statues; and among the first was an Adam who was raising one arm, and
was about four braccia in height. This figure was finished by Baccio,
but, since it proved to be narrow in the flanks and somewhat defective
in other parts, he changed it into a Bacchus, and afterwards gave it
to the Duke, who kept it in his Palace many years, in his chamber; and
not long ago it was placed in a niche in the ground-floor apartments
which his Excellency occupies in summer. He had also made a seated
figure of Eve of the same size, which he had half finished: but it was
abandoned on account of the Adam, which it was to have accompanied.
For, having made a beginning with another Adam, in a different form
and attitude, it became necessary for him to change also the Eve, and
the original seated figure was converted by him into a Ceres, which he
gave to the most illustrious Duchess Leonora, together with an Apollo,
which was another nude that he had executed; and her Excellency had
them placed in the ornament in front of the fish-pond, the design and
architecture of which are by Giorgio Vasari, in the gardens of the
Pitti Palace. Baccio worked at these two figures with very great zeal,
thinking to satisfy the craftsmen and all the world as well as he had
satisfied himself; and he finished and polished them with all the
diligence and lovingness that were in him. He then set up these
figures of Adam and Eve in their place, but, when uncovered, they
experienced the same fate as his other works, and were torn to pieces
with savage bitterness in sonnets and Latin verses, one going to the
length of suggesting that even as Adam and Eve, having defiled
Paradise by their disobedience, deserved to be driven out, so these
figures, defiling the earth, deserved to be expelled from the church.
Nevertheless the statues are well-proportioned, and beautiful in many
parts; and although there is not in them that grace which has been
spoken of in other places, and which he was not able to give to his
works, yet they display so much art and design, that they deserve no
little praise. A lady who had set herself to examine these statues,
being asked by some gentlemen what she thought of these naked bodies,
answered, "About the man I can give no judgment;" and, being pressed
to give her opinion of the woman, she replied that in the Eve there
were two good points, worthy of considerable praise, in that she was
white and firm; whereby she contrived ingeniously, while seeming to
praise, covertly to deal a shrewd blow to the craftsman and his art,
giving to the statue the praise proper to the female body, which it is
also necessary to apply to the marble, the material, and which is
true of it, but not of the work or of the craftsmanship, for by such
praise the craftsmanship is not praised. Thus, then, that shrewd lady
hinted that in her opinion nothing could be praised in that statue
save the marble.
Baccio afterwards set his hand to the statue of the Dead Christ, which
likewise not succeeding as he had expected, he abandoned it when it
was already well advanced, and, taking another block of marble, began
another Christ in an attitude different from the first, and together
with that the Angel who supports the head of Christ on one leg and
with one hand His arm; and he did not rest until he had finished
entirely both the one figure and the other. When arrangements were
made to set it up on the altar, it proved to be so large that it
occupied too much space, and there was no room left for the
ministrations of the priest; and although this statue was passing
good, and even one of Baccio's best, nevertheless the people--the
ordinary citizens no less than the priests--could never have their
fill of speaking ill of it and picking it to pieces. Recognizing that
to uncover unfinished works injures the reputation of a craftsman in
the eyes of all those who are not of the profession, or have no
knowledge of art, or have not seen the models, Baccio resolved, in
order to accompany the statue of Christ and to complete the altar, to
make the statue of God the Father, for which a very beautiful block of
marble had come from Carrara. And he had already carried it well
forward, making it half nude after the manner of a Jove, when, since
it did not please the Duke and appeared to Baccio himself to have
certain defects, he left it as it was, and even so it is still to be
found in the Office of Works.
Baccio cared nothing for the words of others, but gave his attention
to making himself rich and buying property. He bought a most beautiful
farm, called Lo Spinello, on the heights of Fiesole, and another with
a very beautiful house called Il Cantone, in the plain above San
Salvi, on the River Affrico, and a great house in the Via de' Ginori,
which he was enabled to acquire by the moneys and favours of the Duke.
Having thus secured his own position, Baccio thenceforward cared
little to work or to exert himself; and although the tomb of Signor
Giovanni was unfinished, the audience-chamber of the Great Hall only
begun, and the choir and altar behindhand, he paid little attention
to the words of others or to the censure that was laid upon him on
that account. However, having erected the altar and set into position
the marble base upon which was to stand the statue of God the Father,
he made a model for this and finally began it, and, employing
stone-cutters, proceeded to carry it slowly forward.
There came from France in those days Benvenuto Cellini, who had served
King Francis in the matter of goldsmith's work, of which he was the
most famous master of his day; and he had also executed some castings
in bronze for that King. Benvenuto was introduced to Duke Cosimo, who,
desiring to adorn the city, showed also to him much favour and
affection, and commissioned him to make a statue of bronze about five
braccia high, of a nude Perseus standing over a nude woman
representing Medusa, whose head he had cut off; which work was to be
placed under one of the arches of the Loggia in the Piazza. While he
was executing the Perseus, Benvenuto also did other things for the
Duke. Now, even as it happens that the potter is always the jealous
enemy of the potter, and the sculptor of the sculptor, Baccio was not
able to endure the various favours shown to Benvenuto. It appeared to
him a strange thing, also, that Benvenuto should have thus changed in
a moment from a goldsmith into a sculptor, nor was he able to grasp in
his mind how a man who was used to making medals and little things,
could now execute colossal figures and giants. Baccio could not
conceal his thoughts, but expressed them freely, and he found a man
able to answer him; for, Baccio saying many of his biting words to
Benvenuto in the presence of the Duke, Benvenuto, who was no less
proud than himself, took pains to be even with him. And thus, arguing
often on the matters of art and their own works, and pointing out each
other's defects, they would utter the most slanderous words of one
another in the presence of the Duke, who, because he took pleasure in
this and recognized true genius and acuteness in their biting phrases,
had given them full liberty and licence to say whatever they pleased
about one another before him, provided that they did not remember
their quarrel elsewhere.
This rivalry, or rather, enmity, was the reason that Baccio pressed
forward his statue of God the Father; but he was no longer receiving
from the Duke those favours to which he had been accustomed, and he
consoled himself for this by paying court and doing service to the
Duchess. One day, among others, that they were railing at one another
as usual and laying bare many of each others' actions, Benvenuto,
glaring at Baccio and threatening him, said: "Prepare yourself for
another world, Baccio, for I mean to send you out of this one." And
Baccio answered: "Let me know a day beforehand, so that I may confess
and make my will, and may not die like the sort of beast that you
are." By reason of which the Duke, who for many months had found
amusement in their quarrels, bade them be silent, fearing some evil
ending, and caused them to make a portrait-bust of himself from the
girdle upwards, both to be cast in bronze, to the end that he who
should succeed best should carry off the honours.
Amid this rivalry and contention Baccio finished his figure of God the
Father, which he arranged to have placed in the church on the base
beside the altar. This figure was clothed and six braccia high, and he
erected and completely finished it. But, in order not to leave it
unaccompanied, he summoned from Rome the sculptor Vincenzio de' Rossi,
his pupil, wishing to execute in clay for the altar all that remained
to be done in marble; and he caused Vincenzio to assist him in
finishing the two Angels who are holding the candelabra at the
corners, and the greater part of the scenes on the predella and the
base. Having then set everything upon the altar, in order to see how
his work, when finished, was to stand, he strove to prevail on the
Duke to come and see it, before he should uncover it. But the Duke
would never go, and, although entreated by the Duchess, who favoured
Baccio in this matter, he would never let himself be shaken, and did
not go to see it, being angered because among so many works Baccio had
never finished one, even after his Excellency had made him rich and
had won odium among the citizens by honouring him highly and doing him
many favours. For all this his Excellency was disposed to assist
Clemente, the natural son of Baccio--a young man of ability, who had
made considerable proficience in design--because it was likely to fall
to him in time to finish his father's works.
At this same time, which was in the year 1554, there came from Rome,
where he had been working for Pope Julius III, Giorgio Vasari of
Arezzo, in order to serve his Excellency in many works that he was
intending to execute, and in particular to decorate the Palace on the
Piazza, and to renovate it with new constructions, and to finish the
Great Hall, as he was afterwards seen to do. In the following year
Giorgio Vasari summoned from Rome and engaged in the Duke's service
the sculptor Bartolommeo Ammanati, to the end that he might execute
the other facade in the above-named Hall, opposite to the
audience-chamber begun by Baccio, and a fountain in the centre of that
facade; and a beginning was straightway made with executing a part of
the statues that were to go into that work. Baccio, perceiving that
the Duke was employing others, recognized that he did not wish to use
his services any longer; at which, feeling great displeasure and
vexation, he had become so strange and so irritable that no one could
have any dealings with him either in his house or out of it, and to
his son Clemente he behaved very strangely, keeping him in want of
everything. For this reason Clemente, who had made a large head of his
Excellency in clay, in order to execute it in marble for the statue of
the audience-chamber, sought leave of the Duke to depart and go to
Rome, on account of his father's strangeness; and the Duke said that
he would not fail him. Baccio, at the departure of Clemente, who had
asked leave of him, would not give him anything, although the young
man had been a great help to him in Florence, and, indeed, Baccio's
right hand in every matter; nevertheless, he thought nothing of
getting rid of him. The young man, having arrived in Rome at an
unfavourable season, died in the same year both from over-study and
from wild living, leaving in Florence an example of his handiwork in
an almost finished head of Duke Cosimo in marble, which is very
beautiful, and was afterwards placed by Baccio over the principal door
of his house in the Via de' Ginori. Clemente also left well advanced a
Dead Christ who is supported by Nicodemus, which Nicodemus is a
portrait from life of Baccio; and these statues, which are passing
good, Baccio set up in the Church of the Servites, as we shall relate
in the proper place. The death of Clemente was a very great loss to
Baccio and to art, and Bandinelli recognized this after he was dead.
Baccio uncovered the altar of S. Maria del Fiore, and the statue of
God the Father was criticized. The altar has remained as was described
above, nor has anything more been done to it since; but the work of
the choir has been continued.
Many years before, there had been quarried at Carrara a great block of
marble ten braccia and a half in height and five braccia in width, of
which having received notice, Baccio rode to Carrara and made a
contract for it with him to whom it belonged, giving him fifty crowns
as earnest-money. He then returned to Florence and so pestered the
Duke, that, by the favour of the Duchess, he obtained the commission
to make from it a giant, which was to be placed in the Piazza, at the
corner where the Lion was; on which spot was to be made a great
fountain to spout water, in the middle of which was to be a Neptune in
his chariot, drawn by sea-horses, and this figure was to be carved out
of the above-mentioned block of marble. For this figure Baccio made
more than one model, and showed them to his Excellency; but the matter
stood thus, without anything more being done, until the year 1559, at
which time the owner of the marble, having come from Carrara, asked to
be paid the rest of the money, saying that otherwise he would give
back the fifty crowns and break it into several pieces, in order to
sell it, since he had received many offers. Orders were given by the
Duke to Giorgio Vasari that he should have the marble paid for; which
having been heard throughout the world of art, and also that the Duke
had not yet made a free gift of the marble to Baccio, Benvenuto, and
likewise Ammanati, bestirring themselves, each besought the Duke that
he should be allowed to make a model in competition with Baccio, and
that his Excellency should deign to give the marble to him who had
shown the greatest ability in his model. The Duke did not deny to
either of them the right to make a model, or deprive them of the hope
that he who should acquit himself the best might be chosen to execute
the statue. His Excellency knew that in ability, judgment, and design
Baccio was still better than any of the sculptors who were in his
service, if only he would consent to take pains, and he welcomed this
competition, in order to incite Baccio to acquit himself better and
to do the most that he could. Bandinelli, having seen this competition
on his shoulders, was greatly troubled by it, fearing the loss of the
Duke's favour more than any other thing, and once more he set himself
to making models. He was most assiduous in waiting on the Duchess, and
so wrought upon her, that he obtained leave to go to Carrara in order
to make arrangements for having the marble brought to Florence. Having
arrived in Carrara, he had the marble so reduced in size--as he had
planned to do--that he made it a sorry thing, and robbed both himself
and the others of a noble opportunity and of the hope of ever making
from it a beautiful and magnificent work. On returning to Florence,
there was a long contention between Benvenuto and him, Benvenuto
saying to the Duke that Baccio had spoilt the marble before it had
been assigned to him. Finally the Duchess so went to work that the
marble became Baccio's; and orders were given that it should be taken
from Carrara to the sea-shore, and a boat was made ready with the
proper appliances, which was to convey it up the Arno as far as Signa.
Baccio also caused a room to be built up in the Loggia of the Piazza,
wherein to work at the marble.
In the meantime he had set his hand to executing cartoons, in order to
have some pictures painted which were to adorn the apartments of the
Pitti Palace. These pictures were painted by a young man called Andrea
del Minga, who handled colour passing well. The stories painted in the
pictures were the Creation of Adam and Eve, and their Expulsion from
Paradise by the Angel, a Noah, and a Moses with the Tables; which
finished, he then presented them to the Duchess, seeking to obtain her
favour in his difficulties and contentions. And, in truth, if it had
not been for that lady, who loved him for his abilities and held him
on his feet, Baccio would have fallen headlong down and would have
lost completely the favour of the Duke. The Duchess also made much use
of Baccio in the Pitti garden, where she had caused to be constructed
a grotto full of tufa and sponge-stone formed by the action of water,
and containing a fountain; and for this Baccio had caused his pupil,
Giovanni Fancelli, to execute in marble a large basin and some goats
of the size of life, which spout forth water, and likewise, for a
fish-pond, after a model made by himself, a countryman who is
emptying a barrel full of water. For these reasons the Duchess was
constantly helping and favouring Baccio with the Duke, who finally
gave him leave to begin the great model of the Neptune; on which
account he once more sent to Rome for Vincenzio de' Rossi, who had
previously departed from Florence, with the intention of making him
help to execute it.
While these preparations were in progress, Baccio was seized with a
desire to finish the statue of the Dead Christ supported by Nicodemus,
which his son Clemente had carried well forward; for he had heard that
Buonarroti was finishing one in Rome that he had begun to carve from a
large block of marble, containing five figures, which was to be placed
on his tomb in S. Maria Maggiore. Out of emulation with him Baccio set
to work on his group with the greatest assiduity, with assistants,
until he had finished it. And meanwhile he was going about among the
principal churches of Florence, seeking for a place where he might set
up that work and also make a tomb for himself; but for long he found
no place for the tomb that could content him, until he resolved on a
chapel in the Church of the Servites which belongs to the family of
the Pazzi. The owners of this chapel, at the request of the Duchess,
granted the place to Baccio, without divesting themselves of the
rights of ownership and of the devices of their house that were there;
and they granted him only this, that he should erect an altar of
marble and place upon it the statues mentioned above, and make his
tomb at the foot of it. Afterwards, also, he came to an agreement with
the friars of that convent with regard to the other matters
appertaining to the celebration of Mass. During this time, then,
Baccio was causing the altar and the marble base to be built, in order
to place upon it the above-named statues; and, when he had finished
it, he proposed to lay in that tomb, in which he wished to be laid
himself together with his wife, the bones of his father Michelagnolo,
which, at his death, he had caused to be placed in a vault in the same
church. These bones of his father he chose to lay piously in that tomb
with his own hands; whereupon it happened that either because he felt
sorrow and a shock to his mind in handling his father's bones, or
because he exerted himself too much in transferring those bones with
his own hands and in rearranging the marbles, or from both reasons
together, he was so overcome that he felt ill and had to go home, and,
his malady growing daily worse, in eight days he died, at the age of
seventy-two, having been up to that time robust and vigorous, and
without having ever suffered much illness during the whole of his
life. He was buried with honourable obsequies, and laid beside his
father's bones in the above-mentioned tomb constructed by himself, on
which is this epitaph:--
D. O. M.
BACCIUS BANDINELL. DIVI JACOBI EQUES
SUB HAC SERVATORIS IMAGINE,
A SE EXPRESSA, CUM JACOBA DONIA
UXORE QUIESCIT, AN. S. MDLIX.
He left behind him both sons and daughters, who were the heirs to his
many possessions in lands, houses, and money, which he bequeathed to
them; and to the world he left the works in sculpture described by us,
and designs in great numbers, which are in the possession of his
family, and in our book there are some executed with the pen and with
chalk, than which it is certain that nothing better could be done.
The marble for the giant was left more in dispute than ever, because
Benvenuto was always about the Duke, and wished, in virtue of a little
model that he had made, that the Duke should give it to him. On the
other hand, Ammanati, being a sculptor of marbles and more experienced
in such works than Benvenuto, considered for many reasons that this
work belonged to him. Now it happened that Giorgio Vasari had to go to
Rome with the Cardinal, the son of the Duke, when he went to receive
his hat, and Ammanati gave to Vasari a little model of wax showing the
shape in which he desired to carve that figure from the marble, and a
piece of wood reproducing the exact proportions--the length, breadth,
thickness, and inclination from the straight--of the marble, to the
end that Giorgio might show them in Rome to Michelagnolo Buonarroti
and persuade him to declare his opinion in the matter, and so move the
Duke to give him the marble. All this Giorgio did most willingly, and
it was the reason that the Duke gave orders that an arch should be
partitioned off in the Loggia of the Piazza, and that Ammanati should
make a great model as large as the giant was to be. Having heard this.
Benvenuto rode in a great fury to Pisa, where the Duke was, and said
to him that he could not suffer that his genius should be trampled
underfoot by one who was inferior to himself, and that he desired to
make a great model in competition with Ammanati, in the same place;
and the Duke, wishing to pacify him, granted him leave to have another
arch of the Loggia partitioned off, and caused to be given to him
materials for making, as he desired, a large model in competition with
Ammanati.
While these masters were engaged in making their models, after having
made fast their enclosures in such a manner that neither the one nor
the other could see what his rival was doing, although these
enclosures were attached to each other, there rose up the Flemish
sculptor Maestro Giovan Bologna, a young man not inferior in ability
or in spirit to either of the others. This master, being in the
service of the Lord Don Francesco, Prince of Florence, asked his
Excellency to enable him to make a giant which might serve as a model,
of the same size as the marble; and the Prince granted him this
favour. Maestro Giovan Bologna had as yet no thought of having the
giant to execute in marble, but he wished at least to display his
ability and to make himself known for what he was worth; and, having
received permission from the Prince, he, also, began a model in the
Convent of S. Croce. Nor was Vincenzio Danti, the sculptor of Perugia,
a younger man than any of the others, willing to fail to compete with
these three masters, not in the hope of obtaining the marble, but in
order to demonstrate his spirit and genius. And so, having set to work
on his own account in the house of Messer Alessandro, the son of M.
Ottaviano de' Medici, he executed a model good in many parts and as
large as the others.
The models finished, the Duke went to see those of Ammanati and of
Benvenuto; and, being more pleased with that of Ammanati than with
that of Benvenuto, he resolved that Ammanati should have the marble
and make the giant, because he was younger than Benvenuto and more
practised in marble. The disposition of the Duke was strengthened by
Giorgio Vasari, who did many good offices with his Excellency for
Ammanati, having perceived that, in addition to his knowledge, he was
ready to endure any labour, and hoping that from his hands there would
issue an excellent work finished in a short time. The Duke would not
at that time see the model of Maestro Giovan Bologna, because, not
having seen any work by him in marble, it did not seem to him that he
could entrust to that master, as his first work, so great an
undertaking, although he heard from many craftsmen and other men of
judgment that Giovan Bologna's model was in many parts better than the
others. But if Baccio had been alive, there would not have been all
that contention among those masters, because without a doubt it would
have fallen to him to make the model of clay and the giant of marble.
This work, then, was snatched from Baccio by death, but the same
circumstance brought him no little glory, in that it revealed by means
of those four models--the reason of the making of which was that
Baccio was not alive--how much better were the design, judgment and
ability of him who placed on the Piazza the Hercules and Cacus, as it
were living in the marble; the excellence of which work has been made
evident and brought to light even more by the works that have been
executed since Baccio's death by those others, who, although they have
acquitted themselves in a manner worthy of praise, have yet not been
able to attain to the beauty and excellence that he placed in his
work.