[62] 1433--1527. They underwent three banishments in less than a
century.
[63] 1472--1492. Most splendid period of Florence this.
[64] Nardi Storia, lib. 1. Bernardo Rucellai de Bello Italico, Lond.
1733, 4to. p. 52. Pauli Jovii Histor. sui temporis, lib. 1. Memoires de
Philippe de Comines, l. vii. c. 9.
[65] Vasari, Vita di B. Bandinelli, Ed. del Bottari, t. ii. p. 576; e
Vita del Torrigiano, t. ii. p. 75.
[66] Nardi, Storia di Firenze, lib. ii. Vasari, Vita di Frà Bartolomeo;
but chiefly the Life of Savonarola, by Burlamachi, inserted in Balusii
Miscell. ed. Mansi, t. i. p. 558, &c.
[67] Giovanni dalle Carniole, a celebrated engraver on stone, was an
adherent of Savonarola; there is a portrait of that reformer by him, on
a cornelian of uncommon size, in the Museo Flor. with this inscription,
Hieronymus Ferrariensis Ord. Præd.
Propheta Vir et Martyr.
It is known from impressions in paste and bronze. In politics, at least,
Michael Angelo was a votary of Frà Girolamo, although the nursling of
the Medici.
[68] Vasari, Vita di B.B. t. ii. p. 557.
[69] Varchi, Storia Fiorent. p. 36.
[70] "The two masters of Michael Angelo," says Fiorillo, "descend in
equidistant degrees from the School of Cimabue and Giotto: the following
scale shows the technic pedigree of M. Angelo at one glance:
_Cimabue._
_Giotto._
_Taddeo Gaddi._
Angelo Gaddi. Jacopo Casentino.
Ant. Veneziano. Spinello.
Paolo Uccello. Lorenzo Bicci.
Aless. Baldovinetti. Donatello.
Dom. del Ghirlandaio. Bertoldo.
M.A. Buonarroti."
What pity that this laboured scale, which has all the air of an
astrologic conceit of Vasari, and gives to chance the sanction of
predestination, could not be extended to Architecture! As the notion of
a writer who dates the subversion of Art from the epoch and style of M.
Angelo, it must appear ludicrous even to the most declared votary of
that great name on this side of idolatry.
[71] The mask of an antique Satyr, and the basso-relievo of the
Centaurs, undertaken at the suggestion of Poliziano.
[72] One has been preserved, and as a document of the relation in which
_power_ at that time stood with _art_, may interest the reader.
"Julius P.P. II. Dilectis Filiis Prioribus Libertatis, et Vexillifero
Justitiae Populi Florentini."
"Dilecti filii, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem. Michael Angelus
sculptor, qui a nobis leviter et inconsulte discessit, redire, ut
accepimus, ad nos timet, cui nos non succensemus: Novimus hujusmodi
hominum ingenia. Ut tamen omnem suspicionem deponat, devotionem vestram
hortamur, velit ei nomine nostro promittere, quod si ad nos redierit,
illæsus inviolatusque erit, et in ea gratia apostolica nos habiturus,
quâ habebatur ante discessum. Datum Romæ, 8 Julii, 1506, Pontificatûs
nostri Anno iii."
[73] There went a tale that Michael Angelo proposed to demolish the
palace of the Medicis, like that of the Bentivogli at Bologna, and to
call the site "Piazza de' Muli," the place of Bastards, in allusion to
the illegitimacy of Clemente VII. Alessandro, and others of that family.
"A feature," says Fiorillo, "if true, as characteristic of his natural
ferocity as disgraceful to his heart, after the benefits heaped on him
from his infancy by that family. Varchi, however, defends him against
this charge."[76] Whether this tale confutes itself or not, may be left
to the reader; but on an estimate of his private and public conduct, as
man and artist during the long course of his life, it must be owned,
that this is the period which offers the most specious opportunity to a
sceptic in morals, of fixing some doubts on the integrity of his
principles. His earliest actions prove that he drew a severe line
between the duty which he owed to his country, and gratitude imposed by
private obligations. He left the family of Pier de' Medici on finding
his principles incompatible with the laws of a free state; and on the
expulsion of the petty tyrants, without lending a hand to the
devastation of their property, felt it his duty to act as a free man on
the re-establishment of liberty, and to obey the laws of a state whose
right to legislate for itself had been acknowledged by all Italy. It
will not be said, that it is palliating duplicity to assert, that as a
private individual he had a right to accept the behests of Leo X. and
Clemente VII. for decorating a sacred edifice; but when he became a
leader of the revolution, the trustee of his country's safety, the main
defender of the city, did he not more than degrade himself, by
forgetting the patriot in the artist, and "secretly" sacrificing time to
raise monuments to men whose titles he opposed and whose principles he
detested? Thus, whilst his conduct may prove the absurdity of the tale,
that he publicly, and with illiberal sarcasms, advised the demolition of
palaces belonging to a family whose memory he secretly laboured to
perpetuate in monuments inspired by the most amorous phantasy; it
certainly does not screen his character from the imputation of a
duplicity to which no other period of his life offers a parallel.
[74] "Lavorava," says Vasari, "le statue per le sepolture di S. Lorenzo
segretamente,"--p. 224, ed. B. And again, "Lavorando egli con
sollecitudine e con amore grandissimo tali opere, crebbe (che pur troppo
gli impedi il fine) lo assedio."--p. 229. Impossible as the secrecy of
his labours for the Chapel of S. Lorenzo may appear, the publicity of
his situation considered, it must be admitted, to account for the
confidence placed in him by the City.
[75] Of the Fall of Lucifer and his Host, which was to face the
altar-piece of the Last Judgement, no sketch that could give an idea of
the whole has yet been discovered; its place over the grand door of the
Chapel was reserved for the sacrilegious 'bravura' of the Neapolitan
Matteo da Lecca, under the pontificate of Gregorio XIII.: his
composition, if impudence of grouping deserve that name, must be
supposed to bear infinitely less analogy to the original conception of
Michael Angelo, than the tumultuary fresco of the Sicilian; who, says
Vasari, having lived many months with Michael Angelo as a servant and
colour-grinder, became possessed of some design of his for that subject,
and painted it in fresco in a chapel of the Trinità del Monte.
Notwithstanding the incompetence of the adventurer to manage such
materials, the naked groups showering from Heaven, and the hubbub of
transformed fiends grappling below in the abyss, struck the beholder
with terror and surprise;--a mass of Dantesque images, and in Dantesque
language described by the biographer.--V. di M.A. t. vi. 237.
[76] Stor. Fior. lib. vi. p. 154.
[77] This pompous visit appears to have been made for the purpose of
inspecting the Cartoon; to remove the obstacles to its completion which
the unfinished state of the Giulian monument still presented; and to
convince the artist of the value he set on the exclusive service of his
genius. But, besides the obligation of fulfilling his contract with the
House of De Rovere, Vasari seems to think that one principal reason of
Michael Angelo's tardiness to comply with the wishes of the Pope, was
the Pontiff's age, (vedendolo tanto vecchio,) _i. e._ apprehension, if
he lived long enough to prevent the termination of the monument, of his
dying too soon for the completion of the fresco, and thus leaving him
exposed to the revenge of the Duke of Urbino: a conjecture not
countenanced by the Pontiff's age, who, at his accession, was only
eight years older than the artist.
[78] Bastiano, says Vasari, was a favourite of Michael Angelo, but a
disagreement took place between them about the best method of painting
the Last Judgement. Frà Bastiano had persuaded the Pontiff to give the
preference to oil, but Michael Angelo resolved to execute it only in
fresco. On seeing the Frate's preparation adopted, without agreeing to
it or opposing it, he remained inactive for several months; till, on
being pressed, he finally declared, that he would either do it in fresco
or not at all; that oil paint was a woman's art, and the refuge of
idlers at their ease like Frà Bastiano. In consequence of which, the
Frate's incrustation being dashed to the ground, and the wall duly
prepared for fresco, he set about the work, but never forgot the insult
he fancied to have received from the friar during life.--Vasari, Vita di
F.S.
[79] Michael Angelo had finished more than three-fourths of the work,
when the Pontiff visited the Chapel, and on inspection, turning to
Messer Biagio, of Cesena, then master of ceremonies, in his train, asked
him what he thought of the work? The scrupulous prelate replied, that so
daring an aggregate of shameless nudities in a sacred place was obscene
profanation, and an exhibition fitter for a tavern or a brothel than a
papal chapel. Michael Angelo, indignant, and eager to revenge the
affront, only waited for his departure, and then, from memory, drew him
in the character of Dante's Minos, with a snake encircling his body and
gnawing his middle, in the midst of a hillock of fiends. In vain did
Messer Biagio supplicate the Pontiff and Michael Angelo to take him out;
he remained, and is there still. So far Vasari; but tradition adds, that
on Biagio's application, the Pope asked in what part of the picture he
was placed, and being answered, in Hell, replied, had you been lodged in
Purgatory, you might perhaps have been dismissed, "sed ex Inferno nulla
est redemptio." Condivi notices the story not at all.
In the Diary of Paris de' Grassi, Messer Biagio is said to have been
appointed master of ceremonies by Leo X. 1518, in the room of Nicola da
Viterbo, and, if we believe Ducange, (Table des Auteurs dans le
Supplement du Glossaire,) he has written a diary himself.--See Fiorillo,
i. p. 389.
[80] Blaise de Vigenere, the translator of Philostratus and Callistratus,
tells us, in his observations on the latter, page 855, that "he saw M.
Angelo, at the age of sixty, strike off more marble from a block in one
quarter of an hour, than four stonemasons usually did in three or four
hours." If this happened in 1550, as will appear from the following
passage, M. Angelo was then in his seventy-sixth year.--"L'entrepris aussi
de Michel l'Ange estoit hautaine et fort hardie, sentant bien sa main
assurée, le quel commança l'an 1550, que j'estois à Rome, un Crucifiement
où il y avoit de dix à douze personnages, non pas moindres que le naturel,
le tout d'une seule pièce de marbre, qui était un chapiteau de l'une de
ces huict grandes colomnes du temple de la Paix de Vespasian, dont il s'en
void encore une toute entière et debout, mais la mort----"
[81] Vol. vi. p. 272.
[82] Vasari's account of both pictures is sufficiently curious to be
communicated in his own words. "Alfonso D'Avalo, Marchese del Guasto,
having obtained from Michael Angelo, by means of Frà Nicolo della Magna,
a cartoon of Christ appearing to Magdalen in the Garden, made every
exertion to have it executed in painting by Puntormo, as he had been
told by Michael Angelo that no one could serve him better. Jacopo
undertook the work, and succeeded to a degree of excellence, which made
Alessandro Vitelli, captain of the Florentine guards, bespeak a second
copy of him, which he placed in his house at Cività di Castello."
"Michael Angelo, to oblige his intimate friend Bartolomeo Bettini, made
him a Cartoon of Venus naked and Cupid kissing her, to be executed by
Puntormo in oil, for the centre piece of an apartment, on the sides of
which Bronzino had begun to paint Dante, Petrarca, and Boccaccio, to be
followed by the rest of Tuscan love-songsters. The picture of Puntormo
was miraculous, but instead of being given to Bettini for the price
stipulated, was, by some favour-hunters, his enemies, nearly extorted
from Jacopo, and carried off as a present to Duke Alessandro, returning
the cartoon to Bettini. A transaction which, when he heard it, irritated
Michael Angelo, who loved his friend, and made him dislike Jacopo for
it."--Vasari, Vita di Jacopo da, P.V.
[83] They had been fellow-scholars in the garden of Lorenzo de' Medici.