo was very wroth with his old friend for this, and declared that oil painting was an art only fit for women and crazy fellows. We hear of no further intercourse between Michael Angelo and the jovial frate. Vasari attributes their coolness to this incident.
Hieronimo Staccoli wrote a letter in July 1537,[149] to the Duke of Camerino, son and heir to the Duke of Urbino, about a salt-cellar designed for him by Michael Angelo. This prince was afterwards a good friend to the master, and his letter of September 7, 1539, informs us of the position of affairs with regard to the Tomb of Julius during the progress of the large painting in the Sistine:—
"Dearest Messer Michael Angelo,—It always has been, and now is, more than ever our infinite desire, as you will naturally imagine, to see the Tomb to the sainted memory of Pope Julius, my uncle, brought to a good conclusion by you, and we know well that it belongs to our duty to have good care of it, and see it ultimately finished, being held to it as you so well know by that sainted spirit: nevertheless, having heard by letters from our ambassador at Rome the great desire of our Lord, we must comfort ourselves with all patience whilst this said [pg 218]work is passed over by you. As long as His Holiness holds you busy in finishing the picture in the said chapel of Sisto; not being able or willing, but by our duty and our natural inclination in this as in all things to otherwise than comply with his wishes, we are contented to agree with a good grace, on reflection and by the reverence we bear to His Holiness. You may, therefore, fairly go on with the painting until the work is finished; but with a firm hope and belief that when it is done you will give yourself up entirely to finishing the said Tomb, redoubling your diligence and care to make up for the loss of time, as His Holiness has also promised you shall, kindly offering himself to urge you to do it; and to this end we have written you this letter. So long a time has passed since this said Tomb was begun that we cannot persuade ourselves but that you are equally desirous with us to see it finished; and esteeming you an honourable man, as we certainly believe you are—you cannot be otherwise with your singular virtue—we judge it superfluous to give you any admonition except that you keep yourself in good health, in order that you may honour those sainted bones that living honoured you and the other gifted men of that age, by all that we have so often heard. We beg you will make use of us if there is any other matter in which we can do you pleasure, for we shall do it with that good will which your most rare gifts deserve. And keep well."
THE JUDGE. from "THE DAY OF JUDGMENT"
SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(By permission of the Fratelli, Alinari, Florence)
Shortly before the fresco was finished, Vasari informs us that Michael Angelo had a bad fall from the scaffolding, and injured his leg. He returned home, shut himself up in his house, and would not allow any doctor to come near [pg 219]him or even enter the house. A certain Florentine physician and lover of the arts, Baccio Rontini, contrived to creep in by a back door, and roamed about until he found the master. He then insisted upon remaining with him, looking after him until he had effected a complete cure.
The Last Judgment was shown to the public upon Christmas Day, 1541. In this picture of the Day of Wrath, Michael Angelo has concentrated all his energies to represent the terror of the wrath of God. It is Jehovah with His thunders that rises before the frightened mass of human souls. The Holy Mother crouches beside Him, turning her face away so as not to see the wrath to come. Even the saints look with dread towards the great Judge, fearing lest they too should be condemned. Martyrs brandish the emblems of their martyrdom before His eyes to plead for them, and, as some have said, claim vengeance for their pains. Michael Angelo would have us realise that no human soul is innocent beside the Holiness of Heaven. The gentle happiness of the redeemed, as represented by the blessed Frate Angelico is absent from the scene—it could not appear without destroying the unities of the tragedy. Peace will follow as the blessed walk in the Elysian fields after they have passed, with a fearful joy, from the judgment seat. Michael Angelo has followed the traditional composition of the subject in all its lines and details, adapting it with the least change possible to the space at his command, and to the superior knowledge of the drawing of the human form that he possessed. It is most interesting to compare this rendering with the same subject in the Campo Santo at Pisa. Every part of the composition is repeated, the action of the Judge, the [pg 220]Madonna beside Him on His right, Apostles on either side, the resurrection of the dead, the descent into hell, the angels blowing the trumpets in the centre of the lower part, the angels bearing the cross and other implements of the Passion in the upper corners. This crowded mass of figures is divided into nine several parts, all the figures and groups having room enough to move, and to spare. The more this work is studied in detail the more beautiful the forms appear, and the more daring and skilful the foreshortenings are found to be. Every figure is beautiful, and every one of them noble. The picture is full of symbolism in the details, and may be studied every day, and new thoughts and new meanings found in it. Souls that help each other in their upward struggle. Beads of prayers with which one good righteous man draws souls to heaven. The wife who lifts up her despairing husband; his expression of awe and doubt as he rises upward. Souls long separated by death rush together in close embrace; father and son, husband and wife. Dante is there thirsting for deepest mysteries, his face positively thrust between St. Peter and St. Paul. Souls driven down to hell, beautiful and noble as are those destined for heaven; even their despair is dignified as if they assented to their doom as just. Old Charon, in his boat, "with eyes of brass, who beats the delaying souls with uplifted oar," is taken directly from Dante:—
Caron demonio con occhi di bragia
Loro accenando, tutte le raccoglie,
Batte col remo qualunque si adagia.
SPIRITS OF THE BLESSED, part of "THE DAY OF JUDGMENT"
SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
Those portions of the fresco in the semicircular spaces at the top, angels bearing implements of the Passion, appear to have been painted the last. They approximate [pg 221]in style to the works afterwards done in the Pauline Chapel, and are not so absolutely true in drawing as the rest of the work. Here, for the first time, is a sense of fatigue in the workmanship. They appear to have been treated as two separate compositions filling their lunettes. Michael Angelo has used the favourite device of Raphael to give movement, direction, and force of line, two figures pointing almost side by side in almost exactly parallel actions. Nothing gives so much sense of rush, as may be seen in many of the compositions in the Loggia. One instance here is the angel bearing the Crown of Thorns and the figure near him. Another is just below, two figures near the right arm of the Judge. One of the finest and most superb groups ever designed by Michael Angelo is the group of angels blowing the trumpets of doom in the forefront of the fresco. Their energy and power, compared with the placid angels of Pisa and Orvieto, exhibit the different aims of the artist most effectively. It must be noticed how carefully Michael Angelo has arranged his composition, so that the baldacchino used behind the High Altar upon great occasions shall not injure his composition. The group of angel trumpeters, the Charon and the devils in a cave, are all hidden and cut off exactly by the curtains, and the composition generally is positively improved by their absence. Michael Angelo, no doubt, thought the fresco would be most seen on such occasions, and designed his work accordingly. The space hidden, however, he did not neglect, but placed in it some of his finest work.
The prophet above this end of the chapel is Jonah, whose history is a symbol of the resurrection of the dead. His presence there makes us suppose that Michael Angelo always contemplated the possibility of his having to paint [pg 222]the Last Judgment upon this wall, although he himself painted the lunettes now covered by the larger composition. The colour of this fresco is very much darkened by dust and by smoke from the altar candles; and, as it is more within reach than the vault, it has been retouched. It should be a source of comfort to those who get tired with looking upward at pictures in high places, if they will but remember that their beloved paintings have often been protected from the restorer by their high position. There is an interesting early copy of this fresco in the Corsini Gallery in Florence, which, though rather crude, gives us a good idea of the light tone of the painting in its early state.
This work was received by artists with enthusiasm, reflected in the pages of Vasari. They came from all parts to study it; in fact, most of the drawings attributed to Michael Angelo in collections are their studies from it, and not his studies for it, as they are called. As a general rule, whenever there are two or more figures drawn in a group, all equally finished and accurately in the same position as the figures in the fresco, the drawing may be assumed to be a copy.
Two sections of the public, even then, were unable to receive Michael Angelo's message of the beauty and purity of the human figure. Not only scandalous persons, like Aretino, objected to them, but pious people, who could not and cannot yet be brought to believe in the splendour and holiness of the Creator's work. Vasari tells us that when Michael Angelo had almost finished the work Pope Paul came to see it, and Messer Biagio da Cesena, Master of the Ceremonies, a very particular person, was with him in the chapel, and was asked what he thought of it. [pg 223]Messer Biagio da Cesena replied that he considered it highly improper to paint so many shameless, naked figures in such an honourable building, and that it was not a fit work for the Pope's chapel, but more suitable to a bagno or an inn. Michael Angelo nettled by this resolved to revenge himself at once. As soon as they left the chapel he set to work and drew Messer Biagio's portrait, from memory, in hell as Minos, with a great serpent twisted round his legs, surrounded by a crowd of devils. Messer Biagio complained to the Pope, who asked him where he was placed? "In hell," was the reply. "Then I can do nothing to help you," said the Pope; "had the painter sent you to purgatory I would have used my best efforts to get you released, but I exercise no influence in hell, ubi nulla est redemptio." Some years afterwards Paul IV. objected to the naked figures, and employed Daniele da Volterra to patch draperies on to some of them, with Michael Angelo's consent, whereby Daniele obtained the nickname of Il Braghettone, or the breeches-maker. Daniele did his work with a good deal of discretion, hiding as little of the original fresco as possible: the additions are unfortunately offensive in colour. The early engravings show the picture in its original state, and show that the additions are not so many or so important as might be supposed, as most of the larger masses of draperies are seen to be Michael Angelo's own work. When the Pope obtained Michael Angelo's consent to this alteration, the artist replied to his messenger: "Tell his Holiness this is a small matter, and can easily be set right. Let him look to setting the world in order: to reform a picture costs no great trouble." Pius V. also employed Girolamo da Fano to make some further alterations. These retouches [pg 224]a secco have destroyed to a great extent the atmospheric quality and the relation of the planes in Michael Angelo's suave true-fresco method, which, as may be seen in the vault, gives the grey half-tints of the flesh-tones in a way only equalled by Andrea del Sarto in fresco and Rembrandt in oil painting.
As soon as Michael Angelo had finished the Last Judgment, Paul III. set him to work again to fresco the walls of the chapel of the Holy Sacrament, just completed by Antonio da San Gallo, and now known as the Cappella Paolina. Michael Angelo had hoped to complete the Tomb of Julius at once, with his own hand, but the Pope's determination necessitated further negotiations with the Duke of Urbino. The Duke wrote to Michael Angelo upon March 6, 1542, saying that he would be quite satisfied if the three statues by his hand, including the Moses, were assigned to the Tomb, the execution of the rest being left to competent workmen under him.[150]
There is also a petition from Michael Angelo to Paul III.[151] stating that his Holiness the Pope's commission for Michael Angelo to work and paint in his new chapel prevents him finishing the Tomb as agreed with the illustrious signor Duke of Urbino. "Already Raffaello da Monte Lupo, the Florentine, considered one of the best masters of the time, was well forward with the standing group of the Madonna with the Child in her arms, and a Prophet and a Sibyl seated, for four hundred scudi. The rest of the decoration, excepting the part in front, was in the hands of Master Giovanni de' Marchesi and Francesco da Urbino, chisellers and carvers in stone, for seven hundred [pg 225]scudi. But there still remained to be supplied the three figures to be carved by Michael Angelo's own hand, that is to say, a Moses and two captives. But as the two said captives were designed for the work when it was to have been on a much larger scale, they would not fit in the reduced design, nor could they in any way be made to look well there. Accordingly the said Messer Michael Angelo, not to lose his honour, had blocked out two new statues to go on either side of the Moses, representing the Active and Contemplative Life, which are well advanced, so that they may be easily finished by another master. Michael Angelo desires and supplicates his Holiness our Lord the Pope Paul the Third, in order that he may work in his chapel, which needs all his energies and his entire care, and he being aged, and desiring to serve the Pope with all his power, to free him from his obligation to the signor Duke of Urbino with regard to the said Tomb, cancelling and annulling every obligation. Especially, to allow him to hand over the two statues that remain to be done to the said Raffaello da Montelupo, or to some one pleasing to his Excellency, for a good price, which it is thought would be 200 scudi. The Moses will be finished entirely by Michael Angelo, and arrangements will be made by Michael Angelo to pay the money due for these workers ... and so he will be free in all things and able to serve and satisfy his Holiness." Finally, he deposits a sum of 1200 crowns, and guarantees that the work shall be efficiently executed in all its details. The final contract in agreement with this petition was signed upon August 20, 1542.[152]
The mighty design of Michael Angelo's early years of enthusiasm dwindled down to the Moses, but what a height [pg 226]above other men's biggest designs is this single figure! The Cardinal was right who said the statue of Moses alone was a sufficient memorial of Julius. In a letter to Salvestro da Montauto, of February 3, 1545[153], Michael Angelo says that the Duke of Urbino ratified the deed, and the five statues were given to Raffaello da Montelupo to be carved. "Of these five statues my Lord the Pope having at my earnest prayer and for my satisfaction conceded to me a little time, I finished two of them with my own hand, that is to say, the Contemplative Life and the Active Life for the same sum that the said Raffaello was to have had." From the works themselves we may be sure that there is a good deal of Raffaello da Montelupo about these figures all the same. Notwithstanding all this evidence of the desire of Michael Angelo to carry out his contract, we have a letter[154] from Annibale Caro to Antonio Gallo as late as 1553 entreating him to plead with the Duke of Urbino for Michael Angelo. "I assure you that the extreme distress caused him by being in disgrace with his Excellency is sufficient to bring his grey hair with sorrow to the grave before his time."
In the finished work there are statues not yet accounted for, that is to say, the recumbent portrait of the Pope which was executed by Maso del Bosco, the coat of arms of the Della Rovere by Battista Benti of Pietra Santa, and the terminal figures by Giacomo del Duca. The greatest drawback to the effect of the whole is the change in the architectural treatment and decorations. The lower part belongs to the period when the work was begun in 1505, [pg 227]and the upper, with no transition but a joint in the stone, to the heavier and coarser style of the period when it was finished, 1545. The jointing and the masonry generally are not of a satisfactory character,[155] and Michael Angelo's assistants cannot be congratulated upon the way they did their share of the work. With the exception of the figures of Active and Contemplative Life, the work of the assistants would be better away.
The two bound captives which were too big for the altered monument are now the glory of the Italian sculpture galleries of the Louvre. They were presented by Michael Angelo to Roberto degli Strozzi, because, when the sculptor was ill in 1544, Luigi del Riccio, his friend, nursed him and looked after him in the Strozzi Palace. They were taken to France and offered to the King of France, who gave them to the Connétable de Montmorenci; they were placed by him in Ecouen. They were bought for the French nation by M. Lenoir when the Republic put them up for sale in 1793.
Four unfinished colossal figures, which still appear to be wrenching themselves from their prison of stone, now lurk in the corners of a repulsive grotto in the Boboli Gardens. They are supposed to have been also for the Tomb of Julius. Heath Wilson suggests that they may have been intended for the façade of San Lorenzo. The difficulty as to scale that caused a doubt as to their being intended for the Tomb does not really disprove it; for Michael Angelo was never very particular as to the comparative size of the figures in his monuments, and the many alterations of his schemes for the Tomb make it possible for them to have been worked in somehow. It is [pg 228]very probable that when he was at Florence, and after some of the more threatening letters of the executors, he set savagely to work upon some blocks ready to his hand, with the idea of having them conveyed to Rome afterwards. They belong to about the time of the siege of Florence, and are more suggestive of his method of work, and of his thoughts in the presence of the stone, than any other of his statues. If they were removed from their ugly surroundings and placed, say, in the Tribuna of David in the Belle Arti at Florence instead of the plaster casts that represent the master in his own city, they, with the other fragments, such as the Saint Matthew, the Apollo, the Victory, and the other works in the Bargello, would make a gallery of his art even worthy of Michael Angelo. Failing such a possibility, they might, at least, be placed under the Loggia dei Lanzi, away from the repulsive grotesque of stucco and stalactite that grins at them in the grotto. If something must be left as a companion to the ugly thing, plaster casts would be quite good enough.
The Victory, of the Bargello, was said by Vasari to have been designed for the Tomb, but it may just as well have been intended for an angel overcoming a demon, part of the ruined scheme for the façade of San Lorenzo. The lower figure is still left in the rough, and is supposed to be like the artist. The head of the upper figure is so dull that it cannot have been carved by the sculptor who finished the torso so exquisitely. It may have been left a mere block, like the head of one of the captives of the Boboli. The man who carved the head, and also worked on other portions of the group, turned the neck round too much. If we imagine the head less turned and looking down towards the crouching figure, conquered by the young genius of beauty and [pg 229]victory, we shall see the grace in the pose of the torso to greater advantage. We imagine a somewhat similar story for the figure in the Bargello, called the Adonis. The boar cannot be by Michael Angelo's hand, and, indeed, very little of the figure suggests his grasp of plastic possibilities; the figure cannot have been much more than blocked out by him, and was finished after his death by some artist of the type of Vincenzio Danti.
CHAPTER X
THE CHAPEL OF POPE PAUL, AND THE PIETÀ OF SANTA MARIA DEL FIORE
Michael Angelo wrote a number of sonnets and made many drawings for his friends, especially for the Marchioness of Pescara and Messer Tomaso dei Cavalieri, a noble Roman gentleman. For him they were generally subjects from Greek and Roman mythology, but for the Marchioness the drawings always represented episodes from the story of the Passion of our Lord. A Pietà, drawn for this lady, was engraved by Giulio Bonasoni and Tudius Bononiensis in 1546. There are several drawings in the Print Room of the British Museum and the Windsor and Oxford Collections of this character and period. One at Oxford was probably the original sent to Vittoria, but all are of the same sacred inspiration; in fact, the religious element becomes very strong indeed in all his later work, just as in the later work of Titian. These artists had the near prospect of death in view, and thus they turned their thoughts entirely to work from which they hoped for reward in the world to come. The fear of hell was not without its influence upon both of them.
Some of the drawings made by Michael Angelo for his friend, Tomaso Cavalieri, are mentioned in one of Tomaso's letters, dated 1533.[156]
THE CRUCIFIXION OF SAINT PETER
THE CHAPEL OF POPE PAUL, THE VATICAN, ROME
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
"Unique my Lord,—Some days ago I received a letter from you, which was very welcome, both because I learned by it that you are well, and also because I can now be sure that you will soon return. I was very sorry not to answer at once. However, when you know the cause, you will hold me excused. On the day your letter reached me I was very sick, and in such a high fever that I was at the point of death; and verily I should have died if it had not revived me. Since then, thank God, I have been well. Messer Bartolomei has now brought me a sonnet by you, which has made it my duty to write. Some three days since I received my drawing of Phæton, which is exceedingly well done. The Pope, the Cardinal de' Medici, and every one, have seen it. I do not know what made them want to do so. The Cardinal expressed a wish to inspect all your drawings, and they pleased him so much that he said he should like to have a Tityos and Ganymede done in crystal. I could not prevent him from using the Tityos, and it is now being executed by Master Giovanni. I struggled hard to save the Ganymede. The other day I went, as you requested, to Fra Sebastiano. He sends a thousand messages, but all to pray you to come back.
"Your affectionate,
"Thomas Cavalieri."
Messer Tomaso feared the drawings would be damaged in the workshop of the gem engraver. There are several of these drawings in existence in good condition, with no marks of the thumbs of workmen about them.
From the letters referring to the last contract about the Tomb of Julius, we learn that the frescoes in the [pg 232]Cappella Paolina were not begun in October 1542. Michael Angelo worked at them with slight interruptions for seven years; they represent the Conversion of Saint Paul and the Martyrdom of Saint Peter. They are very highly finished in execution and studied in grace of composition, but frigid, and too evidently the work of an old man. The skill of the drawing and foreshortening is masterly as ever, but he does not appear to have referred to nature for the forms; and even Michael Angelo without nature became stale. Vasari says, after describing the frescoes without his customary enthusiasm, "They were his last productions in painting. He was seventy-five years old when he carried them to completion; and, as he informed me, he did so with great effort and fatigue—painting, after a certain age, and especially fresco painting, not being in truth fit work for old men."
In the spring of 1546 Francis I. of France wrote to Michael Angelo asking for some fine monument by his hand, and copies of the Pietà della Febbre, now in St. Peter's, and of the Christ holding the Cross, in Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, for his chapel. A draft of Michael Angelo's reply runs:—
THE CONVERSION OF SAINT PAUL
THE CHAPEL OF POPE PAUL
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
To the most Christian King of France.[157]
"Sacred Majesty,—I do not know which is the greater, the grace or the wonder at it, that your Majesty should have deigned to write to a man like me, and still more to ask him for things of his, unworthy even of the name of your Majesty; but, whatever they are, let your Majesty understand that for a long time I have desired to serve you in them; but, not having had the opportunity, [pg 233]because you have not been in Italy where my work is, I have not been able to do it. Now I am old, and have been occupied these many months with the work for Pope Paul. But if a little life is still left me after all these occupations, what I have desired is, as I have said, a little time to work for your Majesty at my art—one work to be in marble, one in bronze, and one in painting. And if death hinders me from carrying out my wish, and if it be possible to carve statues or to paint in the other life, I shall not fail to do so there, where there is no more growing old. And I pray God that He grant your Majesty a long and happy life.
"From Rome, the day XXVI. of April, MDXLVI."
In the letters and poems of this period we note the endeavour to attain to a style in literature full of rich conceits and elaborate compliment, which may be compared to the style, elaborate and ornamental, but somewhat cold and unattractive, of the frescoes in the Cappella Paolina. As he grew older he devoted himself more entirely to architecture and literature. 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 [pg 234]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.
Nè pinger nè scolpir fia più 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]
THE PIETÀ 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 Pietà, in St. Peter's, the Madonna della Febbre. Both for its earnestness and its noble religious sentiment it is an act of worship to look at it, and the days and nights spent in its execution must have been periods of the heartiest religious devotion and sorrowing love. The old sculptor intended this work to have been his monument. The unfinished head of Nicodemus, who sustains the body of his dear Lord, is his own portrait, and, unfinished as it is, expresses the deepest devotion and sadness. Vasari saw this work in progress, and gives us a glimpse into the home-life of the aged worker, who was never content out of his workshop, and spent his sleepless nights working at this huge marble with a paper cap on his head, in which he stuck a lighted candle to see by. The solitary figure of [pg 235]the old man in the vast and dimly lighted studio, groping round the inchoate marble; the stillness of the night, broken only by the sharp click of the mallet and the grating of the chisel, is a picture of many of the bravest hours of his old age. Vasari, observing all this, and wishing to do the revered artist a kindness, sent him 40 lbs. of candles made of goat's fat, knowing that they gutter less than ordinary dips of tallow. His servant carried them politely to the house two hours after night-fall, and presented them to Michael Angelo. He refused, and said he did not want them. The man answered: "Sir, they have almost broken my back carrying them all this long way from the bridge, and I will not carry them home again. There is a heap of mud opposite your door, thick and firm enough to hold them upright. Here then will I set them all up, and light them." When Michael Angelo heard this he gave way: "Lay them down; I do not mean you to play pranks at my house door." Vasari tells another anecdote about the Deposition. Pope Julius III. sent him late one evening to Michael Angelo's house for a certain drawing. The aged master came down with a lantern, and, hearing what was wanted, told Urbino to look for the design. Meanwhile, Vasari turned his attention to one of the legs of the Christ, which Michael Angelo had been altering. In order to prevent his seeing it Michael Angelo let the light fall, and they remained in darkness. He then called for another light, and stepped forth from the screen of planks behind which he worked, saying: "I am so old that oftentimes Death plucks me by the cape to go with him, and one day this body of mine will fall like the lantern, and the light of life will be put out."
"If life gives us pleasure we ought not to expect displeasure [pg 236]from death, seeing it is made by the hand of the same master," was a favourite reflection of Michael Angelo's upon mortality. This Deposition was never completed, flaws appeared in the marble, and perhaps whilst working in the imperfect light Michael Angelo's impatient chisel cut too deep. He began to break up the work, but luckily his servant Antonio, successor to Urbino, begged the fragments from his master. Francesco Bandini, a Florentine exile settled in Rome, wished for a work by the master, and, with Michael Angelo's consent, bought it from Antonio for two hundred crowns. It was patched up, but apparently not worked upon, and remained in the garden of Bandini's heir at Monte Cavallo. It was afterwards taken to Florence and was finally placed in the Duomo in 1722 by the Grand Duke Cosimo III., where it may now be seen behind the high altar, well-placed, so that the great cross of the altar looks like the tree from which the body has just been lowered. So well does the line of the cross behind cut the group that we cannot help imagining that the artist intended some such erection to have been placed behind his figures. Those who would see this group aright must visit the Duomo before seven o'clock on a summer morning, when the light of the sun falls, though the white robe of a bishop in one of the high eastern windows, upon the neighbouring pillars and the floor, and lights up that end of the church; at other times the darkness of the dome covers the group as the darkness covered the earth during the tragic hours at Golgotha.
The right arm of the Christ has become over polished and much worn because it is used as a balustrade by the acolytes, who carelessly run up and down the steps between the group and the back of the high altar to light the candles during [pg 237]service. On the other side a rough metal handle has positively been let into the left side of the Joseph of Arimathea, so that a clumsy boy may climb the more easily; wooden steps also fit so closely to the marble that they injure the lines of the group. All the characteristics of Michael Angelo's impassioned period may be studied in this group; his favourite mannerisms are there also. Examine the hand of Joseph, with the middle finger touching the thumb, and compare it with the allegorical statues of the Medici Chapel. Vasari tells us that Michael Angelo began another Pietà on a smaller scale; this may be the beautiful group that has been spoiled by an alteration, now in the courtyard of the Palazzo Rondini, No. 418, the Corso, Rome. There is a cast of it in the Belle Arti at Florence. The hanging limbs of the Christ have a most pathetic effect, and so has the whole expression of the group. The effect is obtained by the length of the principal lines.
There is a medallion of the Madonna clasping her dead son at the Albergo dei Poveri, at Genoa, attributed to Michael Angelo; it may have been begun by him during this long period of old age, but it cannot be called his work. It has been entirely recarved by an imitator.
Michael Angelo made his famous report condemning the design of Antonio da Sangallo for the rebuilding of the Farnese palace upon the shores of the Tiber; it is a mysterious document, in Michael Angelo's own hand, and does not leave Sangallo a single merit. All the theories are proved by the precepts of Vitruvius. The adherents of Sangallo resented it very naturally, and the "Setta Sangallesca" became his bitter enemies. The Pope [pg 238]himself was dissatisfied with Sangallo, and the design for the cornice was thrown open to competition. Perino del Vaga, Sebastiano del Piombo, Giorgio Vasari, and Michael Angelo all competed. Michael Angelo's design was eventually carried out after he had placed a wooden model of part of his cornice in position. Vasari, who is the best authority upon this period of the life of Michael Angelo, attributes to him also the exterior of the palace from the second story upwards, and the whole of the central courtyard above the first story, "making it the finest thing of its sort in Europe." Michael Angelo had also a serious disagreement with Sangallo before the military committee fortifying the Borgo for the Pope.
When Antonio da Sangallo died at Terni on October 3, 1546, Michael Angelo succeeded to his post in Rome, architect-in-general to the Pope, the principal work was, of course, the great Church of St. Peter's. Bramante, Raphael, and Peruzzi had all been architects-in-chief, and many were the alterations in the plans. Notwithstanding their differences during his early life, the design of Bramante was the one that commended itself to Michael Angelo; he abandoned Sangallo's design; the model for it still exists and we cannot wonder at Michael Angelo's decision. His criticisms are given in a letter supposed to be to Bartolomeo Amanati.[159] "It cannot be denied that Bramante was a brave architect, equal to any one from the times of the ancients until now. He laid the first plan of Saint Peter's, not confused, but clear and simple, full of light and detached from surrounding buildings, so as not to injure any part of the palace. It was considered a fine [pg 239]thing, and, indeed, it is still manifest that it was so; and all the architects who have departed from the plan of Bramante, as Sangallo has done, have departed from the truth. And so it is, and all who have not prejudiced eyes can see it in his model. He, with his outer circle of chapels, in the first place takes all the light from the plan of Bramante; and not only this, but he has not provided any other means of lighting, and there are so many lurking places, both above and below, all dark, which would be very convenient for innumerable knaveries, a secure hiding-place for bandits, false coiners, and all sorts of ribaldry, and when it was shut up at night twenty-five men would be needed to clear the building of those in hiding there, and it would be difficult enough to find them. There is yet another inconvenience: the circle of buildings with their adjuncts outside added to Bramante's plan would make it necessary to pull down to the ground the Capella Paolina, the offices of the Piombo and the Ruota, and more besides; nay, even the Sistine Chapel would, I believe, not escape." May it not have been that this malicious arrangement of Sangailo's to destroy Michael Angelo's masterpieces made the great artist so bitter against him.
Paul III. conferred the post of architect-in-chief at St. Peter's upon Michael Angelo on January 1, 1547, "commissary, prefect, surveyor of the works, and architect, with full authority to change the model, form, and structure of the church at pleasure, and to dismiss and remove the workmen and foremen employed upon the same." For all this work Michael Angelo refused payment, declaring that he meant to labour, without recompense, for the love of God and the reverence he felt [pg 240]for the Prince of the Apostles. Speaking broadly, the former architects had designed ground plans of St. Peter's on two lines, the Greek and the Latin crosses. Bramante, and Baldassare Peruzzi used the Greek cross; Raphael, the Basilica form, the addition of a long nave made the plan like a Latin cross; and Sangallo, by adding a huge portico to Peruzzi's design, made his ground plan a Latin cross. Michael Angelo followed the lines of Bramante, the Greek cross, designed so that the cupola should be the dominant note of the building and its principal feature, whether from within or without, and from whichever side the building was approached. Michael Angelo's intention may be realised at the back of the present building, and his work best judged as one walks round the great mass of masonry to the old entrance to the Sculpture Galleries of the Vatican. Those who approach Rome in the best way at present open to the newcomer, by the light railway line from Viterbo, get a magnificent view of the cupola, apparently rising out of a green hillside, just before they enter the Eternal City, and then, on their way to the Trastevere station, they pass behind the building and get their first impression of St. Peter's from Michael Angelo's own work.[160]
Michael Angelo began his work by pulling down much of Sangallo's construction, and by severely repressing all sorts of jobbery in connection with the supply of materials.
Michael Angelo states in a letter to Cardinal Ridolfo Pio of Carpi,[161] that the study of the nude human figure is [pg 241]necessary to an architect. If he had also stated that it was an essential to all art workers, many good judges would have agreed with him.
"Most Reverend Monsignor,—When a plan has divers parts all those which are of one type in quality and quantity have to be decorated in the same fashion and in the same style, and similarly their counterparts. But when the plan changes form altogether it is not only allowable but necessary to change the said adornments and likewise their counterparts. The intermediate parts are always as free as you like, just as the nose, which stands in the middle of the face, is not obliged to correspond with either of the eyes; but one hand is obliged to be like the other, and one eye must be as its fellow, because they balance each other. Therefore it is very certain that the members of architecture depend upon the members of man. Who has not been, or is not a good master of the figure, and especially of anatomy, cannot understand it.
"Michael Angelo Buonarroti."
Vasari tells us "that the Pope approved of Michael Angelo's model, which reduced the cathedral to smaller dimensions, but also to a more essential greatness. He discovered that four of the principal piers, erected by Bramante and left standing by Antonio da Sangallo, which had to bear the weight of the tribune, were feeble. These he fortified in part, constructing a winding staircase at the side with gently sloping steps, up which beasts of burden ascend with building material, and one can ride on horseback to the level above the arches. He carried the first cornice, made of travertine, round the arches—a wonderful [pg 242]piece of work, full of grace, and very different from the others. Nor could anything be better done in its kind. He began the two great apses of the transept; and whereas Bramante, Raffaello, and Peruzzi had designed eight tabernacles toward the Campo Santo, which arrangement Sangallo adhered to, he reduced them to three, with three chapels inside."
The sect of Sangallo, headed by Nanni di Baccio Bigio, continued to annoy and conspire against the aged architect, and though Michael Angelo brought their machinations to the notice of the Superintendent of the Fabric in 1547,[162] he could not get his chief enemy dismissed.
The master's good friend, Pope Paul III., died in 1549. Michael Angelo wrote of him to his nephew[163]: "It is true that I have suffered great sorrow and not less loss by the Pope's death, because I have received benefits from his Holiness, and hoped for even more. God's will be done. We must have patience. His death was beautiful, fully conscious to the last word. God have mercy on his soul." His successor, Julius III., was also friendly to Michael Angelo, who spoke of him in a letter to his old friend, Giovan Francesco Fattucci, at Florence.[164]
"To Messer Giovan Francesco Fattucci, priest of Santa Maria del Fiore, My most dear friend at Florence.
"Messer Giovan Francesco,—Dear friend, although for many months we have not written to each other, yet I [pg 243]have not forgotten our long and faithful friendship, and wish you well, as I have always done, and love you with all my heart and more, for the endless kindnesses I have received. As regards old age, which is upon us both alike, I should much like to know how yours treats you, for mine does not content me greatly, so I beg you will write something to me. You know how that we have a new Pope, and who he is. All Rome rejoices, thanks be to God, and expects nothing but the greatest benefit to all, especially to the poor, on account of his liberality...."
Efforts were made to dislodge Michael Angelo from his post of architect to St. Peter's. A memorial of grievances[165] was drawn up by the Superintendent and set before the Pope, stating that Michael Angelo was "carrying on with a high hand, and letting them know nothing of the work, so that they do not like his ways, especially in what he keeps pulling down. The demolition has been, and to-day is, so great that all who witness it are moved to pity." Michael Angelo evidently satisfied the Pope, for he was confirmed in his office with even greater powers than before.
Another plot ripened in 1557, and is excellently described by Vasari:—
"It was some little while before the beginning of 1551, when Vasari, on his return from Florence to Rome, found the sect of Sangallo plotting against Michael Angelo. They induced the Pope to hold a meeting in Saint Peter's, where all the overseers and workmen connected with the building should attend, and his Holiness [pg 244]should be persuaded by false insinuations that Michael Angelo had spoiled the fabric. He had already walled in the apse of the King where the three chapels are, and carried out the three upper windows. But it was not known what he meant to do with the vault. They then, misled by their shallow judgment, made Cardinal Salviati, the elder, and Marcello Cervini, who was afterwards Pope, believe that Saint Peter's would be badly lighted. When all were assembled the Pope told Michael Angelo that the deputies were of opinion the apse would have but little light. He answered, 'I should like to hear these deputies speak.' The Cardinal Marcello rejoined: 'We are here.' Michael Angelo then remarked: 'My lord, above these three windows there will be other three in the vault, which is to be built of travertine.' 'You never told us anything about this,' said the Cardinal. Michael Angelo responded: 'I am not, nor do I mean to be, obliged to tell your lordships, or anybody else, what I ought or wish to do. It is your business to provide the money, and to see that it is not stolen. As regards the plans of the building, you have to leave them to me.' Then he turned to the Pope and said: 'Holy Father, behold what gains are mine! Unless the hardships I endure are beneficial to my soul, I lose my time and my labour.' The Pope, who loved him, laid his hands upon his shoulders and said: 'You are gaining both for soul and body; have no fear!' Michael Angelo's self-defence increased the Pope's love, and he ordered him to repair next day with Vasari to the Vigna Giulia, where they held long discourses upon matters of art."
Vasari also tells us of the transfer of a piece of engineering work from Michael Angelo to his enemy—if such [pg 245]a small man deserves to be called the enemy of Michael Angelo—Nanni di Baccio Bigio. The old bridge of Santa Maria had long shown signs of giving way, and it had to be rebuilt. Paul III. entrusted the work to Michael Angelo. Nanni got it transferred to him by the influence of his friends with the new Pope. The man laid his foundations badly. Michael Angelo, riding over the new bridge one day with Vasari, cried out: "Giorgio, the bridge shakes beneath us; let us spur on before it gives way with us upon it." Ultimately the prophecy was fulfilled, and the bridge fell during a great inundation. Its ruins are known as the Ponte Rotto to this day.
Julius III. died in 1555, and Cardinal Marcello Cervini was elected in his stead, under the title of Marcellus II. He had been Michael Angelo's adversary at the great conference, so the hopes of the Setti Sangalleschi revived, and Michael Angelo began to think of accepting the oft-repeated invitations of the Duke of Tuscany, who had long pressed him to come and reside again in Florence, and dignify his native city with his presence during his remaining years; but Marcellus died after a reign of only a few weeks, and Pius IV., the next Pope, persuaded Michael Angelo not to forsake his work at Saint Peter's. In a letter to Vasari, intended for the ears of the Duke, Michael Angelo states his mind.[166]
"To Messer Giorgio, Excellent Painter, in Florence.
"I was set to work upon Saint Peter's by force, and I have served now about eight years, not only for nothing, but with the utmost injury and discomfort to myself. [pg 246]Now that the work is getting forward, and there is money to spend, and I am about to turn the vault of the cupola, if I left Rome it would be the ruin of the edifice, and for me a great disgrace throughout all Christendom, and to my soul a grievous sin. Therefore, Messer Giorgio, my friend, I pray you that on my part you will thank the Duke for his most gracious offer, and that you will ask his Lordship to give me leave to continue here until such time as I can depart with fame and honour and without sin.
"The eleventh day of May, 1555.
"Your Michael Angelo Buonarroti, in Rome."
Early in the year 1557 serious illness seized Michael Angelo, and his good friends the Cardinal of Carpi, Donato Giannotti, Tomaso Cavalieri, Francesco Bandini, and Lottino ultimately succeeded in persuading him to make a model of his cupola, that the work might not be impeded or altered in the event of his death. He mentions this in a letter to his nephew, Lionardo.[167] "I prayed his Lordship that he would concede me so much time that I could leave the works at St. Peter's at such a point that my plans could not be changed. As yet this point has not been reached; and more, I am now obliged to construct a large wooden model for the cupola and lantern, to secure its being finished as it was meant to be. All Rome, and especially the Cardinal of Carpi, prayed me to do this, so that I believe that I shall have to remain here not less than a year; and so much time I beg the Duke to allow me for the love of Christ and Saint Peter, so that I may come home to Florence without such a grief, [pg 247]but with a mind free from the necessity of returning to Rome." This model was constructed by a French master, named Jean, and took a year to make, as Michael Angelo expected.
Continuous intrigues caused Michael Angelo to send in his resignation in a haughty letter dated February 13, 1560, but Pius IV. confirmed the aged artist in his office, and forbade any alteration of his design for Saint Peter's after his death. Nanni di Baccio Bigio managed to influence the deputies so that they appointed him Clerk of the Works instead of Pier Luigi, surnamed Gaeta, who was recommended by Michael Angelo in a letter[168] to them.
Nanni then made a report, severely blaming Michael Angelo. The Pope had an interview with the artist, and sent his relative, Gabrio Serbelloni to report on the works. It was found that the irrepressible Nanni had again calumniated Michael Angelo, and he was therefore dismissed.
Notwithstanding the Pope's brief Michael Angelo's design was most seriously altered after his death by the erection of a long nave, making the ground plan a Latin instead of Greek Cross. His idea appears to have been that people should enter the church up a majestic flight of steps through a gigantic door, and the hollow recesses of the huge dome should be the dominant impression as soon as the portal was passed. To get his effect it is necessary to proceed half-way up the present nave with closed eyes, or merely looking at the pavement, the eyes religiously kept down. Any one who will make this simple experiment (it is necessary to have a friend as guide to tell you when you have arrived at the right point of view) will see that Michael Angelo intended his building [pg 248]to have the effect of a coherent geometrical whole. The sublime concave of the dome, with the four arms of the great cross of equal size, will be all at once grasped by the eye. The huge building is like a great naturally-formed crystal with mathematically proportioned limbs, beautiful in large things as in small. An old writer has well said: "The cross, which Michael Angelo made Greek, is now Latin; and if it be thus with the essential form, judge ye of the details!" The wooden model of the dome made under Michael Angelo's eyes is still in existence, and was followed fairly accurately by Giacomo della Porta, who completed that portion of the work.
Amongst the other schemes that occupied Michael Angelo was the plan of the improvements upon the Campidoglio, undertaken by a society of gentlemen and artists. Paul III. approved their design, and we may believe, as all Roman citizens will tell us, that Michael Angelo conceived, at least in its broad lines, the present effect of the Capitol. Vasari informs us that Michael Angelo's old friend, Tomaso dei Cavalieri, superintended the work after the great sculptor's death; we may trust him not to have departed from the master's plans. Another scheme that interested Michael Angelo considerably was the design for the church that the Florentine residents in Rome wished to erect to their patron saint, San Giovanni. A letter to his nephew Lionardo mentions it.[169] "The Florentines are minded to erect a great edifice, that is to say, their church, and all of them with one accord put pressure on me to attend to this. I have answered that I am here by the Duke's [pg 249]licence for the work at Saint Peter's, and that without his leave they will get nothing out of me." The Duke not only gave his permission but was enthusiastic about the scheme. Michael Angelo promised to send him his plan. "This I have had copied and drawn out more clearly than I have been able to do it, on account of old age, and will send it to your most Illustrious Lordship." Vasari tells us that Tiberio Calcagni, "of gentle manners and discreet behaviour," not only copied this design, but also made a model in clay under the master's supervision. Michael Angelo informed the building committee that "if they carried it out, neither the Romans or the Greeks ever erected so fine an edifice in any of their temples; words, the like of which neither before or afterwards issued from his lips, for he was exceedingly modest," says Vasari. Money was lacking and the scheme fell through; both model and drawing were allowed to perish. The present church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, in Strada Giulia, is the work of Giacomo della Porta; the west part is by Alessandro Galilei.
Tiberio Calcagni was appointed to finish the bust of Brutus, now in the Bargello at Florence. Michael Angelo began it for Cardinal Ridolfi at the request of his friend, Donato Giannotti. Tiberio had the sense and good feeling not to touch his master's own work, but only carved the base and the drapery; the face of the bust remains a magnificent specimen of the great sculptor's handiwork. This powerfully-conceived head is said to have been taken from a small intaglio cut in cornelian. It has been pointed out that the chisel marks are cut by both the right and left hand. The vigour of the workmanship indicates that the bust was begun soon after [pg 250]Michael Angelo left Florence in 1584, and may indicate Michael Angelo's feelings towards the tyrant Alessandro de' Medici. We may remember in this connection that the exiles nicknamed Lorenzino, his murderer, Brutus.
The Duke of Florence, through Vasari,[170] attempted to get at the ideas of Michael Angelo with regard to the Medici Chapel and the entrance to the Laurenziana, but the old man had lost and forgotten the plans, if he had ever made them. The difficulties that beset the Duke and the academicians in completing the designs, and the meagreness of Michael Angelo's instructions to them, must give us pause when we attempt to attribute the faults of these monuments to the master mind. "About the staircase of the Library, of which so much has been said to me, believe that if I could remember how I had arranged it I should not need to be begged for information. There comes into my mind, as in a dream, the image of a certain staircase, but I do not believe this can be the one I then thought of, for it seems so stupid. Nevertheless, I will write about it."
Leone Leoni erected the monument of Giangiacomo de' Medici in Milan Cathedral from a design supplied by Michael Angelo at the request of Pope Pius IV. It is a fine monument and the bronzes are excellent. In criticising the design we must remember that Michael Angelo had never seen the church where it was to be placed, and that Leone was not the man to hesitate in taking liberties with another's design, good sculptor as he was, and no doubt Michael Angelo would have approved of a good sculptor like him making the design fit the workmanship.
BRUTUS
THE NATIONAL MUSEUM, THE BARGELLO, FLORENCE
(By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)
The old master is supposed to have supplied designs [pg 251]for many other buildings in Rome, such as the Porta Pia and the Porta del Popolo, but there is nothing about them to tell us that his genius is in them; probably slight sketches were handed over to journeymen, who did pretty much as they liked with them. It was otherwise with the great restoration of the Baths of Diocletian. Michael Angelo was commissioned by Pius IV. to convert them into the Christian Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. The design has been altered by Vansitelli in 1749, and horrible coloured imitations of clumsy marble altars have been painted on the walls. Churchwardens' whitewash would here be well applied. If the visitor will wait in this church until dusk, when all the tawdry paintings vanish into darkness, then the great columns will stand out in all their dignity, and the noble cornice cast a splendid shadow over the pillars of the huge hall. The roof and the pavement, with their expression of space and distance, will whisper "Michael Angelo!"
When Henry II. of France died, in 1559, his widow, Catherine de' Medici, wrote to Michael Angelo asking him to supply at least the design for the equestrian statue of the late King she desired to set up in the courtyard of the royal château at Blois. The sketch was prepared and the work given to Daniele da Volterra. Catherine wrote again in 1560,[171] telling the sculptor that she had deposited 6000 golden scudi with Gianbattista Gondi for the said work, "therefore, since on my side nothing remains to be done, I entreat you by the love you have always shown to my house, to our country,[172] and lastly to genius, that you will endeavour with all diligence and assiduity, so far as your years permit, to carry out this noble work, so that [pg 252]we may see and recognise my lord as in life by the accustomed excellence of your unique genius. Although you cannot add to your fame, yet you will at least augment your reputation for a most grateful and loving spirit toward myself and my ancestors, and will through centuries keep fresh the memory of my lawful and only love, for which I shall be ready and willing to reward you liberally." The Queen had seen Michael Angelo's sketch, and she adds in a postscript that "the king's head must be without curls, and the modern rich style of armour and trappings must be employed." She is very particular about the likeness and sends a portrait; evidently she did not want anything like the Roman generals in the Medici Chapel at Florence. When Michael Angelo died the work was left in the hands of Daniele, who was a slow workman, as Cellini tells us. In 1566 Daniele died also, and only the horse was cast; it now serves as part of Biard's statue of Louis XIII.
In 1560 Leone Leoni made the well-known medal of Michael Angelo, which is our best portrait of him. It represents him in old age. Vasari relates the incident: "At this time the Cavaliere Leone made a very lovely portrait of Michael Angelo upon a medal, and to meet his wishes modelled on the reverse a blind man led by a dog, with this legend round the rim:
DOCEBO INIQUOS VIAS TVAS, ET IMPII AD TE CONVERTENTUR
It pleased Michael Angelo so much that he gave Leone a wax model of a Hercules strangling Antæus, by his own hand, together with some drawings. There exist no other portraits of Michael Angelo, except two in painting, one by Bugiardini, the other by Jacopo del Conte; and one in [pg 253]bronze, in full relief, made by Daniele da Volterra. These, and Leoni's medal, from which many copies have been made, and a great number of them have been seen by me in several parts of Italy and abroad." Francesco d'Olanda made a drawing of the old man in hat and mantle.[173] Another portrait of Michael Angelo is introduced into Marcello Venusti's copy of the Last Judgment, now in the Picture Gallery at Naples. The original study for it may be the portrait in the Casa Buonarroti, at Florence; it was frequently repeated by him. One replica may be the portrait, said to be by Michael Angelo's own hand, at the Capitol. The apostle in red on the spectator's right of the picture of the Assumption, by Daniele da Volterra, in the Church of the Trinità de' Monti, in Rome, is also said to be a portrait of Daniele's friend and master, who had supplied him with the design for his great Crucifixion in the same church. There is a life-size, full-face charcoal drawing of the master in the Teyler Museum at Haarlem which may be by the hand of Daniele, it has been pricked for tracing. Bonasoni engraved a profile portrait of Michael Angelo; it is dated 1546. It is a very faithful and beautiful piece of work, and tells us what he looked like at the age of seventy-two.[174] The bronze bust by Daniele da Volterra, of which there are several copies, looks as if it had been modelled from a mask taken after death; at least, it was finished from one. Battista Lorenzi executed the bronze bust on Michael Angelo's tomb at Santa Croce, in Florence, from a similar mask.[175]
[pg 254]During all these later years, Michael Angelo kept up a brisk correspondence with his dutiful nephew Lionardo about the purchase of land in Florence, and other family matters.
Giovan Simone, the elder of Michael Angelo's surviving brothers, died in 1548.[176]
"Lionardo,—I hear from your last of Giovan Simone's death. It gives me the greatest sorrow, for I still hoped, although I am old, to have seen him before he died, and before I died. God has willed it so. Patience! I should like to hear particularly how he died, and if he confessed and communicated with all the ordinances of the Church. For if he did so, and I know it, I shall suffer less." All through his life Michael Angelo is most punctilious about the observances of the Church.
Lionardo was now the only hope of continuing the family, so his uncle reminds him that if he does not soon marry and get children, his property will all go to the Hospital of San Martino.[177] Old bachelor as he is, he gives his nephew advice, in another letter, as to the choice of a wife: "You ought not to look for a dower, but only to consider whether the girl is well brought up, healthy, of good character, and noble blood. You are not yourself of such parts and person as to be worthy of the first beauty of Florence. Let me tell you not to run after money, but only look for virtue and good name."
Lionardo married Cassandra Ridolfi in the year 1553, and the first child born of this marriage was a boy, by [pg 255]Michael Angelo's wish he was named Buonarroto. "I shall be very pleased if the name of Buonarroto does not die out of our family, it having lasted three hundred years with us."[178] Vasari wrote to Michael Angelo describing the festivities at the christening. Giorgio held the child at the font in the Baptistry, "Mio bel Giovanni," as Michael Angelo always called it.
The letters to Vasari are full of a courtly friendship and regard; they are very pleasant reading. One of them is the most beautiful and touching letter by his hand, referring to the death of his servant Francesco, called Urbino.[179]
"Messer Giorgio, dear friend,—Although I write but badly, yet will I say a few words in reply to yours. You know that Urbino is dead, for which I owe the greatest thanks to God; at the same time my loss is heavy and sorrow infinite. The grace is this, that while Urbino living kept me alive, in dying he has taught me to die not unwillingly, but rather with a desire for death. I had him with me twenty-six years, and always found him faithful and true. Now that I had made him rich, and thought to keep him as the staff and rest of my old age, he has departed, and the only hope left to me is that of seeing him again in Paradise, and of this God has given a sign in his most happy death. Even more than dying, it grieved him to leave me alive in this treacherous world, with so many troubles; the better part of me went with him, nothing is left to me but endless sorrow. I commend myself to you, and beg you, if it is not a [pg 256]trouble to you, to make my excuses to Messer Benvenuto[180] for not answering his letter, for grief abounds in such thoughts as these, so that I cannot write. Commend me to him, and I commend myself to you.
"Your Michael Angelo Buonarrota, in Rome.
"The 23 day of February, 1556."
Was ever servant loved after this fashion by his master?
Urbino appointed Michael Angelo as one of his executors, and the old man fulfilled his irksome duties with fidelity. Urbino's brother was Raphael's well-known pupil Il Fattore. Cornelia, Urbino's wife, corresponded about the children and other affairs. Michael Angelo had to approve her choice of a second husband, and interviewed him, and made him promise to be a second father to Urbino's children.
The unusual event of an excursion by Michael Angelo into the country took place in 1556, possibly with a view to avoiding the troubles feared in Rome from the Duke of Alva, Spanish Viceroy of Naples. Michael Angelo informed his nephew that he was making a pilgrimage to Loreto, but feeling tired stopped to rest at Spoleto. To Vasari he says: "I have in these days had a great pleasure, but with great discomfort and expense, among the mountains of Spoleto, visiting the hermits there. Less than half of me has come back to Rome, for truly there is no peace except among the woods."[181]
CHAPTER XI
THE END
Michael Angelo's little circle of devoted friends in Rome were very anxious about him during the winter of 1563-64. Although almost fourscore years and ten he would still walk abroad in all weathers, and took none of the precautions usual for a man of his age. Tiberio Calcagni, writing on February 14 to Lionardo, says in the letter published by Daelli:[182] "Walking through Rome to-day I heard from many persons that Messer Michael Angelo was ill, so I went at once to visit him, and although it was raining I found him out of doors on foot. When I saw him I said that I did not think it right and seemly for him to be going about in such weather. 'What do you want?' he answered; 'I am ill, and cannot find rest anywhere!' The uncertainty of his speech, with the look and colour of his face, made me extremely uneasy about his life. The end may not be just now, but I fear greatly that it cannot be far off." The gray colour and the uneasiness of an old man who has suffered a slight stroke are evidently indicated here. During the next four days he lived in his arm-chair. On the 15th, Diomede Leoni wrote to Lionardo, with a letter enclosed, signed by Michael Angelo but written by Daniele da Volterra.[183] After exhorting [pg 258]Lionardo to come to Rome, but to run no risks by travelling too fast, he adds, "as you may be certain Messer Tomaso dei Cavalieri, Messer Daniele, and I will not fail during your absence in every possible service in your place. Besides, Antonio, the old and faithful servant of the master, will give a good account of himself under any circumstances. ... If the illness of the master be dangerous, which God forbid, you could not be in time to find him alive, even if you could make more haste than is possible. But to give you a little account of the state of Messere up to this hour, which is the third of the night,[184] I inform you that just now I left him quite composed and fully conscious, but oppressed with continual drowsiness. In order to shake it off, between twenty-two and twenty-three,[185] this very day he tried to mount his horse and go for a ride, as he was wont to do every evening in good weather, but the coolness of the season and the weakness of his head and legs prevented him, so he went back to his seat a little way from the fire. He greatly prefers this chair to his bed. We all pray God to preserve him unto us still for some years and that He may bring you here in safety, to whom I earnestly commend myself."
Two days later, on the 17th, Tiberio Calcagni wrote:[186] "This is only to beg you to hasten your coming as much as possible, even though the weather be bad. For your Messer Michael Angelo is going to leave us indeed, and he would have this one satisfaction the more."
Michael Angelo died a little before five o'clock on the afternoon of February 18, 1564. His physicians, Federigo Donati and Gherardo Fidelissimi, were with him at the [pg 259]last. Giorgio Vasari tells us "he made his will in three words, committing his soul into the hands of God, his body to the earth, and his goods to his nearest relatives, telling them when their hour came to remember the Passion of Jesus Christ."
The Florentine envoy sent a despatch to inform the Duke of the event, and he tells him the arrangements made as to the inventory of property and the disposal for safe-keeping of seven or eight thousand crowns found in a sealed box, opened in the presence of Messer Tomaso dei Cavalieri and Maestro Daniele da Volterra. The people of the house are to be examined whether anything has been carried away from it. This is not supposed to have been the case. "As far as drawings are concerned they say that he burned what he had by him before he died. What there is shall be handed over to his nephew when he comes, and this your Excellency can inform him." The list of works of art found in the house is very small. They were:
A blocked-out statue of Saint Peter.
An unfinished Christ with another figure.
A statuette of Christ with the Cross, like the Risen Christ in Santa Maria Sopra Minerva; and
Ten original drawings, one, a Pietà, belonged to Tommaso dei Cavalieri.
A little design for the façade of a palace.
A design for a window in the Church of Saint Peters.
An old plan of the Church of Saint Peter's, said to be after the model of San Gallo, on several pieces of paper glued together.
A drawing of three small figures.
Architectural drawings for a window and other details.
[pg 260]A large cartoon for a Pietà, with nine figures, unfinished.
Another large cartoon, with three large figures and two putti.
Another large cartoon, with one large figure only.
Another large cartoon, with the figures of our Lord Jesus Christ and the glorious Virgin Mary, His mother.
Another, the Epiphany.
This last drawing was presented to the notary who drew up the will, and is supposed to be the cartoon now in the British Museum; all the others went to Lionardo Buonarroti. Lionardo arrived three days after the death. The body was deposited upon a catafalque in the Church of the Santissimi Apostoli, where the funeral was celebrated by all the artists and Florentines in Rome. In fulfilment of the wish of Michael Angelo, repeated two days before his death, Lionardo made arrangements for the removal of his uncle's remains to Florence. But the Romans, who regarded him as a fellow citizen, resented this, and Lionardo was obliged to send the body away disguised as a bale of merchandise, addressed to the custom-house at Florence. Vasari wrote, on March 10, duly informing him that the packing-case had arrived, and had been left under seals until Lionardo's arrival at the custom-house. Notwithstanding this letter from Vasari, it appears that the body was removed, on March 11, to the oratory of the Assunta, beneath the Church of San Pietro Maggiore. Next day the painters, sculptors, and architects of the newly-founded Academy, of which Michael Angelo had been elected Principal after the Duke, met at the church, intending to bring the body secretly to Santa Croce. They had with them only an embroidered pall of velvet and a crucifix to [pg 261]place upon the bier. At night the elder men lighted torches and the younger strove with one another to bear the coffin. Meantime the curious Florentines found out that something was going forward, and a great concourse assembled as the news spread that Michael Angelo was being carried to Santa Croce, and huge crowds followed the humble procession, lighted by the flaring torches such as the Misericordia carry to this day. The vast church of Santa Croce was so crowded that the pall-bearers had difficulty in reaching the sacristy with their burden. When they at last got there, Don Vincenzo Borghini, Lieutenant of the Academy, "thinking he would do what was pleasing to many, and also, as he afterwards confessed, desiring to behold in death one whom he had never seen in life, or, at any rate, at such an age that he did not remember it, ordered the coffin to be opened. When this was done, whereas he and all of us present expected to find the corpse already corrupted and defaced, inasmuch as Michael Angelo had been dead twenty-five days and twenty-two in his coffin, lo! we beheld him instead perfect in all his parts and without any evil odour; indeed, we might have believed that he was resting in a sweet and very tranquil slumber. Not only were the features of his face exactly the same as when he was in life (except that the colour was a little like that of death), none of his limbs were injured or repulsive; the head and cheeks to the touch felt as though he had passed away only a few hours before. When the eagerness of the multitude who crowded round had calmed down a little, the coffin was deposited in the church, behind the altar of the Cavalcanti."
Those who would read of the gorgeous catafalque of [pg 262]stucco, woodwork, and painting erected in the Church of San Lorenzo by the Academy, may do so in the pages of Vasari, and in the book called "Esequie del Divino Michel Angelo Buonarroti, celebrate in Firenze dall' Academia, &c., Firenze, i Giunti, 1564," and Varchi's "Orazione Funerali," published by the same house at the same date. The great artist is dead: let us leave him to his rest in Santa Croce, the Westminster Abbey of his city and the church of his ward.
Vasari received from Lionardo Buonarroti the commission to design the tomb for Santa Croce. He did his best to get the Pietà now in the Duomo to serve as the principal part of the monument, asserting that it had been intended by Michael Angelo for his monument. "Besides, there is an old man in the group who represents the sculptor." This plan did not succeed, and the ugly monument now in existence was designed instead. The Duke supplied the marbles, and the figures were carved by Giovanni dall' Opera, Lorenzi and Valerio Cioli. The bust portrait in bronze was modelled by Battista Lorenzi. It was erected in 1570, and bears the inscription:
MICHAELI ANGELO BONAROTIO
E VETVSTA SIMONIORVM FAMILIA
SCVLPTORI. PICTORI. ET ARCHITECTO
FAMA OMNIBVS NOTISSIMO.
LEONARDVS PATRVO AMANTIS. ET DE SE OPTIME MERITO
TRANSLATIS ROMA EIVS OSSIBVS. ATQVE IN HOC TEMPLO MAIOR
SVOR SEPVLCRO CONDITIS. COHORTANTE SERENISS. COSMO MED.
MAGNO HETRVRIAE DVCE. P. C.
ANN. SAL. CIC. IC. LXX
VIXIT ANN. LXXXVIII. M. XI. D. XV.
The Romans also erected a monument in the church where they had hoped to keep the bones of the artist who [pg 263]did more for their Immortal City than any man who ever lived. Over this monument is the following epitaph:
MICHAEL ANGELUS
BONARROTIUS
SCULPTOR PICTOR ARCHITECTUS
MAXIMA ARTIFICUM FREQUENTIA
IN HAC BASILICA SS. XII APOST. F.M.C.
XI CAL. MART. A. MDLXIV ELATUS EST
CLAM INDE FLORENTIAM TRANSLATUS
ET IN TEMPLO S. CRUCIS EORUMD. F.
V. ID. MART. EJUSD. A. CONDITUS
TANTO NOMINI
NULLUM PAR ELOGIUM
Michael Angelo formed no school, his love of excellence would not permit him to leave any inferior work behind him, as Raphael did in certain portions of the Stanze and Loggia of the Vatican. Michael Angelo's disposition was not so genial nor were his manners so universally pleasing as those of the gentle Raphael, so he was unable to keep a body of workmen together in good temper; the result is, we have no Sala of Constantine, or Palazzo del Tè, to remind us of the passing of the master of a school. At the same time, to his few assistants and workmen Michael Angelo was as kind as father to son, when once he became accustomed to them about him. He gave help to various other artists, and it may be noted that all those he influenced became men devoted to high finish and the utmost perfection possible. Decadence in Italian art began long before his death; but the imitators of Michael Angelo are by far the best and most interesting figures of that unfortunate period. They, at least, have great intentions, and strive to attain a style of dignity and distinction, and do not grudge any labour that may help [pg 264]them to their ideals. Vasari tells us of some of these men and their works: "He loved his workmen and was on friendly terms with them. Among them were Jacopo Sansovino, Il Pontormo, Daniele da Volterra, and Giorgio Vasari Aretino, to whom he showed infinite kindness...." He goes on to say that "he was unfortunate in those who lived with him, since he chanced upon natures unfit to follow him. For Pietro Urbano, of Pistoja, his pupil, was a man of talent, but would never work hard. Antonio Mini had the will but not the brain, and hard wax takes a bad impression. Ascanio della Ripa Transone (Condivi) worked very hard, but nothing came of it either in work or in designs." Jacopo l'Indaco and Mineghella were boon companions of the master. A stone-cutter Domenico Fancelli nicknamed Topolino, Pilote the goldsmith, Giuliano Bugiardini the painter, were of this company. The melancholy Michael Angelo is said to have burst his sides with laughing at Mineghella's stupidity. The very proper Vasari describes the latter as "a mean and stupid painter of Valdarno, but a very amusing person; and Michael Angelo, who could with difficulty be made to work for kings, would leave everything to make simple drawings for this fellow, San Rocco, San Antonio, or San Francesco, to be coloured for one of the man's many peasant patrons; among others Michael Angelo made him a very beautiful model of a Christ on the Cross, made a mould from it, and Mineghella cast it in papier-maché and went about selling it all over the country-side." It may be that the familiar and often-repeated Crucifix in common use is an adaptation or copy, far removed from this original; it has something of the style of Michael Angelo's later work, the figure is most beautifully disposed.
[pg 265]Sebastiano del Piombo lightened the old man's labour by his genial humour and jovial companionship; Sebastiano followed his teaching with great industry and skill, as all his later works show; such as the Scourging of Christ, in San Pietro in Montorio, and the Raising of Lazarus, in our own National Gallery: drawings by the hand of Michael Angelo still exist for the principal figures in both these pictures. There is a Pietà by Sebastiano, at Viterbo, evidently following the lines of one of Michael Angelo's religious drawings; it is so beautiful in the expression of its colour and the high finish of the nude, that we cannot but think that Michael Angelo's exacting eyes were peering over the shoulder of Sebastiano when he painted it.
Per ritornar là donde venne fora,
L' immortal forma al tuo carcer terreno
Venne com' angel di pietà si pieno
Che sana ogn' intelletto, e'l mondo onora.
Questo sol m' arde, eqesto m' innamora;
Non pur di fora il tuo volto sereno:
Ch' amor non già di cosa che vien meno
Tien ferma speme, in cu' virtù dimora.
Nè altro avvien di cose altere e nuove
In cui si preme la natura; e'l cielo
E ch' a lor parto largo s' apparecchia.
Nè Dio, suo grazia, mi si mostra altrove,
Più che 'n alcun leggiadro e mortal velo;
È quel sol amo, perchè 'n quel si specchia.