Most gracious of readers, forasmuch as I have always promised to illustrate my words with instances from my own created works, I would like now to tell you of another branch of the subject, and one that is both the most difficult and the most admirable of any so far described; allow me then to make the following digression, so that those who read may have means of pondering it well. I mean colossi; not necessarily the very great ones, because whenever a statue is three times bigger than life size it may be termed a colossus. I have seen plenty of such, both ancient and modern. But of the very great ones I have only seen one, and that was in Rome; it was in many pieces, & I saw the head, feet, part of the legs and other fragments of its great limbs. Upon measuring the head, which was standing upright and without the neck, I found as I stood alongside it that it came up to my nipples, so that it would measure more than two & a half Florentine cubits, the complete statue therefore must have been about twenty cubits high.
When I served the great King Francis,—it must have been about the year 1540,—knowing his consummate taste and his delight in everything rare and masterful, knowing, too, that such an object had never yet been fashioned by any living artist, I made among the other works before-mentioned a model for a fountain at Fontainebleau, or as one might translate it ‘Fontana Belio,’ ‘the fountain of fine waters.’ This model was square in form, and in the middle of the square was a square base rising four cubits above the water. It was richly ornamented with many pleasing designs, and devices appropriate to the King and to the fountain. Upon the base was a figure representing the God Mars, and at the four corners were figures having reference all of them to his Majesty. When I showed it to the King it was to a smaller scale, but in its full size the central figure would have been forty cubits high, the side figures being proportionately smaller. When the King saw the model he examined it a long while with the greatest satisfaction, and then asked me of the central figure. It was a God of War, I said, and hence most appropriate to his Majesty. Then he asked me of the other figures. They represented, I said, the four virtues in which he especially delighted. Just as the central figure betokened the glory of arms, so did this one at the corner represent the glory of letters; this one again sculpture, painting, and architecture; the next music and every sort of musical harmony; while the last personified liberality, the cause, mainspring & foster-mother of all the other virtues, and one that was most abundant in his Majesty. His Majesty promptly gave me the commission to proceed with the work, which I did, inspired by his delightful encouragement and with abundance of all sorts of things placed at my service. After the careful completion of my little model, as it did not seem to me possible to retain all the proper proportions if I worked direct from it into the full size, I determined to make another model three times the size of the small one,—about the stature of a well-formed man therefore. This model I made in gesso, so that it should the better resist the much handling that is inevitable from frequent measuring. After setting up the iron skeleton I covered it with gesso, and finished it beautifully, putting more care and detail into it than the little one.
I would take this opportunity, gentle reader, of bidding you bear in mind that all the really great masters have followed life, but the point is that you must have a fine judgment to know how the best of life is to be put into your work, you must always be on the look out for beautiful human beings, and from among them choose the most beautiful, & not only so, you must from among even these choose the most beautiful parts, and so shall your whole composition become an abstraction of what is beautiful. So alone may work be created, that shall be evident at once as the labour of men both exquisite in judgment and humble in study. Such men are rare! Now such zeal had I, and so many conveniences were placed at my service by that most liberal King Francis, that I brought this three-sized model of mine to completion; not only was I satisfied with it myself, but it pleased everybody who knew what good work was. Truly great Art is infinite, & the more study you put into your work the easier it is for you to see its blemishes than others, but for all that it is sometimes good to cry ‘hold, enough!’ even to one’s own work, so meseemed here I ought to content me, and therefore I arranged for setting my work up in due order from the scale model to the final forty cubits. This was how I went about it.
CHAPTER VIII. THE MYSTERY OF MAKING GREAT COLOSSI.
To begin with, then, I divided the model, which was to be translated from three cubits to forty, into forty small parts, each of these parts again I divided into twenty-four parts. But as I knew that this method alone would not suffice to arrive at the requisite size, I devised another method, a method entirely my own, never invented by anyone before, & the outcome of my own great researches. As I am always generously inclined, I will impart it to such as have good work at heart. It is this: I took four square pieces of wood measuring respectively three fingers each way, they were very straight, and planed nice and smooth, and they were exactly the height of my figure. These I fixed into the ground, plumbing them absolutely straight, and at such distance from the figure as to admit of a man entering in between; they were then match-boarded[283] all round, the boards being likewise perfectly straight, & a small opening at the back to enter by. Up against this match-boarding I began making my measurements, & then I drew out on the floor of a long room a profile[284] of the whole statue, forty cubits in size. Finding this plan work out with delightful accuracy, I proceeded next to make a skeleton three cubits high, similar to that of the model. This skeleton was all joined together with pieces of wood, fastened respectively to a very straight rod, the latter served for the left leg, upon which my figure rested. I took the measurements of the body of the figure off the case, making allowance in doing so for the thickness of the flesh and bone work it had subsequently to be clothed with. Thereupon I erected a great mast forty cubits high in the centre of the court of my castle, and round it I set up four other masts just as I had done it with the model, and these also I cased round with match-boarding just as I had done the small model. Then I joined together the life size skeleton, taking the measurements exactly from the small skeleton, for every little piece a large piece, and so marking off every measurement of every part of my figure proportionately from one case on to the other.
Had I scaled the work off in the usual way I should have had no end of difficulties, but this method of mine with the cases avoided all that, and I got as fine a proportion in my life size as in my small figures. Now as my figure was posed upon the left foot, and had the right foot resting on a helmet, I so arranged the skeleton as to make it possible to get inside the helmet & climb easily through the foot right up into the head. The skeleton completed, I clothed it in flesh, that is to say in gesso, and laid it on rapidly in the same manner. When I had got the work completed to the last skin but one, I had the front of the casing opened, and stepped back to view it some forty cubits, which was as much as there was room for in my court-yard. Everybody was delighted with the result, not only connoisseurs, many of whom came to see, but, what was much more important, I myself, who had given so much labour towards its fulfilment. What pleased me most, however, was the fact that there was not the slightest discrepancy between the small and the large model. By this method of mine I set working a number of labourers & people unskilled in the profession, it wasn’t in the least necessary for them to know what they were doing. Indeed so masterly is my invention that nothing but patience and diligence are needed, for the rest you may be a perfect ignoramus in the art, and not even the hand of a Michaelangelo help you. In a colossus of this kind the masses of muscle, &c., are so huge that it is impossible to take them in from the ordinary point of vision, which one may put at twice the length of a man; & if you approach the figure at arm’s length in order to work it you see nothing; if, on the other hand, you go a long way off you do see a little more, but still not enough to remedy the great errors that must arise. You see, therefore, that without this method of mine it is impossible to carry out a large colossus with fine proportions. Truly, many a statue of ten cubits high has been spoilt by some blunder or other; and I really think that not even statues of six cubits high can be properly made without this method of mine. Of course it is quite conceivable that just as I have discovered this method so some greater genius than I may discover a better one still; but then it’s always easy to improve a patent!
When the King came to Paris, he lay, as was his wont, at his castle, the Logro (the Louvre); it was opposite my castle of Little Nello, for there was only the Seine in between. I crossed the river and waited upon his Majesty. He was quite charming to me, and asked me if I had anything lovely to show him. I replied that as for the loveliness I wasn’t so sure, but I had done some work with great study and with all the devotion that so noble an art demanded, and that if it was good it was due to him who allowed me to want for nothing, such freehandedness being the only way of getting the best work done. To this the King yeasaid me, and the day following he came to my house. After I had shown him a variety of different work I made him enter the court-yard, placing him at the point whence my great statue told to the best advantage. He obeyed me with the greatest condescension and the most perfect breeding; [285] and, indeed, never have I met any prince who had such a wonderful way with him. Now while I was conversing with his Majesty I ordered Ascanio, my pupil, to let the curtain down. Instantly the King raised his hands & spoke in my praise the most complimentary words that human tongue ever uttered. After which, turning to Monsignor d’Aniballe,[286] ‘I command you,’ he said, most emphatically, ‘to give the first good fat Abbey that falls vacant to our Benvenuto, for I do not want my kingdom to be deprived of his like.’ At this I bowed deeply and thanked the King, while he, well satisfied, went back to his castle.
Now knew I what pleasure my labour caused this great King, encouragement brought encouragement, and I set to yet greater labours still. I took 30 lbs. of silver of my own money & gave it to two of my workmen, with the designs and the models to make two large vases of. As it was a time of great wars I had asked no money of the King, and also left untouched six months of my salary. Setting to work lustily at my own vases, I finished them in a month’s time, and set out with them to find the King who was in a city by the sea called Argentana. When I gave him the vases he was most engaging, & said: ‘Be of good heart, my Benvenuto, for I am one that both can & will reward your labours better than anyone else in the world.’ To which I replied that from earliest recollections my mightiest labours had been the discovery & application of my method relating to the founding of great colossi; that now, thanks to God, my model had come up to my expectations, that the casting had now to be considered, and that this would have to be done in over one hundred separate pieces, fitted together with swallow-tail joints. Nor would it be very difficult for us to do, as I had already devised a skeleton of iron upon which to attach the various portions of the colossus as I cast them, commencing at the feet and piece by piece fitting them together up to the head. The only difficulty would be the putting together of the iron skeleton; but this, too, I would take credit for surmounting, observing the same process as I had carried out previously in the wooden one. It would be necessary, then, for me to fix the first rods of the skeleton straightway into their final position, that is to say, at his Majesty’s residence at Fontainebleau, where I should have to be provided with a room sufficiently large for the purpose. To this the King replied that, if there were no other rooms suitable to my purpose, he would give up to me his own private apartment, so great was his desire to see a work of this kind finished. I might take courage, then, and be of a light heart, and, he added, I might return to Paris to this end. The two big vases were standing on the table before his Majesty, & as he was fingering and praising them, I preferred the request to him that, as the time was opportune, it being the time of war, he would grant me permission to return for four months to Italy, to revisit my fatherland, my relatives & friends. At these words of mine his Majesty grew very sour of aspect, and turned to me, saying, ‘I wish you to gild these two vases from top to bottom with dull gilding!’ This remark he repeated twice, and then rose quickly from the table and said nothing further. By ‘dull’ I fancied he meant two things: firstly, that I was a ‘dull fool’ to ask such a liberty; & secondly, that the gold on the vases was to be left unburnished. When his Majesty had withdrawn I begged the Cardinal of Ferrara, to whom was entrusted the duty of looking after me, to procure the leave for me. The Cardinal bade me go back to Paris, and that he would let me know what I should do. In the space of a fortnight he sent word by one of his servants that I could go, but that I should return as soon as possible. I praised God and set out.
Of the property in my castle I took absolutely nothing with me, neither the stuffs nor the house furniture, the silver nor the gold, nor the embossed vases, nor any of the other works made independently of the agreements entered into with the King, works all of them carried out by my workmen and paid for by me. The great works enumerated in this book, and made for the King, his Majesty had himself valued at over 16,000 scudi. I not unnaturally thought that, as I had not only taken nothing, but was likewise a creditor for so large a treasure, I should come back quick enough.
So I came to Italy and reached Florence my native city, & went to Poggio in Caiano, and shook hands with the grand Duke Cosimo, and he received me very charmingly. Two days after, the grand Duke gave me an order to make a small model for a Perseus, which was most gratifying to me, & two months sufficed to do it in. When his Excellency saw it he was beyond measure pleased, & he said to me in the presence of a number of gentlemen: ‘Had you the courage to carry out the work as finely in a great piece as here in your little model, it would be the grandest work on the Piazza.’ To these gratifying words I replied: ‘My lord, in the Piazza are works by Donatello and the great Michaelangelo, both of them men that in the glory of their works have beaten the ancients; as for me I have the courage to execute this work to the size of five cubits, and in so doing make it ever so much better than the model.’ At this there was no end of argumentation.