THE GENIUS OF MICHELANGELO AND HIS INFLUENCE ON ITALIAN ART
"I have no friend of any kind," said Michelangelo in 1509, "and I do not
want any."[127]
Forty years later, in 1548, Michelangelo wrote again, "I am always alone
and I speak to no one."[128]
"From his youth," says Condivi, "Michelangelo had consecrated himself
not only to sculpture and painting, but to all the other arts with such
devouring energy that he had to separate himself almost entirely from
the society of men. For that reason many people considered him proud,
and others eccentric or mad. In reality it was his love of work alone,
his labour without respite, which made him solitary, for he was so
filled by the joy and rapture which his work gave him that the society
of men did not offer him any pleasure, but rather bored him by
distracting him from his own thoughts. Like the great Scipio, he was
never less lonely than when he was alone."
That passionate solitude was the very soul of the genius and of the work
of Michelangelo. He lived shut up in himself without any real connection
with the art of his time. He despised Raphael because he said, "All his
talent came from study and not from nature."[129] He himself declared
that he derived all his inspiration from within, and if in his pride he
underestimated what he was always studying with feverish and persistent
ardour, yet it is true that he never sought in the study of the works of
others a means of changing or of renewing his own personality, but only
of still further emphasising it. In a way he sought from others not
examples or lessons, but reasons for being still more himself. It is
true that from the beginning to the end he fed on his own soul. Who
knows the man, knows his work.
The most striking thing about this extraordinarily unified nature is
that it was composed of hostile worlds; a brutal materialism and serene
idealism, an infatuation with pagan strength and beauty and a Christian
mysticism; a mixture of physical violence and intellectual abstraction;
a platonic soul in an athlete's body. That indissoluble union of
opposing forces which undoubtedly caused part of his suffering was also
the cause of his unique greatness. We feel that the supreme balance of
his art is the result of a fierce struggle, and it is the sense of that
struggle which gives to the work its heroic character. All is passion
even to the abstract idea, so that idealism, which with many artists is
a cause of coldness and death, is here a hearth burning with love and
hate.[130]
There is undoubtedly a danger in that mystic faith which loses itself in
inward visions of such charm that they often leave a feeling of only
disgust and contempt for reality.
Non vider gli occhi mei cosa mortale
* * *
E se creata a Dio non fusse eguale
Altro che 'l bel di fuor, ch'à gl'occhi piace,
Più non vorria; ma perch'è si fallace,
Tracende nella forma universale.[131]
Varchi was quite right in recognising in Michelangelo the Socratic
spirit.[132] Whether he gained these ideas from the teaching of the
great Platonists with whom he had talked as a youth in the gardens of
San Marco or whether that teaching had merely revealed to him his true
nature there is certainly a close relationship between the theories on
art of the school of Socrates and those of Michelangelo.
Parrhasius believed in representing only "the perspective, the light and
the shadow, the softness, hardness and surface of bodies." Socrates
taught him that the object of painting is to represent the soul and the
innermost being.[133] "The fields and trees can teach me nothing," he
says in the "Phædo"; "I only find what is useful to me among men in the
towns." These very men only interested him because there was something
eternal in them. The fugitive and changing side of their physiognomy,
which for us makes the delicate charm of life and the object of
painting, seemed to him an empty and wearisome illusion. Art creates
illusions. The objects which it represents are "the dreams of the human
imagination offered to people who can see. It is an image which one
shows in the distance to little children who can not reason, in order
to create illusions for them. These illusions of the senses distract the
soul from the only realities, eternal ideas."
Michelangelo reasoned thus in his disdain of all exact reproduction of
nature. He had studied it with passion but, in order to discover its
laws, he regarded it as an enemy which held the human spirit prisoner.
He wanted to free himself from it, he wanted to make of it an instrument
for his thought. That is why he sought for and discovered its machinery,
and when he could guide it at will he outraged it; he made it produce
unprecedented results. He constructed for himself out of his profound
knowledge of anatomy a general idea of man, and thereafter, without
having recourse to any observation of individuals, he recreated the
whole of nature in the image of his ideas and in the likeness of God,
source and originator of ideas.
Come dal foco 'l cald' 'esser' diviso
Nom puo 'l bel dall' eterno; e la mia stima
Esalta che ne scende, e chi 'l somiglia.
"As heat can not be separated from fire, so beauty can not be from
eternity; and my thought extols what comes from it and what resembles
it."
[Illustration: CHARON'S BOAT
Detail from The Last Judgment (1536-1541). Sistine Chapel.]
He wanted to express in his work only what was eternal, and he did not
believe he could do this with external objects. He tried, therefore, to
give to everything he did a character of compelling force. His Platonic
idealism was lined with Christian pessimism. Like Vittoria Colonna, he
was filled with the sense of the beauty of all human things, and he was
obsessed with the idea of death.
He lived in an exhausted epoch which no longer had any happy sense of
reality. In God was the only help, in the eternal and immutable
perfection. Michelangelo was filled with dislike for all realism. Like
Plato, he despised painting in comparison with sculpture.
"Painting seems to me the better the more it resembles sculpture, and
the sculpture worse the more it resembles painting. Sculpture is the
torch of painting, and between the two there is the same difference as
between the sun and the moon."[134]
If he was above all things a sculptor it was because he found in
sculpture the most appropriate expression of his abstract and
concentrated genius.
Non ha l'ottimo artista alcun concetto,
Ch'un marmo solo in se non circonscriva
Col suo soverchio, et solo à quello arriva
La man, che ubbidisce all'intelleto.[135]
Moreover he reduced sculpture to its most simple form, the isolated
statue. Michelangelo had little liking for bas-reliefs and groups, which
he hardly ever made, and where he always shows some awkwardness. What we
know, through Cellini and Vasari, of his manner of working would incline
us to feel to-day that the basis of his sculpture and of all his art was
drawing,[136] because that was most immaterial and closest to the form
of his thought.
No one has ever drawn as Michelangelo did, and Charles Blanc is right in
saying that "if he is unequal in his sculptures and his frescoes, never
does his drawing, even when apparently most careless and most summary,
betray any feebleness of hand or distraction or hesitancy of spirit."
Not only do we penetrate, then, into the mystery of his creativeness,
into the dreams and soliloquies of his lonely soul, but we discover
there also his most intimate and perfect expression. There he is
altogether himself, as Beethoven is in his quartets and in his short
pieces for the piano.[137]
I compare these two purposely; for the genius of each of them was
solitary, intellectual and passionate, only realising itself completely
in the most simple and abstract forms in which the senses had the least
part and the spirit the greatest. All the voluptuous charm of art was
not only foreign to Michelangelo, but antagonistic to him. The more art
was aimed at the senses the more he despised it.
Voglia sfrenata el senso è, non amore,
Che l'alma uccide....[138]
Painting, therefore, seemed to him, as it did to Plato, less virile and
less pure than sculpture, because of its seductive quality, its illusive
magic which imitates the appearance of things and merely creates
illusions. He disdained it inasmuch as it appealed through the
attraction of colours at the expense of the idea. He could not endure
painting in oils, which he said was only good for women.[139] He
rejected landscape, and like Plato only saw in it a vague and deceiving
illusion--a sport for children and ignorant people. He had a horror of
portraits. They seemed to him a form of flattery for the gratification
of vain curiosity and the imperfect illusion of the senses.[140] It is
curious to contrast with these principles which were adopted by a part
of the Italian school in the sixteenth century, the naïve confession of
faith of Dürer at almost the same period. "The art of painting is used
in the service of the Church to show the sufferings of Christ and of
many other models of virtue, and it also preserves the faces of men
after their death." (1513)
That pious and bourgeois realism of Germany and Flanders filled
Michelangelo with the same sort of contempt that many artists of to-day
feel for subject-painting. "It is," he says, "an anecdotal and
sentimental art, which aims only at success and obtains it easily, not
by its own value, but by the choice of its subjects. These are pious
figures for which tears are always ready, or else rags, ruins, very
green fields shaded by trees, rivers and bridges--what they call
landscapes--with many figures here and there. That sort of thing is
always popular; the least artistic spirit can find something there that
appeals to it; it is enough to be inquisitive and to have good eyes."
Again--"Flemish painting seems beautiful to women, especially to those
who are either old or very young, and to monks and nuns and to a few
people of quality who are deaf to true harmony. Although it makes a good
effect in the eyes of some people, in truth there is neither reason nor
art in it, no proportion, no symmetry, no selection, and no grandeur. In
fact, such painting is without body or vigour. The only real paintings
are those done in Italy. These are not, like the Flemish pictures, made
for the pious.[141] They will never cause anyone to shed a tear."[142]
We can well understand that disdainful confession of faith. What artist
is there who has not felt this same irritation at the success of
mediocre work exploited by the sentimentality of an uncritical public
and who will not understand Michelangelo's haughty refusal to share this
too easy success? This pride, ennobling as it is to the character, is
unfortunately perilous for art; it cuts it off from all simple souls, it
isolates it in the arrogant feeling of inner perfection and of a secret
ideal which very few can know or understand. As Michelangelo says:
"Good painting is noble and devout in itself, for among the wise nothing
tends more to elevate the soul or to raise it toward devotion than the
difficulty of that perfection which approaches God and becomes one with
him. Good painting is but a copy of this perfection, a shadow of his
pencil, a music, a melody, and only a very keen intelligence can feel
the difficulty of it. That is why it is so rare and why so few people
can attain to it or know how to produce it. Painting is the music of
God, the inner reflection of his luminous perfection."[143]
[Illustration: THE RESURRECTION
Drawing (about 1540). Louvre.]
If instead of Michelangelo with his ardent faith and that warmth of
enthusiasm which sweeps along his idealism and makes of the Divine Idea
as he conceives it a living being to whom he passionately desires to
unite himself we should take, I do not say a sceptic or an atheist, but
a sincere believer after the manner of the Council of Trent, a Vasari or
a Zucchero, then God will be to them not a source of love and ecstasy,
but the principle of reason. The reason of the wise--behold the
beginning and the end of art. A hundred years after Michelangelo,
Poussin was to bind all art in obedience to this principle. He applied
all its natural resources to the rendering of one idea. With him the
attention is confined to the idea of the work--that is the principal
thing. The abstract idea is more important than the form; thought alone
is spontaneous; all the rest--life, expression, colour--is determined by
the logic of reason. The subject regulates the composition and
determines the centre of interest and the groupings of the picture; it
indicates the character of the people, their moral aspect and,
consequently, their exterior, for the two are bound together. It
determines the character of the landscape, which must bear a logical
relationship to the scene; it presides even over the execution of the
work. The manner of painting is imposed by the subject to be treated; it
will be Phrygian or Dorian or Lydian, according to whether the idea is
gentle or serious or sad. In this way everything is logical and
calculated. Michelangelo's mystical ardour toward divine perfection at
least left him his impetuous liberty of feeling. Poussin no longer left
anything to chance. His reason commanded and his hand obeyed. If I name
him here it is because he was both the end and the climax of artistic
intellectualism. At least Poussin left on his work the impress of his
great intelligence. His system rests on this idea, and with him the idea
was clear and powerful. But what would it be in the hands of men of
mediocre talent? The number of artists who either think for themselves,
or express with new force the ideas of others, is infinitesimal.
Moreover, the ideal is ordinarily to them merely an emphatic rendering
of a vague conception of perfection which they have been taught. Under
pretext of an intellectual ideal they deform nature; they leave it
little by little, turning their backs, their eyes proudly closed,
looking only within themselves. "La bellezza," says Tomazzo, "e lontana
dala materia" (Beauty is far from matter).[144] The symbol of the period
which was to follow is that very Lomazzo,[145] painter,
æsthetician--blind.
Blind, more or less, were all who lived around Michelangelo. Their too
feeble eyes were dazzled by this sun which shone alone in that twilight
of art, the night which was falling on Italy of the Renaissance. A long
time after that sun had disappeared below the horizon the radiant glow
still remained in the sky. Michelangelo enthralled Italian art.
There is no comparison between the influence which he exerted and that
of the other masters of the sixteenth century, Corregio and Raphael.
However superior they may have been to their century, Corregio and
Raphael only reflected its thoughts with more charm and grandeur.
Michelangelo is outside of his time, alone, apart and colossal. He is
like a great mountain which inspires in those who dwell at the foot an
invincible desire to reach the top; and what men have ever existed who
were less capable of climbing those austere and sublime heights? All
those effeminate artists of the decadence, intoxicated by his
inspiration, attempted to express heroic ideas in their insipid works.
They lost the sense of proportion which alone could have saved them.
Instead of confining themselves to the little world of their own fancy
which, though cold, could have been redeemed by sincerity, they
attempted great subjects. A mass of forms, heroic figures and furious
gestures that they had learned, were whirled about in their mind,
uncontrolled either by greatness of intelligence or of heart.
We must remember that Michelangelo lived through more than fifty years
of the Golden Age of Italian art and, as happened in our own day to
Victor Hugo, admiration for his works increased in proportion as they
deserved it less. Even the factions that had been longest hostile to
him--the school of Raphael, for instance--recognised his triumph. Perino
del Vaga admits that all the painters worshipped him as their master,
their leader and the god of drawing.[146]
The independents, or those who boasted that they were, said as Cellini
did in his sonnets:
"Just a leaf from thy crown, O divine Michelangelo, who alone art rich,
who alone art immortal. That will suffice me and I shall have no desire
for anything else, since for me that only is good and beautiful."
Florence, his own country, more even than the rest of Italy gave him
blind admiration. The Academy of Drawing, founded by Vasari, was a
college of disciples and apostles. Since Michelangelo's great paintings
were at Rome the Florentines copied chiefly his statues, devoting
themselves principally, as Lanzi says, to ostentatiously showing "magna
ossa lacertosque."[147]
This was in accordance with the doctrine of the master, who declared
that sculpture should be the school of the painter and the ideal of
painting. Cellini, thinking to define the thought of Michelangelo,
absurdly declares and demonstrates that sculpture is seven times greater
than painting.
The painter formed himself from this time on by the study of statues,
and especially of those of Michelangelo. Colour was therefore regarded
as a secondary consideration,[148] and the only aim pursued was drawing
over-accentuated, full of unreasonable action, and of excessive
virtuosity. If he seemed to Cellini the greatest painter of all time, it
was only because all painting from Cellini's point of view was an
imitation of sculpture, and the artist who came nearest to him in
perfection is Bronzino.[149]
The danger of following a model is less if the model can be understood,
but the ideas of Michelangelo absolutely escaped his admirers. How could
it be otherwise when all his work is an act of revolt against his
century. We can but smile with pity when we see his contemporaries
expressing their enthusiasm for the formidable Night in precious and
carefully chosen phrases.[150]
[Illustration: THE DOME OF ST. PETER'S
From the Original Model in Wood. Preserved in the Vatican (1558).]
What supreme irony! The world only sees and admires the outer form of
those tremendous incarnations of contempt and weariness which are
called Moses or the Day, Victory subduing the Prisoner, the Dawn or the
Slaves. The world applauds the style of the imprecations launched
against it! It even repeats them without knowing the meaning.
Two drawings by Federigo Zucchero, which are in the Louvre, show a
number of artists installed in the chapel of S. Lorenzo zealously
copying Michelangelo's statues. How many artists of the sixteenth
century built their entire work on these notes without ever thinking
that such forms are only justified by the passions which animate them,
and that it is ridiculous to use them as aids to the learned virtuosity
of a cold and forced talent!
Battista Franco of Venice, _il Semolei_ distinguished himself above all
others by his zeal in copying Michelangelo. Vasari says that there was
not a sketch, not the roughest note, or any sort of fragment of his
which he had not devoutly drawn. He knew the whole Sistine by heart. In
1536 he came to Florence and drew once more all the statues of S.
Lorenzo. In 1541 he hurried to Rome for the "première" of the Last
Judgment, and he made a drawing of the whole thing "_con infinita
maraviglia il designo tutto_." We can understand that he had no time to
do any thinking for himself. For a long time he refrained from painting
anything of his own. When he decided to begin it was to reproduce in
his Battle of Montemurlo some fragments of the war against Pisa or of
the Rape of Ganymede.[151]
The independent Cellini writes in his memoirs: "I devoted myself
continually to trying to absorb thoroughly the beautiful style of
Michelangelo, and since then I have never departed from it."
A hundred years later still Bernini copied the Last Judgment for two
successive years before he began to draw from nature. Scivoli watched
him doing it and said: "Sei un furbo; no fai quel che vedi: questa è di
Michelangelo." ("You are a fool. You are not drawing what you see; this
is nothing but Michelangelo").[152]
Bernini, who tells of this, does not see that it is a criticism, for he
recommends this same system of education to young artists.
"It is necessary first for a young man to form an idea of the beautiful,
for this is of use to him all his life; it ruins young men to begin by
drawing from nature, which is almost always weak and mean, and which
then fills their imagination, so that they can never produce anything
beautiful or great, qualities which are never found in natural things.
Those who make use of nature should be already skilful enough to
recognise its faults and to correct them. A young man is not capable of
this until he has gained full knowledge of beauty."[153]
The essential idea of this teaching was that nature is evil; just what
Michelangelo thought. But we now see to what unexpected results his
pessimistic idealism led. It produced not only separation from nature,
but renunciation of personal feeling for formulas, "since it is not
possible for one individual to have light on all subjects nor to grasp
without assistance the difficulty of arts so profound and so little
understood."
What would Michelangelo have thought of these servile disciples, he who
said proudly that "whoever follows others will never go forward, and
whoever does not know how to create by his own abilities can gain no
profit from the works of other men."
But they had lost even the consciousness of their servility and took
more pride in living on Michelangelo's crumbs than he had in creating
the work which was to be the nourishment of two centuries. Some drew
tranquilly on their memory and their notes, others mimicked the
master's grandiose manner, and they were all entirely satisfied with
themselves, not one of them realising what their master and model had
suffered in giving birth to these works which were so easy for them to
imitate.
Michelangelo's idealism had a powerful corrective in "the sense of the
beauty of struggle, and the holiness of suffering." "Nothing approaches
nearer to God," he wrote, "than the effort to produce a perfect work,
because God is perfection."
No one ever struggled more fiercely than this man, who ceaselessly
tormented himself and wept at "losing his time uselessly" while he was
working at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, who wrought with his blood
the beings whom he created and was dissatisfied with his sublime
creations at the moment of finishing them and left them incomplete, who
to his last day in agony and tears
Piangendo, amando, ardendo, e sospirando,--
Ch'affetto alcun mortal non mi è più nuovo,--[154]
"Weeping, loving, burning and sighing--for there was no human emotion
which he had not felt."
He was vainly seeking the visioned ideal, and in dying he regretted not
the joy of living, but his interrupted labours.[155]
Beside that virile modesty what can we think of the absurd vanity of all
those little masters who declared that they derived from the great
master and believed themselves to be Michelangelos?
Vasari dares to write:
"To-day art has been brought to such perfection that while our
predecessors produced a picture in six years we produce six in one year.
I can bear witness since I have seen this done and have done it myself,
and nevertheless our works are much more finished and more perfect than
those of the renowned painters who preceded us."[156]
Even the weakest ones had the same feeling. Perino del Vaga considered
himself very much superior to Masaccio, and in Cellini vanity ended by
touching madness. He felt that antiquity was only valuable as a
background to his works, and for his Jupiter he used the bronze
castings which Primataccio brought from Rome.[157]
When an artist is so sure of success he no longer takes any trouble to
deserve it. "Che cartoni o non cartoni," cries Giorlamo da Treviso, "io,
io, ho l'arte su la punta dell pennello" ("Have I need of studies, I who
have art on the point of my brush!").
The scruples that Michelangelo had felt no longer checked the artists.
They were not afraid to finish what they had begun. Pomeranci, Semino,
Calvi, painted four square yards a day. Cambiaso painted, at the age of
seventeen, the story of Niobe without studies or sketches. He produced
as many works as a dozen painters together, and his wife lighted the
fire with bundles of drawings which he tossed off every moment. His
contemporaries compare him to Michelangelo, and add that the latter does
not gain by the comparison. Santi di Tito made a portrait in less than
half an hour. He set up a factory in his house and turned them out in
enormous quantities. His pupil, Tempesti, did not succeed in finding
sufficient occupation for his talents in the great frescoes at Rome and,
as a relaxation from painting, made fifteen hundred engravings. In a
month Vasari, Tribolo and Andrea del Cosimo built and decorated a
palace. In a day Perino del Vaga painted the Passage of the Red Sea.
[Illustration: THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS
Duomo, Florence (1553-1555).]
The Venetians, thanks to their distance from Rome and Florence and to
their ardent communion with nature, which to the horror of Vasari they
dared to copy honestly,[158] were saved for a time, but in the end
caught the infection. The Florentine spirit won this last refuge of art,
and Tintoretto infused the spirit of Michelangelo into Venetian
realism.[159]
The brain of Italy was a prey to fever.[160] Michelangelo had destroyed
the balance of mind of a period dried out by intellectualism and
weakened by the taste for pleasure. The shock of his dazzling light on
their eyes, too feeble to bear it, blinded them and inspired a delirium
of imagination without poetry, without thought and without life.
The Carracci were needed at the end of the century, if not to snatch
Italian art from inevitable death, at least to lend it, emerging from
its follies and delusions, an air of dignity and a cold distinction in
which it could veil itself to die.
The greatness of Michelangelo was thus fatal to Italian art. So it is
with everything that rises too far above its own time. Decadence can
only be averted or retarded by intelligent and moderate talents like the
Carracci, who, hardly separated from the average of their times, are
easily understood by it. They are the geniuses of common sense, and they
are, therefore, useful to the common man. The heroes of art are also its
tyrants; their glory kills, and the greater they are the more they are
to be feared, for they impose on all men the laws of a personality
which can exist but once. They are a devouring force; they illumine, but
they burn; they have the right to be unique in their being and in their
work. They seem to realise in themselves the whole aim of nature, and
there is nothing left for those who follow but to be absorbed and
disappear.
It would be absurd to offer Michelangelo as a model to young artists.
Should great men ever be taken as models in art? Is not that one of the
errors of classical training? They are examples of energy, sources of
force and beauty. It is well to look for a moment on their radiance,
then tear ourselves from their contemplation and work.
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
DATE IMPORTANT EVENTS PRINCIPAL WORKS
1475 March 6. Birth of Michelangelo
at Caprese.
1488 April 1. He enters the school of
Domenico and David Ghirlandajo.
1489 He enters the school of Bertoldo
and becomes the protégé of Lorenzo
de' Medici.
1490-1492 _Mask of a Faun._
_Madonna of the Stairs._
_Combat of the Centaurs._
1492 April 8. Death of Lorenzo de'
Medici.
1492-1494 In the service of Piero de' Wooden crucifix.
Medici. Statue of _Hercules_.
1494 October. Flight to Venice Angel for the Arca of
and Bologna. He worked at S. Domenico in Bologna.
S. Petronio in Bologna.
1495 Return to Florence. _Giovannino._
_Sleeping Love._
1496 June 25. Arrival in Rome. _Bacchus._
_Cupid._
1498 May 23. Savonarola is burned
in Florence.
1498-1500 Pietà of St. Peter's.
1501 Return to Florence. Statues for the Piccolomini
altar in the cathedral
of Sienna.
1501-1505 _David._
Cartoon for the battle
of Cascina.
_Holy Family of Agnolo_
_Doni._
_Virgin of Bruges._
Bas-reliefs of the Madonna
for Taddeo
Taddei and Bartolommeo
Pitti.
1505 March. He is summoned to Rome First plan for the tomb
by Julius II. of Julius II
1506 The Laocöon was discovered at
Rome.
1506 April 17. Flight to Florence.
1506 End of November. Reconciliation
with Julius at Bologna.
1506-1508 Bronze statue of Julius
II at Bologna.
1508 Return to Rome.
1508 May 10 to 1512, October. Paintings on the ceiling
of the Sistine.
1513 February 21. Death of Julius II.
1513 March 11. Election of Leo X.
1513 May 6. Second contract for the
tomb of Julius II.
1513-1516 Michelangelo at Florence. _The Slaves._
_Moses._
1516 July. Third contract for the
tomb of Julius II.
1517 September. Serious illness of
Michelangelo.
1518 January 19. Contract in regard
to the façade of S. Lorenzo in
Florence.
1518-1520 Michelangelo at the quarries
of Carrara, Seravezza.
1520 March 10. Michelangelo is released _The Christ_ of the Minerva.
from the contract for the
façade of S. Lorenzo by an
order from Leo X.
1520 April 6. Death of Raphael.
1521 Beginning of the work on the chapel _The Madonna_ of the
of the Medici at S. Lorenzo. chapel of the Medici.
1521 At the end of the year serious illness
of Michelangelo. _The Victory._
1522 November 19. Election of Clement VII.
1524-1526 Work on the tomb of
the Medici and the
Laurentian library.
1527 May 6. Capture of Rome by the
Imperialists.
1529 April 6. Michelangelo is named _Leda._
Governatore Generale and Procuratore
of the fortifications of
Florence. Mission to inspect
the fortifications at Pisa, Livorno
and Ferrara.
1529 September 21. Flight to Venice.
Siege of Florence.
1529 November 20. Return to Florence.
Defense of San Miniato.
1530 August 12. Capitulation of Florence. _Apollo._
Proscriptions.
1531 June. Serious illness of Michelangelo. Work on the Medici
tombs.
1532 April 29. Fourth contract for the
monument of Julius II.
1533 Beginning of the friendship with First plan for the _Last_
Tommaso dei Cavalieri in _Judgment._
Rome.
1534 Death in Florence of Lodovico, the
father of Michelangelo.
1534 September 23. Michelangelo returns
to Rome, where he remains until his
death.
1534 September 25. Death of Clement VII.
1534 October 13. Election of Paul III.
1535 September 1. Michelangelo is named
by order of Paul III
architect-in-chief, sculptor and
painter of the Apostolic Palace.
1536 Beginning of the friendship with
Vittoria Colonna at Rome.
1536 April to November, 1541 _Last Judgment_ in the
Sistine.
1538 The statue of Marcus Aurelius is _Brutus._ Drawings of
raised on the Capitoline Christ for Vittoria
Colonna.
1542-1544 Frescoes of the Pauline
Chapel.
1542 August 20. Last agreement for the
monument of Julius II.
1544 June. Serious illness of
Michelangelo, who was cared for in
the palace of the Strozzi.
1545 February Completion of the monument
of Julius II in S. Pietro
in Vinculi.
1545-1546 Titian in Rome.
1546 January. Serious illness of Work on the cornice of the
Michelangelo. He gives the Slaves Farnese palace.
to the Strozzi.
1547 January 1. Michelangelo named by
Paul III architect of St. Peter's.
1547 February 25. Death of Vittoria Work on the Capitol.
Colonna.
1549 November 10. Death of Paul III.
1550 February 8. Election of Julius III. Work on the Vigna del Papa
Giulio and the
reconstruction of the
Belvedere stairway.
1551 First edition of the "Vite" of
Vasari.
1553 First edition of the life of Work on St. Peter's.
Michelangelo by Ascanio Condivi.
1555 March 23. Death of Julius III.
1555 May 23. Election of Paul IV.
1555 December 3. Death of Urbino, The group of the _Pietà_,
Michelangelo's servant. broken by Michelangelo, is
continued and completed by
Tiberio Calcagni.
1558 He works at the model of
the dome of St. Peter's.
1559-1560 Daniele da Volterra, at the
command of Paul IV, paints drapery
on the figures of the Last
Judgment.
1560 Catherine de' Medici requested Work on the transformation
Michelangelo to make the statue of of the Baths of Diocletian
Henri II. into the church of S.
Maria degli Angeli.
1561 August 29. Michelangelo was taken Work on the Porta Pia.
ill.
1563 January 31. Michelangelo made
President of the Academy of
Florence.
1564 February. _The Rondanini Pietà._
1564 February 18. Death of Michelangelo.
1564 July 14. Funeral at S. Lorenzo in
Florence.
CATALOGUE OF THE PRINCIPAL WORKS OF MICHELANGELO IN PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
I.--PAINTINGS
ITALY
FLORENCE. UFFIZI.
_Holy Family_, painted for Agnolo Doni (between 1501 and 1505).
ROME. VATICAN.
Paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine (1508-1512).
_The Last Judgment_ (1536-1541).
The frescoes of the Pauline chapel (1542-1549).
ENGLAND
LONDON. NATIONAL GALLERY.
_The Entombment_ (about 1495).
_The Virgin of Manchester_ (about 1495).
II.--SCULPTURE
ITALY
FLORENCE. MUSEO NAZIONALE.
_Mask of a Faun_ (between 1490 and 1492).
_Bacchus_ (1497).
_The Dying Adonis_ (1497).
_Virgin and Child_, a circular bas-relief made for
Taddeo Taddei (between 1501 and 1505).
_Victory_ (1522-1523).
_Apollino_ (1530).
_Brutus_ (1538).
GALLERIA ANTICA E MODERNA E TRIBUNA DEL DAVID.
_David_ (between 1501 and 1504).
CASA BUONARROTI.
_The Centaurs and Lapiths_, bas-relief in marble (between 1490 and 1492).
_Virgin and Child_, bas-relief in bronze (between 1490 and 1492).
SAN LORENZO.
The Medici tombs (1524-1527 and 1530-1534).
SANTA MARIA DEI FIORE.
_The descent from the cross_ (1553-1555).
ROME. SAINT PETER'S.
_Pietà_ (1498-1500).
SAN PIETRO IN VINCULI.
Tomb of Julius II: (_Moses_, 1513-1516).
_Rachel_ and _Leah_ (1542-1545).
FRANCE
PARIS. THE LOUVRE.
_The Slaves_ (1513-1516).
ENGLAND
LONDON. SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM.
_Kneeling Cupid_ (1497).
ROYAL ACADEMY.
_Holy Family_, circular bas-relief made for Bart. Pitti
(between 1501 and 1505).
BELGIUM
BRUGES. THE CATHEDRAL.
_Madonna_ (between 1501 and 1505).
GERMANY
BERLIN. KOENIGLICHE MUSEUM.
_Giovannino_ (1495).
NOTE ON THE DRAWINGS
The great European Museums--especially the Louvre, the Uffizi, the
Albertina in Vienna, the British Museum, Oxford University and
Windsor--contain very rich collections of Michelangelo's drawings. The
most beautiful of those in the Louvre came from the Jabach and Mariette
collections.
"You could not ask for anything more finished or showing a greater
knowledge of drawing," says Mariette; ... "they are almost too much
finished.... I do not know any other master who finished his studies
more completely. When he is looking for a certain pose he dashes off
impetuously on the paper what comes from his imagination. He draws with
large strokes.... But if he wants to study nature so that he may
reproduce it later on in sculpture or in painting he follows an entirely
different method.... His drawing is no longer a sketch, but a finished
fragment in which no detail is left out, it is the flesh itself; and
Michelangelo needed nothing more than this for his modelling. I have a
number of drawings where you can see the marks which Michelangelo made
on them, and which indicate that these designs were used by him as
guides in his modelling...."
Some of the drawings in the Louvre were for the tombs of the Medici and
for the bronze David for Florimond Robertet.
Another curious thing about these drawings is that we often find upon
them verses by Michelangelo, fragments of poems. Both verses and
drawings are often the repetitions or variations of certain ideas which
were in his mind for years and occupied his attention with the tenacity
of fixed ideas.
Michelangelo used indifferently red chalk, pen and ink, and charcoal or
pencil.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I.--WRITINGS OF MICHELANGELO
_Le Lettere di Michel-Angelo Buonarroti_, publicate, coi _Ricordi ed i
Contratti artistici_, per cura di Gaetano MILANESI. Florence, 1875,
in-fol., IX, 721 pages. Lemonnier (495 letters, from 1497 to 1563).
_Rime di Michel-Angelo Buonarroti_, raccolte da Michelagnolo suo nipote.
Florence, 1623, Giunti (first complete edition, but full of errors).
_Rime di Michel-Angelo Buonarroti_, cavate dagli autografi e publicate
da Cesare GUASTI. Florence, 1863 (first really accurate edition).
_Die Dichtungen des Michel-Angelo Buonarroti_, herausgegeben und mit
kritischem Apparat versehen von Carl FREY. Berlin, 1897 (the finest and
most complete edition of the poems of Michelangelo which has been made
up to the present time).
II.--WORKS ON MICHELANGELO
I. WRITINGS OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES.
Giorgio VASARI.--_Vite degli architetti, pittori e scultori_ (first
edition). Florence, 1550, in 4to;--(second edition). Florence, 1568, in
4to.--edition of MILANESI. Florence, 1856, Lemonnier.
Ascanio CONDIVI.--_Vita di Michel-Angelo Buonarroti_. Rome, 1553,
Antonio BLADO;--(second edition). Florence, 1746, with notes by
Mariette.
Paolo GIOVIO.--_Michaelis Angeli Vita_, published by TIRABOSCHI in his
_Storia della letteratura italiana_, Vol. IX, Modena, 1781.
_Sammlung ausgewaehlter Biographien Vasaris_, herausg. von Carl FREY (in
the second volume are gathered _le Vite de Michel-Angelo Buonnaroti_,
critical edition of all the biographies written by his contemporaries).
Vittoria COLONNA.--_Rime_ (first edition). Parma, 1538;--(second
edition), 1539;--(third edition), 1544;--edition SALTINI. Florence,
1860, Barbera.--_Carteggio_, published by Ermanno FERRERO and Giuseppe
MÜLLER. Turin, 1892, Loescher(Letters and documents).--_Lettere
inedite_, published by SALZA. Florence, 1898.--Codice delle _Rime di
Vittoria Colonna_, appartenente a Margherita, regina di Navarra scoperto
ed illustrato. Pistoia, 1900, ed. Tordi.
François DE HOLLANDE.--_Quatre Entretiens sur la Peinture_, held in Rome
1538 to 1539, written in 1548, published by Joachim DE VASCONCELLOS;--French
translation in _Les Arts en Portugal_, by Count RACZYNSKI. Paris, 1846,
Renouard.
Donato GIANNOTTI.--_De' giorni che Dante consumo nel cercare l'Inferno
e'l Purgatorio. Dialoghi_. Florence, 1859.
Benvenuto CELLINI.--_Vita_ (1559 to 1562), first edition. Naples,
1728.--_I Trattati dell'oreficeria e della scultura_. Florence, 1893,
edition C. Milanesi.
Benedetto VARCHI.--_Due lezioni di Benedetto Varchi_. Florence,
1549.--_Orazione funerale recitata nelle esequie di Michel-Angela
Buonarroti_. Florence, 1564, Giunti.
Francesco BERNI.--_Opere burlesche_. Florence, 1548. Giunti.
_Michelangelo's correspondents_: I. _Sebastiano del Piombo_, Ed.
Milanesi, French translation by A. LE PRIEUR. Paris, 1890, Librairie de
l'Art.
Blaise DE VIGENÈRE.--_Les Images de Philostrate_. Paris, 1629.
II.--MODERN WORKS
Richard DUPPA.--_The Life and Literary Works of Michel-Angelo
Buonarroti_. London, 1806, 1816 (translations in verse of the poetry of
Michel-Angelo by Southey and Wordsworth).
Quatremere DE QUINCY.--_Histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de
Michel-Ange Buonarroti_. Paris, 1835.
Giovanni GAYE.--_Carteggio inedito d'artisti dei secoli XIV, XV, XVI_.
Florence, 1839, three volumes.
Fr. AL RIO.--_Michel-Ange et Raphael_ (first edition). Hanover, 1860
(since then there have been seven editions; the last appeared in 1900
with illustrations).
Aurelio GOTTI.--_Vita di Michel-Angelo_. Florence, 1875, two volumes.
C. Heath WILSON.--_Life and Works of Michel-Angelo_. London, 1876.
_L'OEuvre et la Vie de Michel-Ange_, by Charles BLANC, Eug. GUILLAUME,
Paul MANTZ, Charles GARNIER, A. MEZIÈRES. Anatole de MONTAIGLON, Georges
DUPLESSIS and Louis GONSE. Paris, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1876.
Anton SPRINGER.--_Raffael und Michelangelo_, 1878.
John Addington SYMONDS.--_The Life of Michel-Angelo Buonarroti_. London,
1893.
Corrado RICCI.--_Michelangelo_. Florence, 1901.
Henry THODE.--_Michel-Angelo und das Ende der Renaissance_, 1e vol.
Berlin, 1902.--2e vol. Berlin, 1903.
Alfred VON REUMONT.--_Vittoria Colonna_. Fribourg, 1881.
Albert HAUCK.--_Vittoria Colonna_. Heidelberg, 1882.
GIOTTI.--_Catalogo delle opere d'arti e dei disegni di Michel-Angelo
Buonarroti_, 1875.
F. REISET.--_Notice des dessins du musée du Louvre_. Paris, 1866.
Baron H. GEYMULLER.--_Michelangelo als Architekt_.
Dr Ernst STEINMANN.--_Die Sixtinische Kapelle_.
Carl FREY.--_Studien zu Michelagnolo (Jahrb. der K. preuss.
Kunstssamml._) 1895-1896.
Luigi PASSERINI.--_La bibliografia di Michel-Angelo Buonarroti e gli
incisori delle sue opere_. Florence, 1875.
INDEX
A
Academy of painters, Florence, 139.
Aldovrandi, 10.
Altoviti (Bindo), 122, 134.
Amadio d'Alberto, 66.
Ammanati (Bart.), 110, 139.
Annunciation, 136.
Apollo, 74.
Apollo and Marsyas, 11.
Arca of S. Domenico of Bologna, 10.
Archadelt, 86.
Aretino, 95-98.
Ariosto, 82.
B
Bacchus, 10.
Baccio d'Agnolo, 50, 52.
Baglioni (Malatesta), 68, 71.
Baïf (Lazare de), 69.
Bandinelli, 22, 66.
Bandini, 116, 123, 134.
Bartolommeo (Fra), 24.
Beethoven, 13, 127, 149.
Bembo, 82.
Berni (Francesco), 87, 128.
Bernin, 160.
Bertoldo, 6, 7.
Bettini (Bart.), 134.
Biagio da Cesena, 95.
Boboli (Figures in the grotto), 59.
Boccaccio, 10.
Borghini (Vincenzo), 139, 141.
Borgo (Fortifications of), 110.
Botticelli, 12, 16.
Bramante, 28-31, 35-37, 109, 119.
Bronzino, 22, 128, 139.
Brunelleschi, 77, 119.
Bugiardini (Giuliano), 7, 37, 128.
Buonarroti (Lodovico), 1, 76.
Buonarroti (Lionardo, son of Lodovico), 1, 12.
Buonarroti (Buonarroto), 1, 49, 76.
Buonarroti (Giovan Simone), 1, 130.
Buonarroti (Sigismondo), 1, 130.
Buonarroti (Lionardo, son of Buonarroto), 115, 130, 132, 135, 138, 140.
Buonarroti (Francesca), 130.
Buoninsegni (Domenico), 52, 61.
C
Calcagni (Tiberio), 124, 126.
Capitol, 120-121.
Capponi (Niccolo), 66, 67.
Carducci (Francesco), 67, 68.
Carnesecchi (Pietro), 83.
Carpi (Cardinal), 116.
Carracci, 166.
Carrara, 26, 27, 30, 51, 54, 55.
Caryatid in the Hermitage, 48.
Castiglione (Bald.), 82.
Cavalcanti, 87.
Cavalieri (Tommaso dei), 80, 81, 97, 134, 137, 138.
Cecchino dei Bracci, 128.
Cellini (Benvenuto), 22, 128, 139, 148, 158, 160, 163.
Christ of the Minerva, 49, 58.
Christ, incompleted.
Cino da Pistoia, 87.
Civitale, 107.
Clement VII, 54, 56, 59. 60, 61, 74-76, 128.
Clement VIII, 100.
Colonna (Vittoria), 82-86, 89, 93, 147.
Colossus of Florence, 62-64.
Combat of Centaurs and Lapiths, 8.
Condivi, 129.
Consilium, 86.
Contarini (Cardinal), 83.
Corregio, 155.
Credi (Lorenzo di), 7.
Cronaca, 16.
Crucifix in wood of the convent of S. Spirito, 10.
Crucifixion, 85.
Cupid sleeping, 11.
D
Dante, 10, 57, 87, 106-107.
David, colossal, 16-18, 97.
David in bronze, 17.
Descent from the cross (Duomo, Florence), 126, 127.
Descent from the cross, drawing, 85.
Dolce (Lodovico), 82.
Donatello, 6, 7, 10.
Doni (Agnolo), 24.
Duccio (Agostino di), 16.
Dürer (Albrecht), 25, 150.
Dying Adonis, 11.
E
Entombment, 11.
F
Farnese (Palace), 111.
Fattucci, 62, 63.
Febo di Poggio, 80.
Ferrara (Renée de), 83.
Festa (Constanzo), 86.
Francesca (Piero della), 23.
Franco (Battista), 159.
Francis I, 69.
Frizzi (Federigo), 58.
G
Gaeta (Pier Luigi), 117, 137.
Ghiberti, 4.
Ghirlandajo (Domenico), 2-6.
Ghirlandajo (Ridolfo), 23.
Giannotti (Donato), 65, 87, 115, 128.
Giberti, 83.
Giotto, 4.
Granacci (Francesco), 2, 7, 22, 37.
H
Hercules and Cacus, 66.
Hercules, colossal, 11.
Holland, Francis of, 13, 83.
Holy Family (Agnolo Doni), 24.
Holy Family (Bart. Pitti), 24.
Holy Family (Taddeo Taddei), 24.
I
Indaco, 37.
J
Jacopo di Sandro, 37.
Jove (Paul), 82.
Julius II, 26-36, 43-44.
Julius II (Tomb of), 26-36, 45-47, 48-50, 72, 89-96, 102, 103.
Julius II (Bronze statue of), 33-34.
Julius III, 109.
L
Last Judgment, 91-102.
Leah, 105-107.
Leda, 67, 74.
Le Noyer (Robert), 100.
Leo X, 50-54, 57, 59.
Leone Leoni, 128.
Lippi (Filipino), 23.
Lomazzo, 153, 155.
M
Madonna of Bruges, 25.
Madonna and child (bas-relief in bronze), 9.
Majano (Benedetto da), 4.
Mantegna, 14.
Marcellus II, 114.
Masaccio, 4.
Medici (Lorenzo de'), 6, 7, 13.
Medici (Alessandro de'), 65, 76.
Medici (Duke Cosmo de'), 78, 115-117, 129, 130, 138.
Medici (Don Francesco de'), 129, 134.
Medici (Tombs of the), 59-62, 71-74.
Michi (Giovanni), 38.
Minni (Antonio), 69, 75, 131, 134.
Mino da Fiesole, 4.
Mirandole (Pico della), 7, 10.
Montelupo (Raffaello da), 77, 103, 107.
Montmorency (Constable de), 47, 69.
Montorsoli (Giovanni da), 77.
Moses, 47, 104-106.
Moses (small), 138.
N
Nanni di Baccio Bigio, 112-118.
Navarre (Marguerite de), 83.
Noli me tangere, 134.
O
Ochino (Bernadino), 83.
P
Palla (Battista de la), 68.
Paul III, 89-112, 109, 114.
Paul IV, 99, 114, 118.
Pauline Chapel, Frescoes of, 102.
Perini (Gherado), 80, 97, 134.
Perino del Vaga, 22, 111, 156, 163.
Perugino, 22, 91.
Peruzzi (Baldi), 109.
Petrarch, 10, 87.
Petreo (Antonio), 65.
Pierfrancesco d'Urbino, 66.
Piero di Cosimo, 23.
Pietà of St. Peter's, 14, 15.
Pietà Rondanini, 137.
Pietà, drawing, 137.
Pietà, 13.
Pinturicchio, 23.
Pius IV, 122.
Poems of Michelangelo, 86-89.
Pole (Cardinal), 83.
Poliziano (Angelo), 7, 8, 10, 128.
Pollajuolo, 3.
Pontormo, 22, 134.
Porta (Guglielmo della), 111.
Porta Pia, 120-122.
Poussin, 153, 154.
Pulci, 7.
Q
Quercia (Jacopo della), 4, 10.
R
Rachel, 105-107.
Raffaellino del Garbo, 23.
Raphael, 3, 22, 28, 36, 50, 109, 143, 155, 156.
Resurrection of Christ, 85.
Riccio (Luigi del), 65, 86, 128, 135.
Rossellino (Antonio), 4, 107.
Rosso, 22.
Rustici, 7.
S
Sadolet, 83.
St. Peter's (construction of), 27.
St. Peter (statue), 137.
St. Matthew, 18.
Salviati, 22.
Samaritan woman at the well, 85.
San Gallo (Antonio da), 16, 50, 109-111, 122.
San Gallo (Aristotele da), 22.
San Gallo (Francesco da), 66, 139.
San Gallo (Giuliano da), 31, 43, 50.
San Lorenzo (façade of), 50-57.
San Lorenzo (sacristy of), 59.
San Lorenzo (library of), 60, 78.
San Lorenzo (chapel of the Medici), 76-78.
Santa Maria degli Angeli, 120, 122.
San Miniato (defense of), 66-67, 70.
Sansovino (Jacopo), 22, 50, 112.
Sansovino (Andrea del Monte), 7, 50.
Sarto (Andrea del), 22.
Satyr (laughing), 8.
Savonarola, 8-14.
Schongauer (Martin), 4, 5.
Sebastiano del Piombo, 58, 70, 87, 111, 128, 134, 150.
Serlio (Sebastiano), 66.
Signorelli, 14, 23.
Sistine chapel (ceiling of), 36-42.
Slaves, 47, 49.
Soderini, 16, 19.
Sodoma, 23.
Strozzi (Roberto), 47, 134.
T
Tasso (Bernardo), 82.
Temptation of St. Anthony, 4.
Tintoretto, 151, 165.
Torrigiani, 7.
Tribolo, 78, 165.
Tromboncino, 86.
U
Urbano (Pietro), 58, 131.
Urbino, 103, 132, 133.
V
Valori (Baccio), 71, 75.
Varchi, 68, 86, 128.
Varj (Metello), 49, 58.
Vasari, 20, 78, 101, 111, 128, 139, 140, 153.
Venusti (Marcello), 100.
Veronese, 99.
Verrocchio, 3.
Victory, 138, 140.
Vignole, 128.
Vinci (Lionardo da), 18-22, 24.
Virgin of Manchester, 11.
Vitruvius, 77.
Volterra (Daniele da), 100, 128, 136, 140, 158.
W
War with Pisa (Cartoon), 18-23.
Z
Zucchero, 153, 159.
THE END
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Condivi
[2] Drawings in the Louvre from the frescoes of Santa Croce.
[3] Munich. Drawings from the frescoes of the Carmine.
[4] In the collection of the Medici a St. Jerome by Van Eyck was valued
at forty ducats, the Giottos and Fra Angelicos at only ten ducats. The
Flemings were no less appreciated at Urbino where Justus of Ghent had
painted, whose frescoes were copied by Raphael when he was a child, and
at Rome where Jan Ruysch, twenty years later, was to work on the Stanze,
and throughout the kingdom of Naples--not to mention the great
collection of Flemish pictures in the north of Italy, like those of
Cardinal Grimani at Venice, and of Cardinal Bembo at Padua.
[5] Michelangelo was to receive six florins the first year, eight the
second and ten the third.
[6] "On the 10th of May, 1508," as he wrote at a later time, "I
Michelangelo, _sculptor_, began to work on the paintings of the Sistine
Chapel."
[7] He had for his companions at Bertoldo's, Granacci, the sculptors
Rustici, Baccio di Monte Lupo and Andrea del Monte-Sansovino, the
painters Niccolo Soggi, Lorenzo di Credi, Giuliano Bugiardini and the
brutal Torrigiano dei Torrigiani, whose blow left its mark on
Michelangelo's face for life.
[8] At first in the Strozzi Palace, then bought in 1529 by Francis I and
placed at Fontainebleau, it disappeared in the seventeenth century.
[9] I find it impossible to recognise, as Thode does, an allusion to the
death of Savonarola in a letter of 1508, when Michelangelo, hearing that
his father had been slandered by his brother, writes, "I have not
received worse news in ten years." Nothing justifies us in believing
that Michelangelo is not merely alluding to other family difficulties.
[10] Sermons on Amos and Zachariah.
[11] See the "Dialogues de la Peinture" of Francis of Holland, who
relates the conversations between Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna in
Rome in 1538-39.
[12] Beethoven wrote in the same way to Bettina Brentano in 1810: "most
men are moved by beauty, but that is not the nature of artists. Artists
are fashioned of fire--they do not weep."
[13] Francis of Holland _ibid._
[14] _Ibid._ The passage applies to Flemish painting in general.
[15] "Do you know," said Michelangelo to Condivi, "that chaste women
remain much more fresh than those who are not chaste. How much more,
therefore, must this be true of the Virgin who never entertained the
least immodest thought which might have troubled her body. I would put
this even more strongly. I believe that this freshness and flower of
youth which she received in a natural manner was preserved for her in a
supernatural one, so that the virginity and the eternal purity of the
Mother of God could be demonstrated to the world. Such a miracle was not
necessary for the Son. Quite the contrary, for if it had to be shown
that the Son of God was made incarnate in man and that he had suffered
all that men suffer except sin, it was not necessary to make the human
disappear behind the divine, but it was better rather to let the human
follow its nature in such a way that he should appear to have the age
that he really had. Do not be surprised, therefore, if for these reasons
I have represented the Very Holy Virgin, the Mother of God, much younger
than her years would require and if I have given the Son his real age."
[16] Contract of August 26, 1498, with the French Cardinal, Jean de
Groslaye de Villiers, Abbot of S. Denis, Ambassador of Charles VIII, who
had ordered it for the chapel of the kings of France (Chapel of S.
Petronille) at St. Peter's.
[17] This David was placed in the centre of the court of the Château de
Bury and moved in the sixteenth century to the Château de Villeroy near
Mennecy from where it afterward disappeared. The figure was life-size,
with the head of Goliath at its feet; a pen-and-ink sketch in the Louvre
is all that is left of it.
[18] Carducho saw some fragments in 1633 in the possession of the
Viceroy of Naples. Marc-Antonio engraved in 1510 the celebrated episode
of the bathers, using for a background a landscape of Lucas van Leyden.
Agostino Veneziano made another engraving of it in 1523-24. Aristotele
da San Gallo made a drawing of the whole composition and in 1542 made
from the drawing an oil-painting (Holkham Castle, England). There exist
many fragmentary studies of the work in the Albertina Collection at
Vienna, the Accademia at Venice, the Louvre and Oxford University. They
can be put together by following a drawing of Daniele da Volterra in the
Uffizi. The battle included, besides the episode of the bathers, a
cavalry combat. "Si vedono infiniti combattendo di cavallo cominciare la
zuffa," says Vasari. The moment chosen was the one when a trumpet call
gave the alarm to the Florentines, surprised while bathing by the
Pisans.
[19] Especially from the notes where Lionardo described a battle in his
"Thatteto della Pittura," II, 145, a combination of photographic
exactness and academic rationalism.
[20] Never had so many nudes been seen in one composition except in the
Last Judgment at Orvieto. Michelangelo pushed so far his contempt not
only for any psychological analysis, but for all dramatic probability,
that he introduced into the midst of the composition a naked man lying
down and turning over lazily without seeming to take any notice of the
tumult around him. It was a classic bas-relief radiant with heroic
beauty and regardless alike of subject and feeling.
[21] Frescoes of Pinturicchio in the library of the Cathedral at Sienna,
finished in 1507.
[22] Frescoes of Signorelli in the chapel of the Cathedral of Orvieto,
finished in December, 1504. It is well known with what brutality
Michelangelo showed on many occasions his contempt for Signorelli and
for Perugino.
[23] At the end of a memorial in which he went over the whole history of
the monument of Julius II in order to clear himself from blame. (Lettere
di M. A.B., Ed. G. Milanesi, Florence, 1875, cdxxxv, p. 494.)
[24] Thode confirms this opinion, which was also held by Serlio in the
sixteenth century, in regard to the construction of St. Peter's.
[25] In 1519 we find traces of new correspondence between Michelangelo
and Turkey. A certain Tommaso di Tolfo of Adrianople begs him to come to
Turkey and to paint some pictures for the "Seigneur of Adrianople, who
is a connoisseur in art and has bought an antique."
[26] The statue was seven brasses (11.34 metres) high and the Pope was
represented as seated.
[27] The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is rectangular in form, measuring
forty metres in length by thirteen in width.
I. On the level part of the vault are nine scenes from Genesis; the
Eternal dividing light from darkness, the Eternal creating the sun and
moon, the Eternal dividing the waters, the Creation of man, the Creation
of woman, the Temptation, Cain and Abel, the Deluge, and the Drunkenness
of Noah.
II. In every angle of the imaginary frame surrounding these nine scenes
is a naked figure seated on a pedestal, twenty in all. Vasari calls
these the "Ignudi." Between them, and below each one of the five scenes
from Genesis, is a small medallion the colour of bronze.
III. At the springing of the arches of the vault, in the twelve
pendentives, twelve prophets and sibyls are seated between pilasters
crowned by naked children who act as caryatids and are each accompanied
by two little geniuses. The figures are Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joel,
Zachariah, Isaiah, Daniel, Jonah, the Persian, Erythræan, Cumæan,
Delphian, and Libyan Sibyls.
IV. Between the prophets and sibyls, in the space above the twelve
arched windows, are the precursors and ancestors of Christ, groups of
two or three persons divided into two sections by an archivolt in the
midst of which are written on tablets the names of the precursors. Above
these triangles, on the ribs, are naked youths. Between the triangles
and under the thrones of the prophets and sibyls, whose names they carry
on tablets, are children's figures.
V. In the four pendentives formed by the angles of the ceiling are
David, Conqueror of Goliath; Judith and Holofernes; the Brazen Serpent,
and the Hanging of Haman.
[28] Letter to his father, January 27, 1509.
[29] Michelangelo abandoned painting for almost twenty years and did not
take it up again until 1529.
[30] "I did not want them to charge me with the 3,000 crowns which I had
already received, for I showed that they owed me much more than that.
But Aginensis said to me that I was a cheat." (Letter of Michelangelo,
1524.)
[31] Twenty-six feet three inches.
[32] Contratti, 635 ff.
[33] The two Slaves were given in 1544 by Michelangelo to Robert
Strozzi, who was at that time banished from Florence and had taken
refuge in France. They finally reached the Constable de Montmorency's
Château of Ecouen, and Henri de Montmorency when he died in 1632 gave
them to Cardinal de Richelieu. From the Château de Richelieu they were
moved in the seventeenth century to the gardens of the Maréchal de
Richelieu in Paris. It is thanks to Lenoir that they were preserved to
France in 1793.
[34] Condivi wrote that according to Michelangelo the statues of the
bound men which were to be placed against the pilasters of the lower
part of the tomb "represented the liberal arts, painting, sculpture and
architecture each with its characteristic attributes, in such a way that
they could be easily recognised. At the same time they expressed the
idea that all the virtues were prisoners of death with Pope Julius and
that they would never find anyone to encourage them and to support them
as he had done."
Some sketches at Oxford show a number of these prisoners struggling
against their chains. The large statues of the upper story were to
personify St. Paul, Moses, Adam, Life and Contemplation; Julius II was
represented asleep on an open sarcophagus which was supported by two
angels, "one smiling to express the joy of heaven, and the other weeping
to represent the sorrow of earth."
A large pen-and-ink drawing in the Ufizzi partly shows the architecture
of the monument--that Charles Garnier called the architecture of a
goldsmith--and which is indeed a frame to group the sculptured figures
together as well as possible. I would like to believe that this drawing
refers not to the plan of 1513, but to the simplified plan of 1516.
[35] Cardinal Giulio Medici, future Clement VII.
[36] A brasse is 1.62 metres.
[37] Appeal of the Academicians of Florence to Leo X, signed by
Michelangelo. (Gotti, Vol. II, p. 84.)
[38] Michelangelo ended his work in April, 1520. The Christ was sent to
Rome in March, 1521. Pietro Urbano worked at it from June until the
middle of August when he suddenly left Rome.
Sebastiano del Piombo writes to Michelangelo in September, 1521: "Pietro
Urbano has mutilated everything. In particular he has shortened the
right foot and you can see clearly that he has cut off the toes: he has
even shortened the fingers, especially those of the right hand which
held the cross. Frizzi says that they look as if they had been made by a
'baker.' That hand does not even look like marble; you would think it
had been made by a pastry cook, so stiff are the fingers. You can see,
too, that he has worked at the beard and you would think he had modelled
it with a blunt knife. He has also mutilated one of the nostrils, and
almost spoilt the nose."
Michelangelo had to commission the sculptor, Federigo Frizzi, to finish
the work. With his customary honesty he offered to make an entirely new
statue for Metello Varj, who had ordered the work from him, but Varj
declined. Michelangelo was so ashamed of the Christ of the Minerva that
when the statue was unveiled in December, 1521, Lionardo Sellajo, one of
his friends in Rome, took great care that everyone should know that it
was not by Michelangelo, but that he had simply retouched it.
[39] After the death of Leo X on December 1, 1521, and during all the
pontificate of Adrian VI, who died on September 23, 1523, Cardinal
Giulio de' Medici had put a "mute" on all his undertakings. It is
probable that during that year's respite (1522-23) Michelangelo was able
to take up again the tomb of Julius II, and that he worked at the
admirable Victory of the Bargello and at the scarcely blocked-in figures
of the Boboli Grotto.
[40] Fifty crowns. Michelangelo only asked for fifteen.
[41] He was fifty years old. In 1517, when he was forty-two, in a letter
to Domenico Buoninsegni he called himself "old." In 1523 in a letter to
Cardinal Domenico Grimani, he emphasised the lessening of his strength
through age. "If I work a day," he says, "I must rest for four."
[42] Thode pretends that Michelangelo did not take this seriously and
that the letter which follows is "ironisch und humorvolle." Full of
humor, yes, but I do not think it ironical. If there is any trace of
irony it is rather on the side of the pope, who might have been making
fun of Michelangelo's naiveté and of his well-known tendency to grow
enthusiastic over any new undertaking, particularly the most fantastic
ones. In fact after frequent exchanges of letters in October and
November, 1525, Fattucci, a friend of Michelangelo, warned him secretly
in December that "the Colossus was only a joke." Michelangelo had not
suspected any malice in this scheme and had already pictured in his mind
the bizarre Colossus to which he gave a frankly popular character,
monstrous and comic, like one of Aristo's giants.
[43] The block of marble abandoned by Michelangelo was taken a little
while afterward by his jealous rival, Bandinelli, who made from it a
Hercules and Cacus which to-day still stands on the Piazza della
Signoria.
[44] Until then Michelangelo had given his services gratuitously to his
country.
[45] It was for him that Michelangelo some time after this made his
painting of Leda, but he never sent it to him because of some
discourtesy on the part of the Ferrarese ambassador.
[46] Michelangelo does not name him, undoubtedly so as not to compromise
him.
[47] In entering the chapel of S. Lorenzo the tomb of Giuliano, Duke of
Nemours, (Action) is on the right; and on the left that of Lorenzo, Duke
of Urbino (the Thinker); and opposite the altar, the Virgin nursing the
Child. Each of the two captains is placed in a rectangular niche flanked
by two other niches which are empty. Below each of them on the fluted
cover of a sarcophagus arc two allegorical figures half reclining (Day
and Night--Dawn and Twilight) with their backs turned. The sarcophagi
are designedly much too small; there is hardly room for the figures on
them. No doubt Michelangelo wished to emphasise the impression of heroic
and agonising effort produced by the sight of these athletic forms
turned back upon themselves in involved and constrained portions. The
two tombs were finished in 1531. We know the admirable verses which
Michelangelo wrote on his figure of Night and which undoubtedly date
from a dozen years later, March, 1544. See Frey CIX. pp, 16-17.
[48] At this same time by a savage and instinctive reaction of his
nature against the Christian pessimism by which it was stifled,
Michelangelo executed some works of daring paganism like the painting of
Leda caressed by the Swan (1529-1530) which, originally made for the
Duke of Ferrara, was given by Michelangelo to his pupil Antonio Mini,
who carried it to France, where it is said to have been destroyed about
1643 by Sublet des Noyers because of its licentiousness. A little later
Michelangelo painted for Bart. Bettini a cartoon of Venus caressed by
Love from which Pontormo made a picture now in the Uffizi. Other
drawings full of a grandiose and severe shamelessness are probably of
the same period. To the first months of the siege belongs also the
admirable unfinished statue of the Apollo of the Museo Nazionale which
he made for Baccio Valori in the autumn of 1530.
[49] In the plan of construction (a square crowned by a dome with fluted
pilasters and niches with pediments) Michelangelo was influenced by
Brunelleschi and Vitruvius, whom he was studying at that time. There was
very little ornamentation and the idea of the plan was clear, simple and
abstract. With Michelangelo, architecture is always a frame for his
statues. He even went so far as to write, in 1560, to Cardinal Carpi
that the divisions of architecture were the same as those of the human
frame, and no one who was not "un buon maestro di figure" and did not
understand anatomy could be an architect.
[50] He sent a model in 1559. It is from this model that Vasari executed
the much-criticised staircase of the Laurentian. In spite of faults it
shows the rugged genius of Michelangelo, who seemed to enjoy making
difficulties for himself. That breakneck staircase, conceived in such a
dry, hard and complicated way, but strong and violent, and which ever
seeks to accentuate the ascending lines, is certainly a product of the
same spirit which created the Medici tombs. Besides it is well to note
that the faults were emphasised by the manner in which Vasari carried it
out. Michelangelo had recommended that the staircase be made of wood,
but Cosmo held to the idea of building it in stone.
[51] See in the edition of Michelangelo's poems by Carl Frey, "Die
Dichtungen des Michelangelo Buonarroti," Berlin, 1897, the sonnets, CIX,
LXXVI, XLV, etc.
Vasari tells us that Michelangelo made a life-size drawing of Cavalieri,
the only portrait which he ever made, for he had a horror of copying a
living person unless they were of incomparable beauty.
He adds that he made him beautiful presents, "many astonishing drawings,
a Ganymede carried to Heaven by the eagle of Zeus, a Tityos with the
vulture feeding on his heart, the fall of Phaeton and the chariot of the
Sun into the Po, and a Bacchanale of children--all works of the rarest
beauty and of such perfection that their like has never been seen."
[52] From the monastery at Viterbo, July 20, 1542 or 1543. The letter
bears this address: "Al mio più che magnifico et più che carissimo M.
Michel Agnolo Buonarroti." (Carteggio de Vittoria Colonna. Published by
Ermanno Ferrero and Giuseppe Müller, Turin, 1892, pp. 268, 269.)
[53] Donate Giannotti, "De' giorni che Dante consumo nel cercare
l'Inferno e 'l Purgatorio. Dialoghi."
[54]
Were I but he, born for like lingering pains
Against his exile coupled with his good,
I'd gladly change the world's best heritage.
(Translation of J. A. Symonds.)
[55] Capitolo di Francesco Berni a fra Sebastiano del Piombo. (Rime. Ed.
Frey, p. 263.)
[56] Canzone in lode di Michelagnolo Bonarroto. (See Frey, p. 7.)
[57] A Frenchman who saw him at that time.
[58] Letters of Michelangelo to Fattucci, March 7, 1551.
[59] Rime. Ed. Frey, LXXXVIII, p. 93.
[60] _Ibid._, C and CL, pp. 105, 106.
[61] The work on the fortifications of Rome directed by Antonio da San
Gallo dates from his reign and also the construction of the Capitol, the
raising of the statue of Marcus Aurelius, the completion of the Farnese
Palace, the construction of the Via Paola, of the Sala Regia and the
Pauline Chapel at the Vatican, the Caffarelli and Spada palaces, the
Villa Medici, etc.
[62] As a matter of fact Michelangelo did not actually receive any
income from this source until 1538, and after many difficulties he lost
it in 1547.
[63] Later on the subject was treated after the sketches of Michelangelo
in the Chapel of S. Gregorio at Santa Trinità. (See Vasari.)
[64] Perugino had painted the Assumption with a portrait of Sextius IV
kneeling, Moses saved from the waters, and the Birth of Christ.
[65] Léon Dorez has found recently in the records of the private
accounts of Paul III the exact dates of the work, April-May, 1536, to
November 18, 1541.
[66] Thus Vittoria Colonna had herself described the Last Judgment to
Michelangelo: "Christ comes twice, the first time he is all gentleness;
he only shows his great kindness, his clemency and his pity; he comes
for the sinners and the sick, to give peace, light and forgiveness, all
glowing with charity, clothed in humanity.... The second time he comes
armed and shows his justice, his majesty, his grandeur and his almighty
power, and there is no longer any time for pity or room for pardon."
(Letter of Vittoria between 1535-1546, probably to Bernadino
Ochino,--Carteggio de Vittoria Colonna, p. 242.)
[67] We know that Michelangelo, to revenge himself, portrayed Biagio
from memory in the Hell of his Last Judgment under the form of Minos
with a huge serpent wound about his legs in the midst of a mountain of
devils. (Vasari.)
[68] We must not, however, imagine that Michelangelo any more than his
contemporaries had the courage to show openly to Aretino the contempt
which he must have felt for him. If he declined the offer of
collaboration in the Last Judgment which Aretino had baldly made him and
for which he had outlined a detailed program, it was only with many
compliments and much flattery. (Letter of September, 1537.) Even though
Aretino did not obtain from him the gift for which he asked, we find,
nevertheless, that he had received in September, 1535, through Vasari, a
head in wax and a sketch for a St. Catherine. But he did not consider
himself satisfied.
[69] The "Hypocrite," dedicated to Guidobaldo II, Duke of Urbino. (See
Pierre Gaultier, "L'Aretin," 1895.)
[70] Gherardo Perini and Tommaso dei Cavalieri--thus Aretino in passing
adds to the accusation of impiety an allusion to the evil reports about
the habits of Michelangelo. Two lines lower down he will accuse him of
theft.
[71] _In postscript:_ Now that I have a little discharged my anger
against the cruelty with which you have repaid my devotion, and have
made you see, I believe, that if you are "divino" I am not "d'acqua,"
tear up this letter as I do, and reflect. For I am a man to whom even
Kings and Emperors answer.
[72] Gaye Carteggio, Vol. II, p. 500.
[73] A. Baschet "P. Veronese devant le Saint Office," 1880.
[74] "Missirini: Memorie per servire alla storia della romana Accademia
di S. Luca." (Cited by E. Müntz, "Histoire de l'Art pendant la
Renaissance," Vol. III, p. 126.)
[75] In 1762 Stefano Pozzi was polishing it under Clement VIII. Abbé
Richard, in his "Voyage d'Italie," says that he saw "some very mediocre
artists occupied in covering with draperies the most beautiful nude
figures of the painting and of the ceiling."
[76] The only document which makes it possible for us to give an account
of the original work is a copy by Marcello Venusti in the Museum of
Naples, from which a painter of Orléans, Robert Le Noyer, seems to have
made in 1750 a reduced copy which is now in the Museum of Montpellier.
(See G. Lafenestre et E. Richtenberger, "La Peinture en Europe." Rome.)
[77] The British Museum and the University of Oxford have drawings which
are related to these frescoes. The Cartoon is in the Museum at Naples.
[78] March 6, 1542. (Gaye, Vol. II, p. 289.)
[79] July 20, 1542 (Petition of Michelangelo to Paul III), Michelangelo
added that the two figures were already so far advanced that they could
be easily completed by other artists. (Gaye, Vol. II, p. 297.)
[80] The fourteen hundred crowns had been deposited at the bank of
Silvestro da Montanto & Co. They were to be divided as follows: eight
hundred for the work of Urbino; five hundred and thirty for the statues
of Raffaello da Montelupo, whose Madonna was already finished; and fifty
for the transportation and placing of the statues by Urbino.
[81] October, 1542. Letter to an unknown person whom he calls
Monsignore.
[82] 18 November, 1542. Letter of Michelangelo to Luigi del Riccio.
[83]
Giovane e bella in sogno mi parea
Donna vedere andar per una landa
Cogliendo fiori; e cantando dicea:
Sappia, qualunque il mio nome domanda
Ch'io mi son Lia, e vo movendo intorno
Le belle mani a farmi una ghirlanda.
Per piacermi allo specchio qui m'adorno;
Ma mia suora Rachel mai non si smaga
Dal suo miraglio, e siede tutto giorno.
Ell' è de' suoi begli occhi veder vaga,
Com'io dell'adornami con la mani;
Lei lo vedere, e mi l'oprare appaga.
--(Purgatorio, XXVII.)
(Translation of C. E. Norton.)
[84] A Prophet and a Sibyl are by Raffaello da Montelupo, and the absurd
statue of the Pope by Maso Boscoli da Fiesole.
[85]
Now know I well how that fond phantasy
Which made my soul the worshipper and thrall
Of Earthly Art, is vain.
(Translation of J. A. Symonds.)
[86] July, 1557. Letter of Michelangelo to Lionardo Buonarroti.
[87] See Vasari. In October, 1546, Michelangelo with Jacopo Meleghino
was commissioned to direct the fortification of the Borgo. He was
undoubtedly subordinate to the orders of Pier Luigi Farnese, who was
replaced after his death in 1547 by Jacopo Pusto Castriotto d'Urbino.
Toward the end of 1547 they were at work on the bastion of the
Belvedere. (See Gotti.)
[88] Michelangelo wrote to the committee: "You know that I told
Balduccio not to send his lime unless it was good. He has sent bad lime
and won't admit that he can be forced to take it back, which proves that
he has an understanding with the person who accepted it. Such things
encourage the effrontery of those whom I have dismissed for similar
frauds. Whoever accepts bad materials or bribes corrupts justice. I beg
of you, in the name of the authority which I have received from the
pope, never more to accept anything which can not be used, even if it
came from Heaven. I do not want anyone to believe that I shut my eyes to
these irregularities."
[89] Vasari.
[90] Letter of Michelangelo to his nephew Lionardo, May 11, 1555.
[91] Particularly Cardinal Carpi, Tommaso dei Cavalieri, Donato
Giannotti, Francesco Bandini and Gio. Francesco Lottini.
[92] Letter of September 13, 1560.
[93] Vasari. See in the excellent work of Henry Thode, "Michelangelo und
das Ende der Renaissance," Vol. I, the detailed account of these
struggles of Michelangelo with the faction of San Gallo and Nanni di
Baccio Bigio.
[94] See Anatole de Montaiglon, "La Vie de Michel-Ange." ("L'OEuvre et la
Vie de Michel-Ange," p. 288.)
[95] H. de Geymueller, "Ursprüngliche Entwürfe zu S. Peter."
[96] The cupola of St. Peter's, like that of Florence, has two
concentric domes. It was to have had three according to Michelangelo's
model, but Guglielmo della Porta, who carried out the plans after his
death, left out the lower one.
[97] Michelangelo had also the rather unfortunate idea of flanking the
main cupola by four little domes (of which only two were made) instead
of the four towers which were to frame it in Bramante's plan.
Michelangelo did not have the happiness of seeing his work completed for
at his death the cupola was only finished as far as the drum. Guglielmo
della Porta finished the dome in a year.
[98] See "Michaelis, Zeitschrift für bildende kunst." 1891, Vol. III, p.
184 _et seq._; E. Müntz, "Histoire de l'art pendant la Renaissance,"
Vol. III, pp. 338-340. The palace of the Senate was built in 1546 to
1568, the two staircases in 1555. The façade of the Palazzo dei
Conservatori dates from after the death of Michelangelo; the campanile
is the work of Martino Lunghi, and dates from 1579. The groups of the
Dioscuri were installed in 1583. From 1592 to 1598 the façade of the
palace of the Senate was rebuilt and changed. The Capitoline Museum
dates from the seventeenth century under the pontificate of Innocent X.
We must be very careful not to blame Michelangelo for the faults of his
successors as Charles Garnier has done in a too severe article published
in "L'OEuvre et la Vie de Michel-Ange," in which he nevertheless
acknowledges that he was thinking of the Capitol when he built the
Loggia of the Opera House at Paris. He adds it is true that he had
"studied the proportions with great care and skill, and I can say
without blushing, with more talent."
[99] Michelangelo also made drawings for the other gates of Rome.
(Vasari.)
[100] Letters of Michelangelo to Vasari, August 1-October 13, 1550.
[101] Letter of Michelangelo to Cosmo, November, 1559.
[102] Letter of Michelangelo to Cosmo, November 1, 1559. The same,
November 1, 1559, and March 5, 1560.
[103] Michelangelo in the last period of his life, when he seemed
entirely devoted to architecture and poetry, had many other ambitious
plans, like that of continuing the arcade of the Loggia dei Lanzi around
the palace of the Signory at Florence, of connecting the Farnese palace
and the Farnesina by a bridge, of raising in the court of the Belvedere
a Moses striking water from the rock, etc. It was that taste for the
colossal, and what we might even dare to call the uselessly colossal,
which was handed down through his school as far as Bernini.
[104] In 1553. See Condivi. This is the famous Pietà of the cathedral of
Florence. Blaise de Vigenère in "Les Images de Philostrate," Paris,
1629, speaks of a Pietà on which Michelangelo was working in 1550 for
his own tomb.
[105] All his life he suffered from insomnia brought on by overwork, a
fever which continually consumed him and his ascetic sobriety.
[106] Two other unfinished Pietàs have been preserved. One is in the
court of the Rondanini palace in Rome, the other has just been found in
Palestrina.
[107] The figures are not on the same scale, especially the figure of
the Magdalen, which is too small. She is colder than the rest of the
group and more finished, and we may suspect that it was upon her figure
that Calcagni worked.
[108] Among these artists he knew particularly well Francesco Granacci,
Giuliano Bugiardini, Jacopo Sansovino, Aristotele da San Gallo, Rosso,
Pontormo, Guglielmo della Porta, Vignole, and the musician Archadelt.
[109] Correspondence between Sebastiano del Piombo and Michelangelo has
been published by Gaetano Milanesi with a French translation by A.
LePileur and an introduction by E. Müntz in the Bibl. Internationale de
l'Art (Librairie de l'Art, 1890).
[110] Donato Giannotti has, as we have said, preserved the memory of
these relations in his "Dialoghi," 1545. Michelangelo was particularly
intimate with Luigi del Riccio through their mutual friendship with the
beautiful Cecchino dei Bracci, whose premature death in 1544 inspired
Michelangelo with a cycle of verses.
[111] "La Vita di Michelangelo," by Ascanio Condivi, appeared in July,
1553, in Rome, published by Antonio Blado and dedicated to Julius III.
The first edition of Vasari's "Vite" had already appeared in 1551 and
Vasari had sent it to Michelangelo, who had thanked him in the sonnet
"Se con lo stile."
[112] See Benvenuto Cellini.
[113] Letter of Vasari to Cosmo de' Medici, April 8, 1560. See also the
affectionate letter of Michelangelo to Sebastiano del Piombo in May,
1555.
[114] Francesca married, in 1538, Michele de Niccolo Guicciardini.
Lionardo married, in 1553, Cassandra, the daughter of Donato Ridolfi.
[115] A few days before Michelangelo had lost his last brother,
Gismondo. See also his admirable letter to Vasari, February 23, 1556.
[116] Letter of Michelangelo to Cornelia, March 28, 1557. He quarrelled
with Cornelia in 1559, when she married again, and wanted to take the
charge of the children from her, but their friendship was re-established
in 1561.
[117] He justified these accusations by his almost sordid manner of
living and constant complaints of poverty, although he was really rich.
A Denunzia de' beni, in 1534, before he had received anything from Paul
III, showed that he owned a house and three estates in Settignano, a
property at St. Stephano de Pozzolatico, two farms and a house at
Stradello, a farm at Rovezzano, three houses in the Via Ghibellina, one
house in the Via Mozza, etc. The inventory made after his death in Rome
showed seven or eight hundred gold crowns (worth about four to five
thousand francs) and Vasari tells us that he had twice given his nephew
Lionardo seven thousand crowns, beside two thousand to Urbino and sums
invested at Florence.
[118]
Now hath my life across a stormy sea
Like a frail bark reached that wide port where all
Are bidden....
(J. A. Symonds' translation.)
[119] The Pietà Rondanini.
[120] Gotti, Vol. II, p. 358.
[121] Besides these there were in the atelier in Florence in the Via
Mozza a number of blocks of marble and the beautiful statue of Victory
intended for the tomb of Julius II, and which in 1565 was taken to the
Palazzo Vecchio. Also Antonio del Franzese, Michelangelo's servant, who
was with him at the time of his death, gave to the Duke of Urbino in
1570 a statuette of Moses which his master had given to him.
[122] Gaye, "Carteggio inedito d'artisti," 1839, Vol. III, p. 131.
[123] The Florentine Academy of Painters had just been founded in 1563,
and Michelangelo had been unanimously chosen as a president together
with Cosmo de' Medici, January 31, 1563.
[124] The Duke was not there, Cellini was ill and could not come and
Francesco da San Gallo did not appear.
[125] Daniele da Volterra had offered to make a sketch for the tomb with
his assistant, Jacopo del Duca, but Vasari's jealousy prevented it.
Daniele died April 4, 1566, after having made rough models for three
busts of Michelangelo which Jacopo del Duca or Michele Alberti finished
after him.
[126] See the detailed account of the obsequies; "Esequie del divino
Michelangelo," Florence, Giunti, 1564. Varchi wrote the "Orazione
funerale."
[127] Letter of October, 1509.
[128] Letter of March, 1548, to Lionardo Buonarroto.
[129] Condivi.
[130] See the _Lezione_ of Benedetto Varchi on the sonnet of
Michelangelo, "Non ha l'ottimo Artista...."
[131]
I saw no mortal beauty with these eyes
When perfect peace in thy fair eyes I found;
But far within, where all is holy ground,
My soul felt love, her comrade of the skies;
For she was born with God in Paradise;
Else should we still to transient love be bound;
But, finding these so false, we pass beyond,
Unto the Love of loves that never dies.
(Translation of J. A. Symonds.)
[132] "_Tutti i componimenti di lui pieni d'amore Socratico, e di
concetti Platonici._"
[133] Xenophon, Memor, Vol. III, p. 10.
[134] He adds: "He who wrote that painting was nobler than sculpture, if
that idea is a sample of his intelligence, then my servant knows more
than he does."
This seems to be directed at Lionardo. See the first chapter of
"Trattato della Pittura."
[135]
The best of artists hath no thought to show
Which the rough stone in its superfluous shell
Doth not include; to break the marble spell
Is all the hand that serves the brain can do.
(Translation of J. A. Symonds.)
[136] If it is true that Michelangelo attacked the marble with the
greatest fury, it was only after he had prepared his drawings and his
models with the most minute care. Cellini in his "Trattati dell'
oreficeria" (Florence, 1557) says that for the statues in the Sacristy
of S. Lorenzo he saw him first make models of the same height as the
statue was to be and then draw with charcoal on the marble the general
appearance of his figure. Vasari says almost the same thing in regard to
the four statues of Captives sketched in the block and not yet cut from
it.
[137] The science of design or drawing, said Michelangelo, according to
the Dialogues of Francis of Holland, is the source and the essence of
painting, of sculpture, of architecture and of all kinds of
representation as well as the soul of all the sciences (Third Part of
the "Dialogues sur la Peinture dans la Ville de Rome"). "Sculpture,"
says Francis of Holland, "is clearly bound to drawing; it comes out of
it and at bottom is nothing more than the drawing itself. The great
draughtsman, Michelangelo, said to me many times that he regarded it as
a greater thing to make a masterly stroke with the pen than with the
chisel." (_Ibid._, Second Part.)
[138]
Sense is not love, but lawlessness accursed;
This kills the soul....
(Translation of J. A. Symonds.)
[139] "Or for sluggards like Sebastiano del Piombo." He had a quarrel
because of this remark with Sebastiano, who tried to persuade him to
paint the Last Judgment in oils.
[140] "Aborriva il fare somigliare al vivo" (Vasari).--"Michelangelo
never would paint a portrait."--(Journal de Bernin, Gazette des Beaux
Arts, Vol. XVII, p. 358.) "His rule," says Vasari, "was never to make
any likeness of a living person unless he was of transcendent beauty."
[141] "Flemish painting generally is more pleasing to the devout than
Italian painting."
[142] Francis of Holland, "Quatre Entretiens sur la Peinture," held in
Rome in 1538-1539, written in 1548, published by Joachim de Vasconcellos
(translation into French in "Les Arts en Portugal," by Comte Raczynski,
Paris, Renouard, 1844). To prove the theory of Michelangelo, Vittoria
Colonna, who presided over this talk, undertook the defense of the
religious and consolatory art of the North.
[143] We find the same ideas, more exuberant and more confused, in the
writings of Lomazzo, "Idea del Tempio della Pittura" (1590).
[144] Idea del Tempio, etc.
[145] Lomazzo became blind when he was twenty-three, but that did not
prevent him from judging of painters and their works until his death
when over sixty.
[146] Perino del Vaga made this declaration when he refused to undertake
the drawings for the jewel-box of Cosmo de Medici, when he found that
they had addressed themselves first to Michelangelo. (Jay, "Receuil de
Lettres sur la Peinture." Claude Tolomei à Apoll. Philarète.)
[147] Luigi Lanzi; "Storia Pittorica d'Italia, Bassano, 1795-96," Vol.
I, p. 167.
[148] Tintoretto himself, under the influence of Michelangelo, says:
"The most beautiful colours are black and white because they give relief
to figures by light and shade," and at the end of his life, abandoning
the principles of the Venetian School, he gives the preference to
drawing, "Draw, draw now and always."
[149] Daniele da Volterra was also more a sculptor than a painter, and
ended by giving himself up to sculpture. He made casts of the statues of
the Medici and also some statues of his own. Some of his pictures, like
the David and Goliath in the Louvre, which is painted on both sides, are
only two faces of one of his statues. Rosso and Salviati were also
sculptors.
[150] The verses of Giovanni Strozzi (1545) are well known:
La Notte, che tu vedi in si dolci atti
Dormir, fu da un Angelo scolpita
In questo sasso, e perche dorme, ha vita.
Destala, se nol credi, e parleratti.
The night which you see sleeping so peacefully was carved by an angel in
this rock. Since she sleeps, she lives. If you do not believe it awake
her and she will speak to you.
[151] The same thing is true of Girolamo Muziano of Brescia. Even the
School of Milan was affected. Lomazzo makes of Michelangelo the ruler of
all painting. The imitation of Michelangelo spread especially in
sculpture, and there the decadence was dizzying.
[152] "Journal du Voyage du Cavalier Bernin en France," par M. de
Chantelou. ("Gazette des Beaux Arts," Vol. XXIX, p. 453.)
[153] _Ibid._, Vol. XXI, p. 383.
[154] Ed. Frey, XLIX.
Michelangelo said one day to Ammanati, "Nelle mie opere caco sangue."
Varchi said to him one day, "Signor Buonarroti, avete il cervello di
Giove." Michelangelo answered, "Si vuole il martello di Vulcano per
farne uscire qualche cosa." (Quoted by E. Delacroix in his Journal, Vol.
II, p. 429.)
[155] Michelangelo said to Cardinal Salviati, who was ministering to him
on his death-bed, that he only regretted two things: not to have done
all he should have for his salvation, and to be dying just as he was
learning the alphabet of his profession. (Journal de Bernin, Vol. XXI,
p. 388.)
[156] Vasari, "Vite," Preamble to the Third Part.
Lionardo spent six years in painting some hair, but Corregio only an
hour, and with four strokes of his brush gained just the same effect.
(Journal de Bernin, Vol. XX, p. 453.)
[157] He went so far as to canonise himself while he was still alive,
after a vision in which he saw a miraculous aureole around his own head.
Nothing shows more surely the gulf which separated Michelangelo from his
disciples than the comparison of his sombre poetry with the proudly
exultant sonnet which serves as preamble to the memoirs of Cellini.
[158] See what Vasari writes of the revolution of Giorgione in 1507 when
Giorgione began to "pose before him living and natural things, to
represent them as nearly as he could by painting directly with colour
without making any drawing." He adds that Giorgione did not perceive
that it is necessary, if you wish to arrange and balance a composition,
to put it first on paper. "In fact the mind can not very well see or
perfectly imagine its own creations, if it does not reveal and explain
its thought to the eyes of the body which will aid it in judging--we
must add that in drawing on paper one succeeds in filling the mind with
beautiful conceptions and learns to make natural objects from memory
without being obliged to have them always before you." (Vasari, Ed.
1811, Vol. III, pp. 427-428.) The whole point of view of Florentine art
of the sixteenth century is in this naïve avowal.
[159] Tintoretto had long studied Michelangelo. He had brought to him at
great expense casts of his statues which Ridolfo says he lighted by a
lamp and drew in bold relief. (Ridolfo; "Delle maraviglie dell' arte in
Venetia," 1648.)
[160] This fever attacked the art of other countries which were filled
with caricatures of Michelangelo, Maarten van Heemskerck, "the Dutch
Michelangelo," Frans Floris, "the Flemish Michelangelo," and their
innumerable followers, not to mention the French and Spanish imitators,
the Fréminets and the Cespedès.
The following have been corrected (note of ebook transcriber):
insteading=>instead
Pollojuolo=>Pollajuolo
Muller=>Müller
Raffaelle, Raffaelli=>Raffaello da Montelupo
Baif=>Baïf
Rafaellino=>Raffaellino
cecrare=>cercare