CENTENARY OF MICHAEL ANGELO.
When my excellent friend Commendator Giuseppe Poggi had finished the beautiful Piazzale Michael Angelo, and before the inauguration of the monument designed by him, with the statues of the divine artist himself, had taken place (and this occurred before the centenary), he proposed that the statue of Michael Angelo should be placed in a commanding position under the middle arch of the Loggia that fronts on the Piazzale; and it was his intention (for which I thank him from the bottom of my heart) that this statue should be made by me. Knowing, however, that on account of its colossal proportions, as well as the importance of the subject, it would require no small expense, and as even then the municipality foresaw its present straits, he said to me, in a pleasant and friendly manner, that it was his hope, as well as that of others, that I would make the statue for its mere cost. "I am ready," said I to myself. "I like the subject, and I can satisfy my friend in his legitimate pride of citizen and artist, and also place there a sign of my veneration for Michael Angelo, and a testimony of affection and disinterestedness to my country, but at no slight sacrifice, it is true—that is to say, by working at least a year gratis et amore Dei." I am mistaken; there is something else I should add—that is the income-tax and tax on the exercise of my art, &c., that the tax agent would naturally have insisted on exacting, even if it had been proved to him that I was working to gain nothing. But I had given my word, and said I am ready; and when I say I am ready, I stick to it. In the meanwhile time passed, the centenary drew near, and the municipality decided nothing about the statue; and, so far, all was well—it meant that they found it inconvenient to give even those few thousand lire required for the marble and the roughing out of the statue; and wished to save them. About this I say nothing, for, in fact, I am in favour of saving; but now comes the best of it. When the day for the famous centenary arrived, the festivities were conducted admirably, with an exhibition of all Michael Angelo's works, a visit to his tomb in Santa Croce, to his house, which is a most precious museum, and, at last, to the Piazzale, where the monument was inaugurated. There was music in the great hall of the Cinquecento at the Palazzo Vecchio, illuminations on the great Piazzale and on the Colli, and everything was done with the utmost order and decorum, thanks to the exquisite tact of our president of the committee for organising the centenary festivals, Commendatore Ubaldino Peruzzi. Among these festive meetings one was arranged to take place in the old Senate Hall, which had for its object the pronouncing of eulogies on the great artist; and to all, the Academy of Fine Arts and the Della Crusca Academy were invited, as Michael Angelo was not only to be honoured as an artist supreme in the imitative arts, but also as a philosopher, literary man, and poet. This was splendidly done by the two Presidents of the Academy of Fine Arts and the Della Crusca Academy, Commendatore Emilio de' Fabris and Commendatore Augusto Conti. They were surrounded by the members of these two Academies united in solemn assembly, and the semicircle was filled by a crowd of distinguished artists, literary and scientific men, foreign and native, and was honoured by the presence of his Highness Prince Cazignano. My friend De' Fabris spoke of Michael Angelo as an architect, and my friend Conti enlarged upon him as philosopher, citizen, and poet. They had begged me to read a few words on that occasion; but I, being aware of my insignificance, and, to speak frankly, my incapacity to think and speak on so great a subject, at first refused to do so; then I tried jotting down something in writing, and made my friend Luigi Venturi read it—and as he did not dislike what I had written, I accepted, and on the day before mentioned I read my little scrap of writing, in which I treated particularly of Michael Angelo as a sculptor.
That day the idea of the statue was again brought forward, and some of the gentlemen, in the name of the committee, came to my studio and asked me if I would agree to make the statue of Michael Angelo for the mere cost and expenses. I answered that I would, and added that I had promised to do so once before, but that nothing more had been done about it. In the meanwhile a subscription list was sent the rounds, and my illustrious friends Meissonnier and Guillaume, who had come to Florence for the centenary festivals, put their names down each for a hundred lire. And then, after all, as God willed it, nothing more was done about it; and in fact, on the spot where the statue was to have been placed, there is now a café restaurant, very clean and convenient, and of a summer's evening it is enlivened by concerts of a band of music. Looking at the thing from this point of view, it is certainly much more comfortable and amusing than to see a statue of Michael Angelo standing there.
FIASCO ABOUT THE STATUE OF ANGELO.
The fact is, that there are sometimes fruitful enthusiasms and sometimes barren enthusiasms: the fruitful enthusiasms are those in which one finds the quickest and most perceptible enjoyment. In these days (it was 1876) there were people running in crowds to see and hear Signora Adelina Patti—spending an amount of money that they would have had great difficulty in spending on an object less sensible, or, rather, less enjoyable, such as in fact a statue might be, that promises to give you the rather meagre enjoyment, it is true, of making its appearance two or three years after it has taken the money out of your pocket.
It is true, however, that the enjoyment of song and sound passes in a moment—its waves die upon the air, and our ears catch their last echo—while the view of a statue, with all its beauty and meaning, remains, so to speak, to all eternity. But this is a rather subtle and abstract consideration that not all can understand.
Thinking over it well, I do not believe the fiasco about the statue of Michael Angelo occurred for want of enthusiasm for art or statuary, or much less for the subject. The deuce take it! Michael Angelo is out of the question; besides belonging to the world, he is a Florentine,—and then, too, enthusiasm has not been wanting in any town in Italy, and certainly not in Florence, even when it has been a question of immortalising in marble men oftentimes very unlike Buonarroti. Besides, did one not see about this time, and in fact during these very days, several thousands of lire got together for a bust of Gino Capponi? And why was this? If I had asked to make that statue, it might have been supposed that the artist was not liked, and that no confidence was felt in him; but it was not so: in fact I was looked for and even begged to make it, which is natural when one desires to have work done for nothing but the pure cost and expenses. Confidence in the artist, therefore, was not wanting: there must have been some other reason, and I have found it is this, that work asked for and offered for nothing seems almost as if it had no attraction; no one wants it. One must, if one can, get as much pay as possible. Listen to this other instance; they grow like cherries.
FIASCO OF ANOTHER STATUE.
When I had made the "Christ after the Resurrection," for which my good friend Ferdinando Filippi di Buti gave me the order, the idea came to the worthy syndic, Signor Danielli, to erect in his village (which seemed as if it ought to be sacred to Minerva, it was so buried in a forest of olive-trees) a statue in honour of Professor del Rosso, who had been such a worthy representative of science and of his native place. The good and most lively Signor Danielli was full of ardour to carry out his project; and to obtain its success, he pressed me to accept this commission at the smallest possible price, almost for its mere cost.
I accepted. The subscription list was sent the rounds, and I know that my illustrious friend Professor Conti, an old pupil of Del Rosso, gave himself a great deal of trouble in getting subscriptions; but neither he nor any one else obtained the desired result, and the statue remains where it was—in the future. In the same way, it seems, ended the affair of the bust of Pius IX., that a pious committee in this city proposed to have cut in marble and placed in our cathedral.