THE COLOSSAL BRONZE FOR THE FAÇADE OF SAN PETRONIO
XXXII. So he arrived at Bologna one morning, and going to San Petronio to hear mass,[39] behold, the grooms of the Pope, who recognised him and conducted him to his Holiness, who was at table in the Palazzo de' Sedici. When he saw Michael Angelo in his presence, Julius, with an angry look, said to him, "You ought to have come to us, and you have waited for us to come to you." Meaning to say, that his Holiness being come to Bologna, a place much nearer to Florence than Rome is, it was as if he (the Pope) had come to him. Michael Angelo with a loud voice and on his knees craved pardon, pleading that he had not erred maliciously but through indignation, for he could not bear to be hunted away as he had been. The Pope kept his head lowered and replied nothing, to all appearances much troubled, when a certain monsignore, sent by the Cardinal Soderini to excuse and intercede for Michael Angelo, broke in, saying: "Your Holiness, do not remember his fault, for he has erred through ignorance; these painters in things outside their art are all like this." The Pope indignantly replied: "You [pg 40]abuse him, whilst we say nothing; you are the ignorant one, and he is not the culprit; take yourself off in an evil hour." But as he was not going, he was, as Michael Angelo used to tell, hustled out of the room with blows by the servants of the Pope. Thus the Pope having spent his fury on the bishop, called Michael Angelo closer to him, and pardoned him, ordering him not to leave Bologna until another commission had been given to him. Nor was he long before he sent for him and said that he wished Michael Angelo to make a great portrait statue of him in bronze, which he wished to place on the front of the Church of San Petronio. And he left a thousand ducats in the bank of Messer Antommaria da Lignano to carry out the work when he departed for Rome. It is true that before he left Michael Angelo had already modelled it in clay, but he was doubtful as to what the statue should hold in the left hand, the right was raised as if giving a benediction. He asked the Pope, who had come to see the statue, if it pleased him that he should be made holding a book. "What! a book?" he replied, "a sword! As for me, I am no scholar." And jesting about the right hand, which was in vigorous action, he said, smiling the while, to Michael Angelo, "Does this statue of yours give a blessing or a curse?" Michael Angelo replied to him: "It threatens this people, Holy Father, lest they be foolish." But, as I have said, Pope Julius returned to Rome and Michael Angelo remained behind at Bologna, and spent sixteen months in completing the statue and erecting it where the Pope had directed. Afterwards, on the return of the Bentivogli to Bologna, this statue was thrown to earth in the fury of the populace and destroyed. Its height was more than three times that of life.
CHAPTER VI
THE VAULT OF THE SISTINE CHAPEL
XXXIII. After he had finished this work he went to Rome, where Pope Julius wished to employ him, keeping still to his purpose of not going on with his tomb. It was put into his head by Bramante and other rivals of Michael Angelo that he should make him paint the vault of the chapel of Sixtus the Fourth, in the Vatican, making him believe that he would do wonders. This was done maliciously, to distract the Pope from works of sculpture; and because they thought it was certain, either, that by his not accepting such a commission, he would stir up the Pope's anger against himself, or that by accepting it he would come out of it very much inferior to Raffaello da Urbino, whom they heaped with favours on account of their hatred for Michael Angelo, judging that his principal art was sculpture, as in truth it was. Michael Angelo, who as yet had never used colours and knew the painting of the vault to be a very difficult undertaking, tried with all his power to get out of it, proposing Raffaello and excusing himself, in that it was not his art and that he would not succeed, refusing so many demands that the Pope was almost in a passion. But seeing his obstinacy, Michael Angelo set himself to do the work, which to-day is seen in the palace of the Pope, and is the admiration and [pg 42]wonder of the world; it brought him so much fame that it lifted him above all envy. I will give some brief account of this work.
XXXIV. The shape of this ceiling is what is commonly called a barrel vaulting, resting on lunettes, six to the length and two to the width of the building, so that the whole formed two squares and a half. In this space Michael Angelo has depicted, firstly, the creation of the world, and then almost the whole of the Old Testament. He has divided the work after this fashion: Beginning at the brackets, where the horns of the lunettes rest, up to almost a third of the arch of the vault, the walls appear to continue flat, running up to that height with certain pilasters and plinths imitating marble, which project into the open like a balustrade over an additional storey, with corbels below, and with other little pilasters above the same storey, where sit the prophets and sybils. The first pilasters grow from the arches of the lunettes, placing the pedestals in the middle, leaving, however, the greater part of the arch of the lunette—that is to say, the space they contain between them. Above the said plinths are painted some little naked children in various poses, who, in guise of terminals, support a cornice, which binds the whole work together, leaving in the middle of the vault from end to end, as it were, the open sky. This opening is divided into nine spaces; for from the cornices over the pilasters spring certain arches with cornices, which traverse the highest part of the vault, and join the cornice on the opposite side of the chapel, leaving from arch to arch nine openings, large and small. In the smaller spaces are two fillets, painted like marble that cross the opening in such [pg 43]a way that in the middle rest the two parts and one of the bands, where medallions are placed, as shall be told in due course; and this has been done to avoid monotony, which is born of sameness. Now, at the head of the chapel, in the first opening, which is one of the smaller ones, is seen how the Omnipotent God in the heavens by the movement of His arms divides light from darkness. In the second space is how He created the two great lights. The Creator is seen with arms extended: with the right He lights the sun, and with the left the moon. With Him are child-angels; one on the left hides his face against the bosom of his Creator, as though shielding himself from the harmful light of the moon. In the same space on the left God is seen turning to create the trees and plants of the earth, painted with such art that wherever you turn He appears to turn away also, showing the whole of the back down to the soles of His feet—a thing most beautiful, and which shows what may be done by foreshortening. In the third space the great God appears in the heavens, again with a company of angels, looking upon the waters and commanding them to bring forth all those forms of life nourished in that element, just as in the second He commands the earth. In the fourth is the creation of Man. God is seen with arm and hand stretched forth as if giving His commandments to Adam, what to do and what not to do; with His other arm He draws His angels about Him. In the fifth is how He drew woman from the side of Adam. She comes forth with her hands joined, raising them in prayer towards God, bending with gracious mien and offering thanks as He blesses her. In the sixth is how the Devil tempted man. From the middle upwards the wicked one is of human form, and the rest of him like [pg 44]unto a serpent, his legs transformed into tails winding around a tree. He seems to reason with the man and persuade him to act contrary to the commands of his Creator, and he offers the forbidden apple to the woman. On the other side of the space the two are seen driven forth by the angel, terrified and weeping, flying from the face of God. In the seventh is the sacrifice of Abel and of Cain;[40] the one grateful to and accepted by God, the other hateful and refused. In the eighth is the Deluge, when the ark of Noah is seen in the distance in the midst of the waters; some men attempt to cling to it for safety. Nearer, in the same abyss of waters, is a boat laden with many people, which, both by the excessive weight she has to carry and by the many and tumultuous lashings of the waves, loses her sail, and, deprived of every aid and human control, she is already filling with water and going to the bottom. It is an admirable thing to see the human race so wretchedly perishing in the waves. Likewise, nearer to the eye, there still appears above the waters the summit of a mountain, like unto an island, on which, fleeing from the rising waters, collect a multitude of men and women, who exhibit different expressions, but all wretched and all terrified, dragging themselves beneath a curtain stretched over a tree to shelter them from the unusual rains; and above them is represented with great art the anger of God, which overwhelms them with water, with lightnings, and with thunderbolts. There is also another mountain-top on the right,[41] much nearer the eye, [pg 45]and a multitude labouring under the same disasters, of which it would be long to write all the details; it shall suffice me to say that they are all very natural and tremendous, just as one would imagine them in such a convulsion. In the ninth, which is the last, is the story of Noah when he was drunken with wine, lying on the ground, his shame derided by his son Ham and covered by Shem and Japhet. Under the before-mentioned cornice which finishes the walls, and above the brackets where the lunettes rest, between pilaster and pilaster, sit twelve large figures—prophets and sybils—all truly wonderful, as much for their grace as for the decoration and design of their draperies. But admirable above all the others is the prophet Jonah, placed at the head of the vault, because contrary to the form of this part of the ceiling, by force of light and shade, the torso, which is foreshortened so that it goes back away into the roof, is on the part of the arch nearest the eye, and the feet and legs which, as it were, project within the walls, are on the part more distant. A stupendous performance, which shows what marvellous power was in this man of turning lines in foreshortening and perspective. Now in the spaces that are below the lunettes, as well as in those above, which have a triangular shape, are painted all the genealogy, or, I should say, all the ancestors of the Saviour, except the triangles at the corners, which come together, and so, two make up one of double the area. In one then of these, above the wall of the Last Judgment on the right hand,[42] is seen how Aman, by command of King Ahasuerus, was hung upon a cross; and this was because, in his pride and arrogance, he wished to hang Mordecai, the uncle [pg 46]Queen Ester, for not honouring him with a reverence as he passed by. In another corner is the story of the bronze serpent, lifted by Moses on a staff, in which the children of Israel, wounded and ill-treated by lively little serpents, are healed by looking up. Here Michael Angelo has shown admirable force in those figures that are struggling to free themselves from the coils of the serpents. In the third corner, at the lower end of the chapel, is the vengeance wreaked upon Holofernes by Judith, and in the fourth that of David over Goliath. And these are briefly all the histories.
XXXV. But no less marvellous is that part which does not relate to the histories at all, that is to say, certain nudes who sit upon plinths above the before-mentioned cornice, one on either side holding up the medallions, which, as has been said, appear to be of metal, on which, in the style of reverses, are designed several stories, all however appropriate to their principal histories. By the beauty of the divisions, by the variety of the poses, and by the balance of the proportionate parts, in all of them Michael Angelo exhibited the highest art. But to tell the particulars of these things would be an infinite labour, a book to them alone would not be enough; therefore I pass over them briefly, wishing rather to give a little light upon the whole than to detail the parts.
XXXVI. In the meanwhile he did not lack troubles; for, having finished the picture of the Deluge, the work began to grow mouldy,[43] so much so that the figures could hardly be distinguished. Michael Angelo, thinking that [pg 47]this excuse would suffice to enable him to shake off his burden, went to the Pope and said to him: "I have already told your Holiness that this is not my art; all that I have done is spoiled; if you do not believe it send and see." The Pope sent Il San Gallo, who, when he examined the fresco, saw that the plaster had been applied too wet, and the dampness running down caused this effect; and informing Michael Angelo of this he made him proceed, and the excuse was unavailing.