1474--1564.
M. Angelo was born at Castel Caprese, and showed such early proofs of a
decided attachment to art, that he was put into the school of Domenico
del Ghirlandaio. Here he soon advanced beyond the principles of the
master, who, jealous of a rival in his pupil, recommended him to Lorenzo
de Medici, for admission among the students of sculpture in his garden;
where, under the tuition of Bertoldo,[70] an ancient scholar of
Donatello, he soon mastered the elements, and, equally conspicuous for
his superiority and diligence, attracted the attention and gained the
patronage of Lorenzo, but excited the envy of his fellow-students, one
of whom, Torrigiano, on some slight provocation, with a blow of the fist
shattered his nose, which left him with a mark for life.
That predilection for sculpture imbibed from his earliest days and now
invigorated by the incessant study of the antique with practice, the
successful specimens mentioned in copies and productions of his own,[71]
leave little authority to the tradition that he studied much after
Masaccio.
His mind appears to have anticipated the expulsion of the Medici, and he
left Florence for Bologna, where he found a protector in Aldrovandi, for
whom he executed two small statues, of an Angel and of a St. Petronius
on the tomb of S. Dominico. After his return to Florence he continued to
work in sculpture, and a legend, less probable than amusing, of an Amor
sold for an antique to Cardinal Riario, has been fondly repeated by his
biographers. He now went to Rome and produced two of his most surprising
works--the Bacchus of the Museo Fiorentino, and the Madonna della Pietà
in one of the chapels of the Basilica of S. Pietro. On his return to
Florence, Pietro Soderini tried his powers on a huge block of marble,
mutilated by the ignorance of one Maestro Simone: he contrived to rear
from it the statue of David, which, in 1504, was placed, and still
remains in front of the old palace. These works, not less discriminated
by peculiarity of character, than connected by propriety of style and
energy of finish, were produced within the short period of six years,
and equally prove the wide range of his powers, and the perseverance of
his application to sculpture.
What he did as painter, during, or soon after this period, is for us
reduced to the single specimen which he executed for Angelo Doni; for
the far-famed Cartoon of Pisa, of which we soon shall have occasion to
speak, begun in contest with Lionardo da Vinci, but not finished till
after his second return from Rome, perished, as a whole, long before the
middle of the sixteenth century.
Soon after his election to the Pontificate, Giulio II. smitten with the
wish of a sepulchral monument, called M. Angelo to Rome for that
purpose. His first plan was to make it colossal, and on all sides
detached, but the obstacles which were thrown in its way for a number of
years, reduced it at length to the form in which it now appears at S.
Pietro in Vincoli, with probably one figure only by M. Angelo's own
hand, the celebrated statue of Moses in front. The attachment of Giulio
to M. Angelo was great, but the independent spirit of the artist
greater. Indignant at being refused access once to the Pontiff, whose
mind was worried by the disturbances at Bologna, he fled, and though
pursued by five messengers with letters pressing him to come back,
obstinately went on to Florence; nor could his three breves[72]
addressed to the Signoria, draw him from his asylum; till Pier Soderini
guaranteed his safety by investing him with the title of envoy from the
Republic. Thus equipped, and accompanied by Cardinal Soderini, brother
to the Gonfaloniere, he set out for Bologna, was reconciled to the Pope,
and made his statue in bronze. It was placed over the gate of S.
Petronio, but was thrown down in 1511 by the party of the Bentivogli,
and, with the exception of the head, said to have been preserved by Duke
Alfonso of Ferrara, converted into a piece of heavy artillery.
Scarcely returned to Rome, M. Angelo, by command of Giulio, instigated
as it is supposed by Bramante and Giuliano da Sangallo, found himself
forced to try his powers on a novel theatre of art, the decoration of
the ceiling and lunette of the Capella Sistina. Whatever were the
motives of the two architects, whether private pique, or envy of M.
Angelo's influence over the Pontiff, or friendship for Raffaello, and
the desire of showing his superiority over one whom they deemed a novice
in fresco, they deserved the thanks of their own and every succeeding
epoch, for the most eminent service ever rendered to art. Vasari owns
that M. Angelo, conscious of his want of practice, endeavoured to escape
from the commission, and even proposed Raffaello as fitter for the task;
but his powers soon supplied what circumstances had refused, and single
conquered with every obstacle Time itself; for, nearly fabulous to
relate, the whole, though interrupted more than once by the Pontiff's
impatience, was sufficiently finished to be exhibited to the public in
one year and ten months.
This task finished, M. Angelo, eager to resume his labours on the
monument, was disappointed by the sudden death of Giulio, (1513,) and
the election of Leo X. produced a total change in his situation; he was
ordered to Florence to construct the front of the Laurentian Library.
Though the death of Leo, or rather the accession of Adrian VI. had
paralysed art, Michael Angelo employed the dull interim by adding some
statues to the monument of Giulio; till, in 1523, Clemente VII.
reappointed him to the superintendence of the new sacristy and library
of S. Lorenzo. It was about this time that he finished and sent to Rome
the statue of Christ, still placed in the Minerva.
The arts received a new shock from the sack of Rome, 1527, and the
expulsion of the Medici from Florence, at which crisis the Signoria
conferred on Michael Angelo, who was a warm Republican,[73] the
superintendence of the fortifications and the defence of Monte Miniato,
on which the safety of the city depended. Meanwhile what time he could
save from his public trust, he secretly[74] employed to finish or
advance the symbolic and monumental statues of S. Lorenzo, and from the
cartoon to paint in distemper a Leda for the Duke of Ferrara. Finding,
however, that no defence could save the city, he saved himself by the
secret paths of S. Miniato, and escaped to Venice, 1529; from whence he
only returned to find the dominion of the Medici once more established,
himself pardoned, again employed by Clemente at S. Lorenzo, and soon
after sent for to Rome on a plan of painting two central frescoes, the
Last Judgement and the Fall of Lucifer, for the Sistine Chapel,--long
favourite ideas of the artist,[75] but with the works at Florence for
that time checked by the death of Clemente, 1534. He now with redoubled
ardour applied to the monument of Giulio, urged by his devotion to the
house of De Rovere, the considerable pecuniary advance he had received,
and the threats of the executors and the Duke of Urbino; but the
accession of Paul III. again frustrated his exertions: the Pontiff
resolved to have the exclusive boast of powers he had so long admired,
interposed his authority, and obliged the executors and agents of the
Duke to give up the original circumambient plan, and content themselves
with the storied front which exists now.
This adjusted, Michael Angelo immediately proceeded to comply with the
wishes of the Pope: if Paolo was inferior to Giulio in impetuosity, he
was his equal in fervour of attachment to art, and excelled him, if not
every other name which patronage has distinguished, in personal respect
and public homage to the artist. No work ever received countenance and
honours equal to those conferred on the Last Judgement of Michael
Angelo, from its plan to its ultimate finish by Paolo Farnese. His first
visit to the artist was attended by a train of ten cardinals:[77] though
ambitious to have the work consecrated to his own name, in deference to
Michael Angelo's attachment to the memory of Giulio, he submitted to his
refusal of displacing the arms of De Rovere at the top of the picture,
in favour of the Farnesian.[78] Induced by the specious sophistry of
Sebastian del Piombo to prefer oil to fresco in the execution of the
work, he permitted the wall to be prepared for that purpose, but on
Michael Angelo's declaring oil painting an art for women only and
sedentary tameness, he yielded to the decision, and patiently saw the
whole apparatus dashed to the ground. When, before its final disclosure
to the public, he took a private view of the whole composition at the
Chapel, less convinced than irritated by the bigoted philippic of an
attendant prelate against the daring display of immodest nudity, he
acquiesced in the artist's well-known revenge, and refused to revoke or
mitigate the punishment inflicted on the unlucky critic.[79]
The first conception of the Last Judgement, which completes the plan
originally laid down for the decoration of the Chapel, notwithstanding
the obstacles which protracted the execution, must find its date in the
Pontificate of Giulio, from the Cartoons probably begun under Clemente.
M. Angelo proceeded to the fresco itself at an early period, if not
immediately after the accession of Paolo, 1534, and finished it in 1541,
or perhaps 1542; for both these years are mentioned by Vasari; who, if
not present at the removal of the scaffolding, attended its immediate
display to the public. The completion of this 'multitudinous' work, M.
Angelo, at an age of 68, or somewhat beyond, might justly consider as
the consummation of his public career in painting: but the Pontiff,
still ambitious to possess exclusive specimens of his powers in a fabric
built by his own orders and consecrated to his own name, obliged him to
continue his labours in two huge frescoes of the Capella Paolina,
representing the Conversion of St. Paul and the Crucifixion of St.
Peter. The lassitude inseparable from the waste of so much energy on the
Last Judgement, the mental and bodily fatigue attendant on the
arrangement and execution of new plans, if less enormous less congenial,
protracted their ultimate completion to his 75th year, proved them
children of necessity rather than choice, and confirmed the truth of
his observation to Vasari, that painting in fresco, the union of powers
required for a great public work, is not an art of old age.
And here indeed terminates the career of the Painter; the remainder of
his life was divided between architecture and sculpture. This, which had
always been his favourite pursuit, was now become the darling companion
of his private hours, the amusement of his solitude, and the
preservative of his health--for this purpose he furnished his study with
a colossal block, destined for the complicated group of a Pietà: but
though age had neither tamed his conception nor palsied his hand,[80] it
checked his perseverance; he no longer struggled to subdue the flaws of
his materials or to give them the air of beauties; he dismissed the
group unfinished, and continued to exercise himself on another of
inferior size.
The death of Antonio da S. Gallo, 1546, put it in the power of Paolo to
create M. Angelo architect of S. Pietro, a trust of which he acquitted
himself with a superiority which baffled all the opposition of venality
and envy. He was probably, from Ictinus to our time, the first and the
last of architects who refused salary and emolument, and consecrated his
labours to divine love. Some of his successors, perhaps, might insinuate
that he indemnified himself with being at the same time architect of the
Campidoglio and the Farnese Palace.
After the demise of Paolo, Cosmo I. Duke of Florence, by means of
Vasari, earnestly intreated him to pass the remainder of his life at
Florence; but the infirmities of age, and still more, inward grief for
the subversion of the republic, with indignation at the established
usurpation of the Medici, rendered these intreaties ineffectual.
Equally unshaken by them and the vile rumour of his dotage, spread by
the venal gang of Pirrho Ligorio, after crowning the Basilica with its
cupola, he steered through calm and tempest on to his ninetieth year,
the last of his life, 1564, and was buried in S. Apostoli; but, by the
orders of Cosmo, secretly conveyed to Florence, where the pomp of
academical exequies, the starched eloquence of Varchi, and a monument in
Santa Croce from a design of Vasari, awaited his remains.
It is difficult to decide who understood Michael Angelo less, his
admirers or his censors; though both rightly agree in placing him at the
head of an epoch; those of the re-establishment, these of the
perversion, of style.
All extremes touch each other: languid praise and frigid censure belong
to the paths of mediocrity, but he who enlarges the circle of knowledge,
passes from the realm of talents to that of genius, leaps on an
undiscovered or long-lost shore, and stamps it with his name, commands
indiscriminate homage, and provokes irreconcilable censure. He who
reflects on the "Più che Uman, Angelo divino" of Ariosto, the "via
terribile" of Agostino Carracci, and for centuries on the general
homage of a nation allowed to legislate in art, will not be easily
persuaded that these epithets, this prerogative, were granted to an
artist merely for correctness of design or anatomic discrimination, or
that he exclusively obtained them for uniting sculpture, painting, and
architecture in himself; three branches of one stem, and diverging only
in mechanism and application, they have been more than once eminently
united by others, and were seldom altogether separated before the time
of Carlo Maratta. And yet this is all on which the eminence of Michael
Angelo has been hitherto supposed to rest, all that can be gathered from
the astrologic nonsense and the Tuscan loquacity of his blind adorer,
Vasari--and what he found not, it would be time idly lost to search for
in his contemporaries and successors, down to Reynolds, who, though
chiefly smitten with the breadth of Michael Angelo, knew him better than
all the copyists of his school.
The art preceded Michael Angelo as a craft; more or less practice alone
distinguishes Pietro Perugino from Cimabue: whilst copy and imitation
remain synonymes, there can be no choice in art; instead of the real
nature it will copy the accidents of objects, and substitute the model
for the man.
Michael Angelo appeared and soon felt that the candidate of legitimate
fame is to build his works, not on the imbecile forms of a degenerate
race, disorganized by clime, country, education, laws, and society; not on
the transient refinements of fashion or local sentiment, unintelligible
beyond their circle and century to the rest of mankind; but to graft them
on Nature's everlasting forms and those general feelings of humanity,
which no time can efface, no mode of society obliterate;--and in
consequence of these reflections discovered the epic part of painting:
that basis, that indestructibility of forms and thoughts, that simplicity
of machinery on which Homer defied the ravages of time, which sooner or
later must sweep to oblivion every work propped by baser materials and
factitious refinements.
The subject of the Sistine Chapel is Theocracy and Religion, the Origin
and the first Duty of Man. All minute discrimination of character is
alien to the primeval simplicity of the moment--God and Man alone
appear. The veil of Eternity is rent; Time, Space, and Matter teem; life
darts from God, and adoration from the creature; deviation from this
principle is the origin of Evil; the economy of Justice and Grace
commences; Prophets and Sibyls in awful synod are the heralds of the
Redeemer, and the host of patriarchs the pedigree of the Son of Man. The
brazen Serpent and the fall of Haman, the Giant subdued by the
Stripling, and the Conqueror destroyed by female weakness, are types of
His mysterious progress, till Jonah pronounces Him immortal, and the
magnificence of the Last Judgement sums up the whole and re-unites the
Founder and the race.
Michael Angelo, in his Last Judgement, with a few exceptions, has wound
up the life of man, considered as the subject of religion, faithful or
rebellious; and in a generic manner has distributed happiness and
misery.
The more finished a character, the more, discriminated by his actions and
turn of thought from his contemporaries, he pursues paths of his own, so
much the more he attracts, so much the more he repels; the ardour of the
one is equal to the violence of the other: he is not merely disliked, he
is detested by all who have no sense for him; whilst by those who enter
his train of thought, or sympathise with him, he is adored. Indifference
has no share in what relates to him, it is a softer word for antipathy--it
resembles the indifference of a female wooed; her indifference, her
apathy, is a refusal without a verbal repulse. Where yes or no must
decide, the mouth that can form neither, rejects. The principles, the
style of Michael Angelo, are of that so closely-connected magnitude, that
they are either all true or all false: pretended gold is either gold or
not--the purer, the simpler a substance, the less it can coalesce with
another; a pretended diamond of the size of a fist, is either of
inestimable value or of none. If Michael Angelo did not establish art on a
solid basis, he subverted it; he can claim only the heresies of paradox
and receive their reward--disgust.
What Armenini relates as a proof of his nearly intuitive power of
conception and execution, may be repeated as a much stronger instance of
his deference and gratitude for the most humble claims. "Meeting one
day, behind S. Pietro, with a young Ferrarese, a potter who had baked
some model of his, M. Angelo thanked him for his care, and in return
offered him any service in his power: the young man, emboldened by his
condescension, fetched a sheet of paper, and requested him to draw the
figure of a standing Hercules: M. Angelo took the paper, and retiring to
a small shed near by, put his right foot on a bench, and with his elbow
on the raised knee and his face on his hand stood meditating a little
while, then began to draw the figure, and having finished it in a short
time, beckoned to the youth, who stood waiting at a small distance, to
approach, gave it him, and went away toward Belvedere. That design, as
far as I was then able to judge, in precision of outline, shadow, and
finish, no miniature could excel; it afforded matter of astonishment to
see accomplished in a few minutes what might have been reasonably
supposed to have taken up the labour of a month."
After the demise of Raffaello, legislation in Art was no longer disputed
with M. Angelo; he not only became the oracle of youth, but appears to
have inherited all the popularity of his great rival. A signal, though
little known proof of this, is told by Bellori, in the Life of Federigo
Barrocci, who, he says, used to tell, that when, drawing one day in
company with Taddeo Zuccari a frieze of Polidoro, Michael Angelo, as
usual, passed by on his little mule on his way to the palace, all the
youths rose and ran to meet him with their drawings in their hands;
Federigo alone remained bashfully behind in his place, which when Taddeo
saw, he took his little portfolio to Michael Angelo, who attentively
examined the designs, among which was a careful copy of his Moses; he
praised it, and desiring to see the lad who had drawn that figure,
animated him to pursue the method of study which he had begun.
The deference which he paid to the unassuming and the humble, he amply
redeemed by the full assumption of his rights, and conscious assertion
of superiority, when provoked to the contest by those who considered
themselves as his equals, entered into competition with him, or
attempted to share in his labours. Thus he repaid the sarcasms of Pietro
Perugino, by calling him publicly a dunce in art; and when Pietro
smarting, impatient of the ridicule, summoned him to the Tribunal of the
Eight, he made good his charge, and saw him dismissed with contempt.
Thus he rejected all partnership with Jacopo Sansovino, in the execution
of the Facciata of San Lorenzo at Florence, though Leone X. appears to
have intended it, by sending both together to Pietra Santa to provide
the marbles necessary for that purpose, and examining both their models.
When Paolo III. had resolved on the fortifications of the Borgo, and, in
order to ascertain the best mode of doing it, had assembled many persons
of rank, with Antonio da Sangallo, Michael Angelo, as architect of the
fortifications of S. Miniato at Florence, was likewise invited to join
the assembly, and, after much contest, his opinion asked; he freely told
it, though contrary to that of Sangallo and others present; and when the
architect bade him to be content with the prerogatives of sculpture and
painting without pretending to skill in fortification, he replied, that
of the former two he knew little, but that of fortification, considering
the time his mind had dwelt on it, and the proofs he had given of the
solidity of his theory, he did not hesitate to claim more knowledge than
what came to the share of Sangallo and all his relatives; and then
proceeded, in the presence of all, to point out the many errors which
Antonio had committed.
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.