OLD AGE AND DEATH
(1547-1564)
Michelangelo cared no longer for his own glory. He thought only of the
glory of God, and art had become to him merely a means of service. He
wrote, "I understand now how great is the mistake, the passionate
delusion in which I made of art an idol and a king."
L'affectuosa fantasia,
Che l'arte mi fece idol'e monarca,
Conosco or ben, com'era d'error carca....[85]
His soul "had turned to that divine love which welcomes us with arms
outspread upon the cross."
L'anima, volta a quell'amor divino
C'aperse a prender noi 'n croce le braccia.
He wished to consecrate all that remained of his life to the task of
building for his God the temple of temples, St. Peter's.
By a pontifical letter of Paul III, dated January 1, 1547, and renewed
by Julius III in 1552 he had been appointed governor and architect of
St. Peter's with full power to carry on the construction. He accepted
this heavy task as a sacred duty, and refused to take any pay for it. In
1557 he wrote to his nephew Lionardo, "many people believe, as I do
myself, that I have been placed at this post by God. I will not leave it
because I am serving for the love of God and put all my hope in
Him."[86]
He at once found himself in trouble with the party of San Gallo. They
had always been his enemies and it must be acknowledged that he had done
his best to deserve their hostility.
When Raphael was directing the work on St. Peter's, Antonio da San Gallo
had been his assistant, and he therefore belonged to the party opposed
to Michelangelo. In 1537 San Gallo became architect-in-chief, succeeding
Baldassare Peruzzi, and he abandoned, as Raphael had done, Bramante's
great design for the main construction. Michelangelo, on the contrary,
went back to that plan, for whatever rancour he might feel against
Bramante personally, his genius bowed before that of the great
architect. He wrote in 1555 to Bartolommeo Ammanati, "It can not be
denied that in architecture Bramante was greater than any other man
since classic times. He conceived the first design for St. Peter's,
simple, clear and free from all confusion, and whoever like San Gallo
has turned aside from this plan has turned aside from the truth."
Before the disagreement over St. Peter's, Michelangelo had twice come
into sharp conflict with San Gallo over the fortifications of the Borgo
and the completion of the Farnese palace.
Paul III wished to reconstruct and complete the fortifications of Rome
which had been destroyed in 1527. San Gallo had been engaged on them
since 1534, but the work had only been actively pushed since 1542. In
February, 1545, meetings were held under the presidency of Pier Luigi
Farnese in the Castle of St. Angelo to discuss the subject of the
fortifications of the Borgo, and to these Michelangelo was summoned. He
expressed opinions absolutely opposed to those of San Gallo and
enumerated the faults already committed in the works. Hot words were
exchanged, and the pope was obliged to command both men to be silent.
Soon after this affair Michelangelo made a new design for the
fortifications involving the destruction of San Gallo's work, and this
was accepted.[87]
Michelangelo added to this defeat another more bitter still. San Gallo
had built the Farnese palace up to the second story, but his plans for
the third story and the cornice did not please the pope, who turned them
over to Michelangelo to be mercilessly criticised. A competition was
opened in 1546 for the cornice in which Perino del Vaga, Sebastiano del
Piombo, Vasari and Michelangelo took part. Michelangelo's design was
accepted, and when San Gallo died from this humiliation in October,
1546, the direction of the work on the palace passed at once into his
hands. Michelangelo set aside the original plan entirely and built the
third story on the court on the Corinthian order. He also built the
beautiful cornice, so broad and fine in conception, in which he had
possibly the assistance of Vignole or Guglielmo della Porta. Even San
Gallo's death did not disarm Michelangelo, who searched relentlessly for
the malpractices committed under his predecessor in the work on St.
Peter's and who raged against the guilty with a violence which Vasari
still echoes when he says, "Michelangelo delivered St. Peter's from
thieves and bandits."
It is easy to imagine what hatred these proceedings awakened in San
Gallo's party, supported by all the contractors and foremen whose faults
Michelangelo had denounced and prosecuted. The members of the committee
of administration themselves were accomplices.[88]
A coalition was formed against him which had for its chief Nanni di
Baccio Bigio, the rascally architect whom Vasari accuses of having
stolen Michelangelo's plans even before this trouble. From the very
beginning of Michelangelo's direction at St. Peter's Nanni spread the
rumour that he knew nothing of architecture, that his model was
childish, that he squandered the money and hid himself to work at night
for fear that his blunders would be seen. It was also rumoured that the
cornice of the Farnese palace was in danger of falling. Michelangelo
was exasperated. "Who are these rogues, these triple scoundrels," he
wrote to the committee of administration, "who, after they had spread
lies about my work on the Farnese palace, lied still more in the report
that they sent to the committee of St. Peter's?"
The committee, instead of defending him, joined in the chorus of his
calumniators. They sent a protest to the pope because, they said, he
kept them entirely ignorant of his plans, which he showed to no one,
while he destroyed the work of his predecessor. They wished to be freed
from any responsibility for such proceedings, especially for "the
destruction which had been and continued to be so great that all who
witnessed it were greatly disturbed."
They succeeded in bringing about in 1551 a meeting at St. Peter's under
the presidency of the pope, where all the builders and foremen,
supported by the Cardinals Salviati and Marcello Cervini (the future
pope, Marcellus II), testified against Michelangelo. Vasari describes
the scene for us. At this time Michelangelo had already finished the
main apse with the three chapels and the three windows above them, but
no one knew yet how he would vault the church, and all agreed in
prophesying that the lighting would be insufficient. Michelangelo, when
he was questioned by Cardinal Cervini, explained that besides the three
windows already built there would be three more in the vault, which was
to be built of travertine. "You never told us anything about that," said
the cardinal. "I am not obliged to tell your lordships or anyone else
what I intend to do," replied Michelangelo; "your business is to take
charge of the expenses and to see that no one steals. The building is my
affair." He then turned to the pope and said, "Holy Father, you see what
my pay is. If the miseries I endure do not help my soul it is all time
and trouble lost."
The pope, who loved him, placed his hands on his shoulders and said:
"You gain for both your soul and your body. Have no fear."[89]
[Illustration: TOMB OF GIULIANO DE' MEDICI
Chapel of the Medici in San Lorenzo, Florence (1524-1526 and
1530-1534).]
Without the favour of the pope he could not have held out for a moment
against the enmity which his haughty and contemptuous ways roused
against him. Therefore when Paul III died and Marcellus II succeeded him
(April 9, 1555) Michelangelo was on the point of leaving Rome, but by
the twenty-third of May Marcellus had died and Paul IV took his place.
Michelangelo, again sure of the highest protection, went on with his
fight. He would have thought himself dishonoured and would have feared
for his salvation if he had given up the work. "Against my will," he
wrote in 1555, "I was entrusted with this task, and for eight years I
have exhausted myself in vain in the midst of all kinds of trouble and
weariness. Now that the construction is so far advanced that I can begin
to vault the dome, to leave Rome would be to ruin the whole work, a
great shame to me and for my soul a great sin."[90]
In 1557 Cosmo de' Medici begged him to come back to Florence "where
honour and rest awaited him," but he answered firmly, "I can not leave
here until I have carried the construction of St. Peter's so far that my
plan can not be changed or destroyed and there will no longer be any
possibility for thieves to begin their work again, as these scoundrels
are only waiting for a chance to do. This is my resolve."
That same year his friends, who were afraid that he would carry his
great designs with him into the grave, for none of them were written
down, urged and besought until they succeeded in persuading him to
execute a model in wood of the dome of St. Peter's.[91] He was still
working on this in 1560.
The building went on, but not without many difficulties. It was
necessary in 1557 to rebuild almost the entire vault of the Chapel of
the King of France because Michelangelo had been ill and unable to watch
the work closely enough.
The attacks on him began again with fresh vigour at each mistake, and
some of his best friends, like Cardinal Carpi, joined in them.
Michelangelo heard from Francesco Bandini that the cardinal said
everywhere that the work on St. Peter's could not be worse managed. Much
hurt, he wrote to him at once that, "although he felt sure that the work
was going on well, he feared that possibly his own enthusiasm and his
age had blinded him and were, without his knowing it, a source of harm
and danger to the building." In consequence he begged that they "would
be so kind as to relieve him of the load which he had carried without
pay for seventeen years under the orders of the popes." He offered his
resignation. "A greater favour than its acceptance," he said, "could not
be accorded him."[92]
His resignation was not accepted, and Pius IV in a pontifical letter
gave him full powers and forbade that his plans should be set aside.
But Nanni di Baccio Bigio, indefatigable in his hate, moved heaven and
earth to drive him away. In 1562 Nanni appealed to Cosmo de' Medici for
his aid in securing the appointment of architect of St. Peter's. Cosmo
answered that he would do nothing about it while Michelangelo lived.
In 1563 the struggle became a tragic one. The head of the work at St.
Peter's, Cesare de Casteldurante, was stabbed, and Pier Luigi Gaeta,
Michelangelo's friend and one of his best aids, was thrown into prison
on a false accusation of theft. Michelangelo responded to this by
appointing Gaeta in Cesare's place. The committee of administration
dismissed Gaeta and put Nanni in his place, and Michelangelo, beside
himself with rage, no longer went to St. Peter's. His enemies did not
lose this chance to spread the report that he was no longer willing to
take charge of the building, and Michelangelo denied this in vain. The
committee nominated a successor, and this successor was of course Nanni.
Nanni cut loose at once from his master and began to give orders, for he
thought that the old man of eighty-eight, weary at last of the struggle,
would be forced either to submit or to resign. He did not know his
antagonist. Michelangelo went at once to the pope and told him that if
justice was not done he would leave Rome and go to Florence. The pope
called the committee together and the members accused Michelangelo of
having committed errors which endangered the whole building.
Michelangelo asked for an investigation and summoned Nanni to show the
mistakes of which he accused him. Nanni could show nothing but his own
bad faith, and was dismissed in disgrace.[93]
This did not prevent Nanni from sending, five months later, just after
the death of Michelangelo, a letter by the Florentine ambassador to
Cosmo de' Medici, asking again to be appointed his successor.
Until his last hour Michelangelo met with this fierce opposition over
the work on St. Peter's, but his faith and his fighting spirit found in
this only another reason for persevering.
While Michelangelo had taken Bramante's design for the church and rested
on his authority, he had in the course of construction introduced many
important modifications into the plan, and stamped the whole monument
with the imprint of his own grandiose and heavy genius.
He kept the Greek cross with equal arms and four apses, at the same time
hiding the apse of the façade in a rectangular mass against which he
wished to put a portico with four gigantic columns. He suppressed the
salient angles and the towers which should have risen at the extremities
of the four arms of the cross. The beautiful clean-cut lines of the
curved ends of these arms, which in Bramante's plan stretched out in the
form of a semicircular tribune, were smothered in a massive, vigorous
envelope which gave the construction the effect of a fortified bastion.
The most beautiful part of the work was the famous dome, where the
influence of Brunelleschi combined with the conception of Bramante.
Michelangelo said once while he was working on S. Lorenzo in Florence
that "it was possible to do differently from Brunelleschi, but not to do
better."
He did not fail to remember the masterly dome of S. Maria de Fiore, for
as soon as he was appointed to St. Peter's he had the exact measures of
this dome from the lantern to the ground, and also the height sent to
him. The dimensions that he chose for St. Peter's seem to have been
inspired by them.[94]
Bramante in his design as shown by Burckhardt and de Geymueller[95] gave
the principal importance to a circular colonnade crowned by statues on
which the dome seemed to rest. Michelangelo concentrated his attention
on the dome itself, subordinating, as ever, grace and harmony to majesty
and force. He accentuated the buttresses of the drum with pairs of
columns and raised the outer dome of the cupola, whose beautiful curve
possesses an impetuous quality which recalls, with less passion and more
freedom, the huge octagonal dome of Brunelleschi, crouching on its base
like a beast ready to spring.[96] The lofty serenity of the dome of St.
Peter's is almost unique in the work of Michelangelo. He had lived so
long with the thoughts of Raphael and Bramante that at last their smile
was reflected in his work.[97]
Besides this great masterpiece other architectural works filled the end
of his life--the rebuilding of the Capitol, the Porta Pia, S. Maria
degli Angeli and S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini.
It was in 1548 that Michelangelo presided over the erection of the
statue of Marcus Aurelius in the square before the Capitol, but his
first sketch for the palaces were no earlier than 1546, and when he died
the buildings were far from finished.
He never saw the stairway or the colonnades. An engraving of Pérac's
executed in 1559 after Michelangelo's own drawings, "ex ipso exemplari
Michaelis Bonaroti," and reproduced in the _Speculum Romanie
Magnificentiæ_ of Lafreri, show exactly what his plan was and take from
him all blame for the incoherencies and vulgarities put into the
execution after his death. The beautiful double staircase of the
Senatorial Palace and the fountain with the river gods is all his own;
but he had meant to put a colonnade crowned by pilasters at the top of
the stairway, the windows of the upper story should have been higher and
the campanile crenellated.[98] The Porta Pia was at the end of a long
street which ran from the Monte Cavallo.[99] Michelangelo made three
designs for it in 1561, of which Pius IV chose the most reasonable,
according to Vasari. This was more to the credit of the pope than the
artist, for the plan which was carried out shows, with a few remnants of
massive and imperious power, a complete lack of good taste.
He also worked in 1560-1561 at the transformation of the great hall in
the baths of Diocletian into the church of S. Maria degli Angeli, but it
is almost impossible to judge this now, for his work was entirely
changed and disfigured in 1746 by Vanvitelli.
He was no more fortunate with the Church of S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini
at Rome, which was another of his great projects, undertaken with
enthusiasm and ending in nothing. S. Giovanni had been begun under Leo X
by Jacopo Sansovino. Antonio da San Gallo had worked on it later and had
made a model of the church, and then the construction had been
abandoned. In 1550, at the suggestion of Bindo Altoviti, Michelangelo
determined to consecrate himself to this work and had almost persuaded
Julius III, but the money was lacking.[100] In 1559 the Florentines
took up the idea again and decided to put a church of a new plan on the
old foundations, and their procurators, Francesco Bandini, Uberto
Ubaldini and Tommaso de' Bardi, asked Michelangelo to take charge of it
in spite of his duties at St. Peter's. Cosmo de' Medici himself wrote a
most flattering letter begging him to accept, and Michelangelo answered
the duke that he "considered his wish an order" and had already shown
the Florentine deputies several drawings, of which they had chosen the
one which he considered the best.[101] "I am sorry," he added, "to be
now so old and so little alive that I can not do all I would or all that
is my duty to your lordship and the people. Nevertheless I will make the
effort by directing everything from my house to accomplish what your
lordship desires."[102]
In spite of his age he began with the same enthusiasm with which he had
undertaken the unlucky façade of S. Lorenzo. He told the commission that
if they carried out his plans "neither the Greeks nor the Romans would
have done anything like it." "Words," says Vasari, "of a kind that never
came from the mouth of Michelangelo before or after, for he was
extremely modest."
[Illustration: DAWN
Figure from the Tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici.
Chapel of the Medici in San Lorenzo, Florence (1524-1526 and 1530-1534)]
The Florentines accepted his plans without change and gave the execution
of them to Tiberio Calcagni.
"Michelangelo," says Vasari, "explained his project to Tiberio so that
he could make a clear and accurate drawing of it. He gave him the
profiles of the interior and exterior and made him a model in wax.
Tiberio in ten days finished a model two feet high, and as it pleased
all the people another model was made in wood which is now in the
Consulate. It is a work of such rare art that there never was seen a
church so beautiful, so rich and with such variety of fancy." The
building was commenced and five thousand crowns spent; then the money
gave out and the work stopped, to Michelangelo's most profound
disappointment. Not only was the church not built, but the model
disappeared with all the plans. This was the last artistic
disappointment of his life.[103]
He could no longer paint, but he still continued to work at his
sculpture from a sort of physical need. Vasari says that "his genius and
strength could not live without creation." He attacked a block of marble
to cut from it four figures larger than life, of which one was a dead
Christ.[104] He did this to amuse himself and to pass the time, and
because he said that work with a chisel kept him in health. He worked at
night[105] and slept very little, and had made himself a helmet of
cardboard to hold a lighted candle on his head so that with both hands
free he could light what he was doing. Even at that age he cut the
marble with such impetuosity and vigour that it seemed to fly in pieces.
He broke off in one blow great fragments four or five inches thick and
left a line so pure that if he had gone a hair's breadth further he
would have risked ruining the whole. This did happen to many of his
works, which remained merely blocked out like the figures in the Boboli
grotto, or half finished like the Madonna of the Medici chapel, or
destroyed, as all but happened to the admirable Descent from the Cross
in the cathedral at Florence.
"He would break a work in pieces," says Vasari, "either because the
block was hard and full of flaws and sparks shot out from under the
chisel, or because the uncompromising judgment of this man was never
contented with anything that he did, which is easily proved by the fact
that so few of the works of his maturity are complete; the only finished
ones dated from his youth."
The Florentine sculptor Tiberio Calcagni, who was a friend as well as
his assistant at S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini, found the debris of a Pietà
one day, and asked why he had destroyed "so admirable a work."
Michelangelo told him that it was partly the fault of his servant
Urbino, who urged him every day to finish it, when he was already
annoyed by a flaw in the marble so that he had lost patience and had
broken it. He would have destroyed it entirely but that his servant
Antonio "had begged for what remained." Tiberio bought the marble from
Antonio for two hundred gold crowns and asked Michelangelo's permission
to finish it for their mutual friend Francesco Bandini. Michelangelo was
entirely willing, and the group was restored by Tiberio, who completed
several parts of it, but Bandini, Michelangelo and Tiberio all died and
it was never finished.[106]
It is all the more moving for that reason. In the half-shadow behind the
high altar in Florence it stirs one with indescribable emotion. Perhaps
no other work of Michelangelo is so human or speaks so directly to the
soul. "From heart to heart," as Beethoven wrote at the end of his mass
in D. It is the expression of those long nights when he was alone face
to face with his sorrow and spoke only to himself. He represents himself
in the form of an old man, in a monk's cowl, bending with infinite
sadness and tenderness to support the sinking body of the dead Christ.
In this piece of stone hardly blocked out smoulders deep sorrow and an
agony of pain. But what great love is in that suffering, in the scarcely
modelled face of the mother with closed eyes and parted lips, and in the
tender movement of the hand which rests on the naked breast of her son,
whose head has sunk against her shoulder. How much Michelangelo has
softened since his early work, how far this feeling is from the
implacable heroism of his youth, how far it is indeed from the lovely
Pietà of St. Peter's, where serene beauty rises above the sorrow. Here
he suffers and abandons himself to the suffering. What matters a lack of
proportion and an uncertain composition?[107] The work is unique in its
intimacy. It is his whole soul laid bare.
Michelangelo never lacked illustrious friends. From the time of his
early youth, when he talked in the gardens of San Marco with Lorenzo de'
Medici and Poliziano, he was always in close touch with the best among
the nobles and princes, prelates and poets and artists of Italy.[108] He
had a peculiarly close friendship with Francesco Berni and Sebastiano
del Piombo[109] under Clement VII and with Luigi del Riccio, Donato
Giannotti and Benedetto Varchi[110] under Paul III, and at the close of
his life he was surrounded by the pious worship of pupils and admirers
like Benvenuto Cellini, Bronzino, Daniele da Volterra, Leone Leoni,
Vasari and his biographer, almost his hagiographer, Condivi, whose book
begins with these words:
"Since the hour when our Lord God by special mercy judged me worthy to
not only see Michelangelo, which I could hardly have dared to hope for,
but to enjoy his affection, his conversation and his confidence--grateful
for such a great blessing, I have made all possible effort not only to
collect and write down the instructions which he gave me on art, but all
his words, actions and habits and all things in his life which seemed to
me worthy of praise, admiration or emulation. This I do to pay back a
little of the infinite obligation which I owe to him no less than to be
useful to others by giving them the example of such a man."[111]
The artists were not the only ones who looked upon Michelangelo as a
supernatural being, for princes bowed before his fame and his great
virtue as Vasari calls it. Cosmo de' Medici, who tried in vain to recall
him to Florence, even offering to make him a senator,[112] treated
Michelangelo as an equal, Cosmo's son Don Francesco received him with
even greater respect (in October, 1561), his cap in his hand, "showing a
reverence without limit for so extraordinary a man."
In spite of all this adulation, or perhaps because of it, he had as
little intercourse as possible with the world. Popes and princes, men of
letters and artists, held but small place in his life, except a few
favourite pupils like Vasari, for whom he showed a fatherly affection,
especially in his last years, when, growing more feeble day by day, he
grew more demonstrative.
"I have been to see my great Michelangelo," Vasari wrote to Cosmo in
1560. "He did not expect me and showed as much feeling as a father who
has recovered a lost son. He threw his arms around my neck and kissed me
a thousand times, crying with pleasure" (lacrymando per dolcezza).[113]
[Illustration: TWILIGHT
Figure from the Tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici.
Chapel of the Medici in San Lorenzo, Florence (1524-1526 and 1530-1534).]
But the best of his heart was kept for his kin and for a few humble
friends. Of his two remaining brothers, Giovan Simone died in 1548, and
Gismondo, with whom he had never had much intercourse, in 1555. He
turned to Lionardo and Francesca, the children of his favourite brother
Buonarroto, for the family affection which he could not do without. He
charged himself with the education of Lionardo, who was nine years old
at his father's death, and the long correspondence between them which
has been preserved shows how seriously he took his responsibility as
guardian. The children grew up and after they had married he found
himself even more lonely than before.[114]
In his own house he had assistants who were devoted to him, but of no
great ability. "He had trouble with those in his service," says Vasari,
"for he never chanced to find men who could imitate him well." Pietro
Urbano de Pistoia was intelligent, but would take no trouble; Antonio
Mini was willing, but not intelligent; and Ascanio della Ripa Transone
tried hard, but never succeeded in doing anything. It is possible that
he deliberately chose mediocre assistants in order to have docile tools
instead of collaborators, which indeed would have been quite legitimate;
but Condivi says that it is not true that he refused to teach them, but,
on the contrary, he did so willingly. "I myself am the proof of that,
for he opened the secrets of his heart to me. The trouble was that he
met with pupils that had no ability, or with able ones who were not
persevering and who after a few months of his teaching thought
themselves already masters. And though he took a great deal of trouble
to help them he did not want to have this known, for he loved rather to
do good than to seem to do it."
His letters show what fatherly patience he had with these poor
creatures. He forgave them any folly if they only showed a little good
will and affection.
The one that he cared for the most was Francesco d'Amadore, called
Urbino, the son of Guido di Colonello de Castel Durante, who was in his
service from 1530 and had worked on the tomb of Julius II. Michelangelo
was worried about what would become of Urbino after his own death, and
one day, says Vasari, he asked him, "What will you do when I die?" When
Urbino answered, "I will have to serve some other master," Michelangelo
said, "Poor fellow, I am going to cure your poverty," and gave him two
thousand crowns on the spot, "a gift such as only emperors and popes
bestow."
It was Urbino who died first in 1555, and the day after Michelangelo
wrote to his nephew Lionardo: "I must tell you that Urbino died
yesterday at ten o'clock. He has left me so sad and troubled because of
the love I had for him that it would have been easier to have died with
him. He was a worthy man, loyal and faithful. Since he has gone I do
not seem to be alive and I can not recover my peace of mind."[115]
Lionardo and his wife Cassandra, anxious on account of his great grief,
went to Rome and found him much weakened. But he drew new energy from
the charge which Urbino had left him in the guardianship of his sons,
one of whom was his godson and bore his name. He wrote to Cornelia,
Urbino's wife, that he would like to take the little Michelangelo to
live with him. He showed him more affection than even the children of
his nephew, and had him taught all that Urbino had wished him to
learn.[116]
He showed the most touching affection for his old servants, and also for
those of his family whom he had taken in after his father's death, and
for the workmen who had helped him at Carrara and in the Sistine Chapel.
His enemies accused him of avarice,[117] but Vasari answers the charge
with indignation and a list of his royal gifts to all his friends: "To
Messer Tommaso dei Cavalieri, to Messer Bindo Altoviti, and Fra Bastiano
(del Piombo) drawings of great value. To Antonio Mini all the drawings,
cartoons and models in wax and clay and the painting of Leda; to
Gherardo Perini some divinely beautiful heads drawn in pencil which
passed later into the hands of Don Francesco, Prince of Florence, who
rightly esteemed them among his treasures; to Bartolommeo Bettini a
cartoon of Venus with Cupid kissing her, a divine work now in possession
of his heirs in Florence; to the Marchese del Vasto a cartoon of the
_noli me tangere_, a beautiful work from which Pontormo made a painting
as he did from the Venus and Cupid; to Roberto Strozzi the two Slaves in
marble; to his servant Antonio and to Francesco Bandini the Pietà in
marble which he broke. I do not understand how a man can be called
avaricious who gives away such works of art worth many thousands of
crowns."
His generosity was not limited to his friends, for he gave much to the
poor, especially the disreputable poor. He particularly remembered poor
young girls and dowered them secretly, taking care that they should
never know the name of their benefactor.
He was always ailing in health, and several times very near death,
particularly in 1544, when he was nursed by his friend Riccio in the
house of the Strozzi, and in his later years he suffered cruelly from
gout and stone. His indomitable nervous energy supported him, and at
eighty-five he inspected the works of St. Peter's on horseback. In spite
of a severe attack of gout in August, 1561, he would let no one take
care of him and he still lived alone. His nephew Lionardo was least of
all allowed to interfere with these arrangements, for Michelangelo
attributed his anxiety to an interest in his inheritance and did not
hesitate to tell him so.
Both the Duke of Tuscany and the pope were anxious about the plans and
drawings of his public works, which Michelangelo kept in his own house,
for fear that they might be stolen after his death. So in June, 1563, at
the instigation of Vasari, who saw that Michelangelo was failing
rapidly, Cosmo de' Medici secretly directed his ambassador, Averado
Serristori, to keep a strict watch on the domestic life of Michelangelo
and on everyone who came to his house. In case of his sudden death an
inventory was to be taken of all his possessions, drawings, cartoons,
models, silver, etc., and a watch to be kept that nothing was taken in
the first confusion. All that had to do with the construction of St.
Peter's or the sacristy or the Laurentian library was to be put
carefully aside.
Weakened as he was, Michelangelo still worked. Since 1562 he had hardly
written at all himself, and Daniele da Volterra did most of his
correspondence, but he never relinquished his chisel. On February 12,
1564, he spent the whole day standing at work on his Pietà, and on the
fourteenth, although he was seized with fever, he rode out on horseback
into the country in the rain, and would not consent to stay in his bed
until the sixteenth.
On the eighteenth of February he died in full consciousness, with
Daniele da Volterra and his faithful friend Tommaso dei Cavalieri beside
him.
Giunto è già 'l corso della vita mia
Con tempestoso mar per fragil barca
Al comus porto....[118]
Cosmo de' Medici was at once notified by his ambassador, and the next
day the governor of Rome made an inventory of Michelangelo's property
in the presence of Pier Luigi Gaeta and Cavalieri. There was much less
than had been expected, for he had burned almost all his drawings. They
found a chest containing seven or eight thousand crowns and a trunk
closed and sealed and full of papers, and also three statues, the
unfinished Pietà,[119] a figure of Saint Peter just begun, and a little
unfinished figure of Christ bearing the cross in the style of that in
the Minerva, and yet different. There were besides ten cartoons as
follows:
1. The plan of St. Peter's.
2. The façade of a palace(a small cartoon).
3. A window of St. Peter's.
4. The old plan for St. Peter's, after a drawing of San Gallo's.
5. Three sketches of little figures.
6. Windows.
7. A Pietà, merely sketched. A composition of nine figures.
8. Three large figures and two _putti_.
9. Large figure (a study of an apostle for the figure of Saint Peter).
10. Farewell of Christ to his mother, drawn for Cardinal Morone.[120]
This last drawing was given to Cavalieri as Michelangelo had wished. The
rest went to Lionardo, who reached Rome three days after his uncle's
death, and who acquired also some little sketches which Michelangelo had
given to Michele Alberti and Jacopo del Duca--an annunciation and a
prayer at Gethsemane. These show how much the thought of the gospel
filled Michelangelo's mind.[121]
On February 19th Michelangelo's body was carried by the brotherhood to
which he belonged, the Confratelli di S. Giovanni Pecolla, to the church
of the SS. Apostoli for the funeral mass. The pope had meant to have the
body placed in St. Peter's, but Michelangelo had expressed a desire to
return to Florence dead, as he could not do so living,[122] and Lionardo
was determined to carry out his last wishes in accordance with the
orders of Cosmo de' Medici, who promised to erect a statue to him in the
Florentine cathedral. The Romans would not allow the body to be taken
away, so it was necessary to wrap it secretly in a roll of cloth and
to send it to Florence on the twenty-ninth as merchandise.
[Illustration: CHRIST AND THE SAINTS
Detail from The Last Judgment (1536-1541). Sistine Chapel.]
Thus did Michelangelo return to his country on March 10, 1564. The next
day the artists of Florence carried his body by torchlight to the church
of Santa Croce. The crowd was so great that they could hardly force
their way through the church. In the sacristy Vincenzo Borghini,
Director of the Florentine Academy of Painters, had the coffin opened.
The body was intact and Michelangelo seemed asleep. He was dressed in
black velvet, a felt hat on his head, and on his feet boots and spurs,
just as while living he had had the habit of sleeping, dressed and ready
to rise and take up his work.[123]
The Academy of Florence had been preparing since March 2d for the solemn
obsequies. Varchi was given the funeral oration, Bronzino, Vasari,
Cellini and Ammanati the artistic arrangements. On the 14th of July,
1564, in the church of S. Lorenzo, a triumphant memorial service was
held in the presence of a hundred artists and an innumerable crowd of
people.[124]
Between the two side doors arose a huge catafalque. Daniele da Volterra
had wanted to use for the tomb the fine Victory and other sculptures of
the Via Mozza, but this most reverent and appropriate idea for the
glorification of the master was not accepted.[125] Instead, a huge
arrangement, disproportionate and swollen, was erected, a real tower of
Babel to which each sculptor of Florence brought his stone. It was
undoubtedly, however, a fine thought to associate all the world of
artists in a supreme homage to the man whom Italy considered the
incarnation of her genius and the God himself of art.[126] The result of
these combined efforts was only to prove more strikingly the contrast
between the man who was dead and the men who claimed the right to
succeed him. This agglomeration of sculpture recalls also that bitter
saying of Michelangelo shortly before his end that "art and death do not
go well together."
"L'arte e la morte non va bene insieme."
From 1564 to 1572 Vasari raised in Santa Croce, at the expense of
Lionardo Buonarroti, and with the collaboration of Borghini, Valerio
Cioli and Battista Lorenzi, the monument to Michelangelo. Thode has
proved that the so-called tomb of Michelangelo in the SS. Apostoli in
Rome has nothing whatever to do with him. It is really the monument of a
professor of medicine, Ferdinando Eustacio, and the false attribution
dates only from 1823.