Another instance of a still greater independence of mind, Vasari[81] has recorded in the peremptory answer which M. Angelo gave to the Committee of Cardinals, &c. instigated by the partisans of Sangallo, (La Setta Sangallesca, Vasari,) to inspect the process of the fabric of S. Pietro, and to examine his plan. Ignorant of his design to derive the main light of the edifice from the cupola, they found fault with the scanty distribution of light, and told the Pontiff that M. Angelo had spoiled S. Pietro, and instead of a luminous temple, was erecting a gloomy vault. Giulio having communicated this to him at a general meeting of the deputies and inspectors, M. Angelo replied, I wish to hear these deputies talk myself: "Here we are," answered Cardinal Marcello—"Then know, Monsignore," said he, "that over these windows, in the vault which is to be raised, there are to be placed three more."—"You never told us this before!" said Cervino.—"No," replied M. Angelo, "I am not, nor ever will be bound to tell your Eminence, or any other person, what I must or what I mean to do: your duty is to provide money and take care that it be not stolen; what belongs to the plan and execution of the building you are to leave to me." Then turning to the Pope, "Holy Father," continued he, "you see what I gain; the fatigue I undergo is time and labour lost, unless my soul gain by it." The Pope, who loved him, and rejoiced at the defeat of the cabal, laying hands on his shoulders, said, "Doubt not your soul and body shall be equal gainers by it."
Among the many expectations in which he was disappointed, that which he appears to have formed on the early talent of Jacopo Carucci, as it was the most sanguine, must have been the most distressing; for, on seeing his figures of Faith and Charity with attendant Infants, in fresco, at the Nunziata, and considering them as produced by a youth of nineteen, he said, in the words of Vasari, "This young man, from what appears, grant life and pursuit, will raise this art to heaven."
But Jacopo did neither long pursue the same principles nor adopt superior ones: infected, like Andrea del Sarto, by the temporary fever which the style of Albert Durer had spread over Florence. He was, however, the favourite copyist in oil of M. Angelo's Cartoons, and as such, in preference, recommended by him to Alfonso D'Avalo, Marchese del Guasto, and Bartolomeo Bettini, his friend, who had obtained cartoons, the former of a Noli-me-tangere; this of a naked Venus caressed by Cupid.[82]
The name of Giuliano Bugiardini, supported only by its own feeble powers, would probably long have sunk to oblivion, had it not been kept afloat by the personal attachment of M. Angelo. In Vasari, Giuliano is the synonyme, of helpless impotence; he had certainly neither the dexterity nor the grasp of the Aretine biographer; but he also had neither the pretension nor the craft. There is, and chiefly among artists, a singular class of men, who, with great moral simplicity, but a capacity less than moderate, court with ungovernable passion an art which they are doomed never to possess, but to whom self-complacency compensates for every disappointment of the most ungrateful perseverance, public neglect and private irrision: they neither envy nor suspect, and though not intimidated by a superiority which they do not fully comprehend, are ready to respect the part that comes within their compass. Such a man was Bugiardini; and such a character M. Angelo was likely to appreciate;[83] and though aware that he was not equal to serious communication in art, to select him as a companion of his leisure, and to assist or submit to him, as the simplicity of his character required;—of either we shall select from Vasari an instance. When he was occupied with the picture of Sta. Catherina, for the Church of Sta. Maria Novella, he requested the advice of M. Angelo on the arrangement of a file of soldiers which he meant to place on the foreground, flying, fallen, wounded, killed; because the idea of their having formed a file, could not be expressed within the scanty space he had allotted them, without having recourse to fore-shortenings, which he confessed to be beyond his power. M. Angelo, to please him, took a coal, and with his own comprehension drew on the panel a file of naked figures, variously fore-shortened, falling different ways, forwards, backwards, with others dead or wounded: but the whole being merely in outlines, left Giuliano still at a loss. Tribolo, therefore, to draw him from this dilemma, undertook to form them in clay, leaving the surface of each figure rough, to increase more forcibly the chiaroscuro: this method, however, so little pleased the neatness of Giuliano, that the moment Tribolo left him, he with a wet pencil licked them into a polish, which took away grain and effect together, and when the picture was finished, left no trace of M. Angelo's ever having seen it.
Messer Ottaviano de' Medici had requested Giuliano to paint him a portrait of M. Angelo. He obtained the consent of M. Angelo: having held him between chat and work two hours at the first sitting—for M. Angelo delighted to hear him talk—Giuliano got up, and said, "M. Angelo, if you want to see yourself, rise: I have settled the character of the face." M. Angelo rose, looked at the portrait, and said, smiling, "What the devil (che diavolo) have you been doing? you have clapt one of the eyes into one of the temples—look to it." Giuliano having for some time looked silently at the portrait, and the sitter, resolutely replied, "I do not see what you said; but take your place, and I'll give another glance at nature." M. Angelo, who knew where the defect lay, sat down again sneering; and Giuliano, having eyed repeatedly now the picture and now M. Angelo, at last rose and said, "It appears to me that the thing is as I have drawn it, and that nature shows it so." "Oh, then it is a defect of nature!" replied Michael Angelo, "go on and prosper in your work."
Francesco Granacci, the companion of his early studies, and Jacopo, called L'Indaco, the enlivener of his solitude, enjoyed the same degree of his familiarity; but as the real basis of friendship is equality, and mutual esteem founded on similarity of character and powers, attachments merely formed by early habits or congenial humour between men too dissimilar else to admit of comparison, never can aspire to its privileges and name. Condescension is not always delicate, and the indiscretions of simplicity sooner or later provoke the pride, contempt, and arrogance of superior powers. Giuliano, Granacci, and L'Indaco, experienced all three from Michael Angelo; they were among his conscripts for assisting in the frescoes of the Capella; but finding their pigmy capacities unequal to his colossal style, he not only, in lofty silence, destroyed what they had begun, but barring all access to the Chapel and himself, forced them to return, vainly grumbling, to Florence.
FOOTNOTES
[62] 1433—1527. They underwent three banishments in less than a century.
[63] 1472—1492. Most splendid period of Florence this.