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:—