Leo X.'s pontificate, which, although short, was one of the most glorious and eventful in the history of art, came to an abrupt conclusion on December 1st, 1521. By a strange irony of fate, the magnificent patron of art and letters was succeeded by a pious and simple-minded Dutch prelate, who regarded statues as pagan idols, and said that the Sistine Chapel was "nothing but a room full of naked people." There is little doubt that he secretly longed to have it whitewashed. Fortunately for art and artists, his pontificate was of brief duration, and in 1523 Cardinal Giulio de' Medici was elected in his stead, under the name of Clement VII.
In the following year Michelangelo finished the new sacristy of San Lorenzo, and immediately set to work on the Medicean tombs. But he was constantly worried and interrupted by new commissions from the Pope, who wanted him, among other things, to build a library in which to place the famous collection of books and manuscripts begun by Cosimo de' Medici: "I cannot work at one thing with my hands and at another with my brain!" exclaimed the artist in despair. Nevertheless he undertook to build the library, and carried on both works at the same time, constantly urged on by Pope Clement, who wrote to him in an autograph letter: "Thou knowest that Popes have no long lives, and we cannot yearn more than we do to behold the chapel with the tombs of our kinsmen, and so also the library."
These were troublous times for Italy. After the disastrous battle of Pavia, in which he had lost everything "except honour," Francis I. concluded with the Sforza of Milan, with Venice, Florence, and Pope Clement VII. a league against Charles V., which proved fatal to all who took part in it. In 1527, a rabble of German and Spanish soldiers of fortune, led by the renegade Connétable de Bourbon, took and pillaged Rome, and the Pope himself was besieged in the Castle of Saint Angelo for nine months. The Florentines availed themselves of this opportunity to shake off the despotic yoke of the Medici, but two years later, Charles V. concluded the peace of Barcelona with Clement VII., one of the conditions being that he should re-establish the Medicean rule in Florence. But the citizens would not give up their newly-acquired liberty without a struggle, and prepared for a desperate resistance. Michelangelo was appointed Commissary-General of defence, and showed himself worthy of the confidence placed in him by his fellow-citizens.
It was in a great measure due to the skill with which he fortified the town, and more especially the hill of San Miniato, that Florence was enabled to withstand the attacks of the Imperial troops for twelve months. But the treachery of Malatesta Baglioni, who commanded the troops of the Republic, paralyzed the efforts of Michelangelo and of its other brave defenders, and in August, 1530, the city fell. Alessandro de' Medici returned in triumph to Florence, and would certainly have beheaded Michelangelo, who only saved himself by hiding in the bell-tower of San Nicolò beyond the Arno, until the first fury of his enemies was over.
In spite of his important military duties, Michelangelo continued working at the Medicean tombs during the siege, and also painted a panel picture, representing Leda and the Swan, originally intended for the Duke of Ferrara, but which he afterwards gave to his pupil Antonio Mini, together with many cartoons and drawings, that he might dower two sisters with the proceeds. It was sold to the King of France and hung at Fontainebleau until the time of Louis XIII., one of whose ministers ordered it to be destroyed as an improper picture. According to another version, however, it was only hidden, and afterwards brought to England. The Leda and the Swan now in the National Gallery is regarded by some as the damaged and much restored original of Michelangelo's famous picture. Clement VII.'s anger soon abated, and Michelangelo was able to return to his work, thanks chiefly to the kind offices of Baccio Valori, the Papal envoy in Florence, to whom the sculptor presented, out of gratitude, the fine statue of Apollo, now in the National Museum at Florence.
TOMB OF LORENZO DE' MEDICI.
The Medicean tombs progressed but slowly, for all this time Michelangelo was worried almost to death by the Duke of Urbino, a nephew of Julius II., who insisted upon his finishing the famous tomb, while Clement VII., on the other hand, threatened the artist with excommunication if he neglected his work in the new sacristy for anything else. Probably the first statue to be finished was the beautiful Madonna suckling the Child Jesus, represented as a strong boy straddling across her knee. It is one of Michelangelo's noblest works, possessing all the majestic simplicity of his earlier Madonnas enhanced by greater power.
To give an adequate description of the tombs of Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici would be impossible within the narrow limits of this little book. Suffice it to say that the princes are represented in the garb of ancient warriors, each seated in a niche above a sarcophagus, on which two allegorical figures recline. Lorenzo appears to be plunged in sorrowful meditation; at his feet recline the colossal statues of Evening, represented by a powerful male figure, apparently on the point of falling asleep, and Dawn, symbolized by a beautiful young woman in the act of awaking, not to joy and hope, but to another day of sorrow. The beauty of this last figure cannot be described; it is such as the imagination of the ancient Greeks might have endowed a goddess with. The statue of Dawn was finished in 1531, soon after the fall of Florence and the return of the Medici, and there is little doubt that Michelangelo intended his mournful figures to express sorrow at the loss of Florentine liberty, rather than at the death of the two young princes. The same idea is evident in the tomb of Giuliano, with the two figures of Night, symbolized by a sleeping woman of singular beauty and power, and Day, a vigorous bearded giant just rising to his work and looking over his shoulder as if dazzled by the glare of the rising sun. Although the head of Day is unfinished, it is a striking example of how Michelangelo was able to give life and expression to his work from the first stroke of his chisel.