Who has ever stood in Florence, and been warmed by her sunlight,
refreshed by her fragrant flowers, and ennobled by her divine art,
without saying with the poet Rogers,--
"Of all the fairest cities of the earth,
None is so fair as Florence. 'Tis a gem
Of purest ray; and what a light broke forth
When it emerged from darkness! Search within,
Without, all is enchantment! 'Tis the Past
Contending with the Present; and in turn
Each has the mastery."
Pitiful in her struggles for freedom, the very centre of art and
learning in the fifteenth century, she has to-day a charm peculiarly her
own.
"Other though not many cities have histories as noble, treasures as
vast; but no other city has them living, and ever present in her midst,
familiar as household words, and touched by every baby's hand and
peasant's step, as Florence has.
"Every line, every road, every gable, every tower, has some story of the
past present in it. Every tocsin that sounds is a chronicle; every
bridge that unites the two banks of the river, unites also the crowds
of the living with the heroism of the dead.
"The beauty of the past goes with you at every step in Florence. Buy
eggs in the market, and you buy them where Donatello bought those which
fell down in a broken heap before the wonder of the crucifix. Pause in a
narrow by-street in a crowd, and it shall be that Borgo Allegri, which
the people so baptized for love of the old painter and the new-born art.
Stray into a great dark church at evening time, where peasants tell
their beads in the vast marble silence, and you are where the whole city
flocked, weeping, at midnight, to look their last upon the dead face of
their Michael Angelo. Buy a knot of March anemones or April arum lilies,
and you may bear them with you through the same city ward in which the
child Ghirlandaio once played amidst the gold and silver garlands that
his father fashioned for the young heads of the Renaissance. Ask for a
shoemaker, and you shall find the cobbler sitting with his board in the
same old twisting, shadowy street-way where the old man Toscanelli drew
his charts that served a fair-haired sailor of Genoa, called Columbus."
Florence, Shelley's "Smokeless City," was the ardently loved home of
Michael Angelo. He was born March 6, 1475, or, according to some
authorities, 1474, the Florentines reckoning time from the incarnation
of Christ, instead of his birth.
Lodovico Buonarotti, the father of Michael Angelo, had been appointed
governor of Caprese and Chiusi, and had moved from Florence to the
Castle of Caprese, where this boy, his second child, was born. The
mother, Francesca, was, like her husband, of noble family, and but
little more than half his age, being nineteen and he thirty-one.
After two years they returned to Florence, leaving the child at
Settignano, three miles from the city, on an estate of the Buonarottis'.
He was intrusted to the care of a stone-mason's wife, as nurse. Living
among the quarrymen and sculptors of this picturesque region, he began
to draw as soon as he could use his hands. He took delight in the work
of the masons, and they in turn loved the bright, active child. On the
walls of the stone-mason's house he made charcoal sketches, which were
doubtless praised by the foster-parents.
Lodovico, who was quite too proud for manual labor, designed that his
son should become a dealer in silks and woollens, as probably he would
thus amass wealth. With such a project in mind, he was certainly unwise
to place the child in the exhilarating air of the mountains, where
nature would be almost sure to win him away from the counting-room.
When the boy was old enough he was sent by his father to a grammar
school in Florence, kept by Francesco of Urbino, a noted grammarian. He
made little progress in his studies, for nearly all of his time was
spent in drawing and in visiting the _ateliers_ of the different artists
of the city. Vasari says he was beaten by his father and other elders;
but the beatings did no good,--indeed, they probably made the quiet,
self-poised lad more indifferent to trade and more devoted to art.
Fortunately, in these early years, as has so often happened to men of
genius, Michael Angelo found a congenial friend, Francesco Granacci, a
talented youth of good family, lovable in nature, and a student in art.
He was a pupil of one of the best painters in Italy, Domenico
Ghirlandaio. He loaned drawings to Michael Angelo, and made the boy of
fourteen more anxious than ever to be an artist.
Lodovico at last saw that a lad so absorbed in art would probably be a
failure in silk and wool, and placed him in the studio of Ghirlandaio,
with the promise of his receiving six gold florins the first year, eight
the second, and ten the third.
Granacci, who was nineteen, and Michael Angelo now worked happily
together. The master had undertaken to paint the choir of the Church of
Santa Maria Novella, and thus the boys were brought into important work.
One day, when the painters were absent, Michael Angelo drew the
scaffolding, with all who worked on it, so perfectly that Ghirlandaio
exclaimed, when he saw it: "This youth understands more than I do
myself." He also corrected one of the master's drawings, the draped form
of a woman. Sixty years afterwards, when this sketch was shown to
Michael Angelo, he said, "I almost think that I knew more art in my
youth than I do in my old age."
The young artist now painted his first picture, a plate of Martin
Schoengauer's of Germany, representing St. Anthony tormented by devils.
One pulls his hair, one his garments, one seizes the book hanging from
his girdle, one snatches a stick from his hand, while others pinch, and
tease, and roll over him. Claws, scales, horns, and the like, all help
to make up these monsters. Michael Angelo went to the fish-market, and
carefully studied the eyes and scales of the fish, with their colors,
and painted such a picture that it was mistaken for the original.
After a year spent with Ghirlandaio, the master seems to have become
envious, and the three-years' contract was mutually broken, through a
fortunate opening for Michael Angelo. Cosmo de' Medici, "Pater Patriae,"
had collected ancient and modern sculptures and paintings, and these art
treasures were enriched by his grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent, who
opened them to students, with prizes for the best work. He founded an
academy and placed it under the charge of Bertoldo, the favorite
disciple of Donatello.
Lorenzo made himself the idol of the people by his generosity,
consideration, and unquestioned ability to lead. He arranged public
festivities, and wrote verses to be sung by girls as they danced in the
public square, in the month of May. All the young people knew and loved
him.
On one of these festive occasions, when the triumphal procession of
Paulus AEmilius was being represented, Granacci found an opportunity of
winning Lorenzo's favor, and thereby gained access to the art treasures.
At once he thought of his friend, and Michael Angelo was soon studying
the marbles and pictures of the great Medici.
The boy of fifteen quickly made friends with the stone-masons, and,
getting from them a piece of marble, began to copy the antique masque of
a faun. However, his work was not like the original, but the mouth was
open so that the teeth were visible. When Lorenzo came among the pupils
he observed the masque and praised it, but said to the boy, "You have
made your faun so old, and yet you have left him all his teeth; you
should have known that at such an advanced age there are generally some
wanting."
At once Michael Angelo broke out a tooth, filling the gum as though it
had dropped out. When Lorenzo came again he was delighted, and told the
boy to send for his father. Lodovico came reluctantly, for he was not
yet reconciled to the choice of "art and poverty" which his son had
made.
Lorenzo received him cordially and asked his occupation. "I have never
followed any business," was the reply; "but I live upon the small income
of the possessions left me by my ancestors. These I endeavor to keep in
order, and, so far as I can, to improve them."
"Well," said Lorenzo, "look around you; and, if I can do anything for
you, only apply to me. Whatever is in my power shall be done."
Lodovico received a vacant post in the customhouse, and Michael Angelo
was taken into the Medici palace and treated as a son. For three years
he lived in this regal home, meeting all the great and learned men of
Italy: Politian, the poet and philosopher; Ficino, the head of the
Platonic Academy; Pico della Mirandola, the prince and scholar, and many
others.
Who can estimate such influence over a youth? Who can measure the good
that Lorenzo de' Medici was doing for the world unwittingly? To develop
a grand man from a boy, is more than to carve a statue from the marble.
Michael Angelo was now of middle height, with dark hair, small gray
eyes, and of delicate appearance, but he became robust as he grew older.
Politian was the tutor of the two Medici youths, Giovanni and Giulio,
who afterwards became Leo X. and Clement VII. He encouraged Michael
Angelo, when eighteen, to make a marble bas-relief of the battle of
Hercules with the Centaurs. This is still preserved in the Buonarotti
family, as the sculptor would never part with it. The head of the faun
is in the Uffizi gallery.
Michael Angelo now executed a Madonna in bronze, and copied the
wonderful frescos of Masaccio in the Brancacci Chapel of Santa Maria del
Carmine (usually called the Carmine Chapel), the same which inspired
Fra Angelico, Raphael, and Andrea del Sarto. "The importance of these
frescos arises from the fact that they hold the same place in the
history of art during the fifteenth century as the works of Giotto, in
the Arena Chapel at Padua, hold during the fourteenth. Each series forms
an epoch in painting, from which may be dated one of those great and
sudden onward steps which have in various ages and countries marked the
development of art. The history of Italian painting is divided into
three distinct and well-defined periods, by the Arena and Brancacci
Chapels, and the frescos of Michael Angelo and Raphael in the Vatican."
While Michael Angelo was copying these paintings of Masaccio, he took no
holidays, and gave the hours of night to his labors. Ambition made work
a delight. He studied anatomy like a devotee. Dead bodies were conveyed
from the hospital to a cell in the convent of Santo Spirito, the artist
rewarding the prior by a crucifix almost as large as life, which he
carved from wood.
The youth could but know his superiority to others, and was not always
wise enough to conceal his contempt for mediocrity, or for the young men
who played at life. One of his fellow-students, Torrigiani, grew so
angry at him, probably from some slighting remark, that he struck him
with his fist, disfiguring his face for life. Michael Angelo is said to
have merely replied to this brutal assault, "You will be remembered only
as the man who broke my nose." Torrigiani was at once banished, and
died miserably in the Spanish Inquisition.
In April, 1492, Lorenzo the Magnificent died, in the very prime of his
life. Michael Angelo was so overcome that for a long time he was unable
to collect his thoughts for work. The self-reliant young man, cold
outwardly, had a warm and generous heart.
He went home to the Buonarotti mansion, opened a studio, purchased a
piece of marble and made a Hercules four feet in height. It stood for
many years in the Strozzi Palace in Florence, was sold to France, and is
now lost.
Piero de' Medici succeeded to his father Lorenzo, who is said to have
remarked that "he had three sons: the first good, the second clever, the
third a fool. The good one was Giuliano, thirteen years old at the death
of his father; the clever one was Giovanni, seventeen years old, but a
cardinal already by favor of the pope, whose son had married a daughter
of Lorenzo's; and the fool was Piero."
In January, 1494, an unusual storm occurred in Florence, and the snow
lay from four to six feet deep. Piero, with childish enthusiasm, sent
for Michael Angelo and bade him form a statue of snow in the courtyard
of the palace. The Medici was so pleased with the result that he brought
the artist to sit at his own table, and to live in the same rooms
assigned to him by Lorenzo his father.
Piero is said, however, to have valued equally with the sculptor a
Spaniard who served in his stables, because he could outrun a horse at
full gallop.
Piero was proud, without the virtues of his father, and soon alienated
the affections of the Florentines. Savonarola, the Dominican monk of San
Marco, was preaching against the luxuries and vices of the age. So
popular was he, says Burlamacchi, that "the people got up in the middle
of the night to get places for the sermon, and came to the door of the
cathedral, waiting outside till it should be opened, making no account
of any inconvenience, neither of the cold, nor the mud, nor of standing
in winter with their feet on the marble; and among them were young and
old, women and children, of every sort, who came with such jubilee and
rejoicing that it was bewildering to hear them, going to the sermon as
to a wedding.
"Then the silence was great in the church, each one going to his place;
and he who could read, with a taper in his hand, read the service and
other prayers. And though many thousand people were thus collected
together, no sound was to be heard, not even a 'hush,' until the arrival
of the children who sang hymns with so much sweetness that heaven seemed
to have opened. Thus they waited three or four hours till the _padre_
entered the pulpit, and the attention of so great a mass of people, all
with eyes and ears intent upon the preacher, was wonderful; they
listened so that when the sermon reached its end it seemed to them that
it had scarcely begun."
Piero's weakness and Savonarola's power soon bore fruit. Michael Angelo
foresaw the fall of the Medici, and, unwilling to fight for a ruler whom
he could not respect, fled to Venice. But his scanty supply of money was
soon exhausted, and he returned to Bologna, on his way back to Florence.
At Bologna, the law required that every foreigner entering the gates
should have a seal of red wax on his thumb, showing permission. This
Michael Angelo and his friends neglected to obtain, and were at once
arrested and fined. They would have been imprisoned save that
Aldovrandi, a member of the council, and of a distinguished family, set
them free, and invited the sculptor to his own house, where he remained
for a year. Together they read Dante and Petrarch, and the magistrate
soon became ardently attached to the bright youth of nineteen.
In the Church of San Petronio are the bones of St. Domenico in a marble
coffin; on the sarcophagus two kneeling figures were to be placed by
Nicolo Pisano, a contemporary of Cimabue. One was unfinished in its
drapery, and the other, a kneeling angel holding a candelabrum, was not
even begun. At Aldovrandi's request Michael Angelo completed this work.
So exasperated were the artists of Bologna at his skill that he felt
obliged to leave their city, and return to Florence. What a pitiful
exhibition of human weakness!
Meantime Piero had fled from Florence. Charles VIII. of France had made
a triumphal entrance into the city, and Savonarola had become lawgiver.
"Jesus Christ is the King of Florence," was written over the gates of
the Palazzo Vecchio, hymns were sung in the streets instead of ballads,
the sacrament was received daily, and worldly books, even Petrarch and
Virgil, and sensuous works of art, were burned on a huge pile. "Even Fra
Bartolomeo was so carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment as to
bring his life-academy studies to be consumed on this pyre, forgetful
that, in the absence of such studies, he could never have risen above
low mediocrity. Lorenzo di Credi, another and devoted follower of
Savonarola, did the same."
Michael Angelo, though an ardent admirer of Savonarola, and an attendant
upon his preaching, seems not to have lost his good judgment, or to have
considered the making of a sleeping Cupid a sin. When the beautiful work
was completed, at the suggestion of a friend, it was buried in the
ground for a season, to give it the appearance of an antique, and then
sold to Cardinal San Giorgio for two hundred ducats, though Michael
Angelo received but thirty as his share. Soon after, the cardinal
ascertained how he had been imposed upon, and invited the artist to
Rome, with the hope that the hundred and seventy ducats could be
obtained from the dishonest agent who effected the sale. Vasari states
that many persons believed that the agent, and not Michael Angelo,
buried the statue for gain, which seems probable from all we know of
the artist's upright character.
Michael Angelo went to the Eternal City in June, 1496. He was still
young, only twenty-one. "The idea," says Hermann Grimm, in his scholarly
life of the artist, "that the young Michael Angelo, full of the bustle
of the fanatically excited Florence, was led by his fate to Rome, and
trod for the first time that soil where the most corrupt doings were,
nevertheless, lost sight of in the calm grandeur of the past, has
something in it that awakens thought. It was the first step in his
actual life. He had before been led hither and thither by men and by his
own indistinct views; now, thrown upon his own resources, he takes a new
start for his future, and what he now produces begins the series of his
masterly works."
Michael Angelo's first efforts in Rome were for a noble and cultivated
man, Jacopo Galli: a Cupid, now lost, and a Bacchus, nearly as large as
life, which Shelley declared "a revolting misunderstanding of the spirit
and the idea of Bacchus." Perhaps the artist did not put much heart into
the statue of the intoxicated youth. His next work, however, the Pieta,
executed for Cardinal St. Denis, the French ambassador at Rome, who
desired to leave some monument of himself in the great city, made
Michael Angelo famous. Sonnets were written to the Pieta, the Virgin
Mary holding the dead Christ.
Of this work Grimm says: "The position of the body, resting on the
knees of the woman; the folds of her dress, which is gathered together
by a band across the bosom; the inclination of the head, as she bends
over her son in a manner inconsolable and yet sublime, or his, as it
rests in her arms dead, exhausted, and with mild features,--we feel
every touch was for the first time created by Michael Angelo, and that
that in which he imitated others in this group, was only common
property, which he used because its use was customary....
"Our deepest sympathy is awakened by the sight of Christ,--the two legs,
with weary feet, hanging down sideways from the mother's knee; the
falling arm; the failing, sunken body; the head drooping backwards,--the
attitude of the whole human form lying there, as if by death he had
again become a child whom the mother had taken in her arms; at the same
time, in the countenance there is a wonderful blending of the old
customary Byzantine type,--the longish features and parted beard, and
the noblest elements of the national Jewish expression. None before
Michael Angelo would have thought of this; the oftener the work is
contemplated, the more touching does its beauty become,--everywhere the
purest nature, in harmony both in spirit and exterior.
"Whatever previously to this work had been produced by sculptors in
Italy passes into shadow, and assumes the appearance of attempts in
which there is something lacking, whether in idea or in execution; here,
both are provided for. The artist, the work, and the circumstances of
the time, combine together; and the result is something that deserves to
be called perfect. Michael Angelo numbered four and twenty years when he
had finished his Pieta. He was the first master in Italy, the first in
the world from henceforth, says Condivi; indeed, they go so far as to
maintain, he says further, that Michael Angelo surpassed the ancient
masters."
How could Michael Angelo have carved this work at twenty-four? His
knowledge of anatomy was surprising. He had become imbued with great and
noble thoughts from Savonarola's preaching, and from his ardent reading
of Dante and Petrarch; he was eager for fame, and he believed in his own
power. And, besides all this, he was in love with art. When a friend
said to him, years afterwards, "'Tis a pity that you have not married,
that you might have left children to inherit the fruit of these
honorable toils," he replied, "I have only too much of a wife in my art,
and she has given me trouble enough. As to my children, they are the
works that I shall leave; and if they are not worth much, they will at
least live for some time. Woe to Lorenzo Ghiberti if he had not made the
gates of San Giovanni; for his children and grandchildren have sold or
squandered all that he left; but the gates are still in their place.
These are so beautiful that they are worthy of being the gates of
Paradise."
The Pieta is now in St. Peter's. When some person criticised the
youthful appearance of the Virgin, and captiously asked where a mother
could be found, like this one, younger than her son, the painter
answered, "In Paradise."
"The love and care," says Vasari, "which Michael Angelo had given to
this group were such that he there left his name--a thing he never did
again for any work--on the cincture which girdles the robe of Our Lady;
for it happened one day that Michael Angelo, entering the place where it
was erected, found a large assemblage of strangers from Lombardy there,
who were praising it highly; one of them, asking who had done it, was
told, 'Our Hunchback of Milan;' hearing which, Michael Angelo remained
silent, although surprised that his work should be attributed to
another. But one night he repaired to St. Peter's with a light and his
chisels, to engrave his name on the figure, which seems to breathe a
spirit as perfect as her form and countenance."
Michael Angelo was now urged by his father and brother to return to
Florence. Lodovico, his father, writes him: "Buonarotto tells me that
you live with great economy, or rather penury. Economy is good, but
penury is bad, because it is a vice displeasing to God and to the people
of this world, and, besides, will do harm both to soul and body."
However, when his son returned, after four years in Rome, carrying the
money he had saved to establish his brothers in business, the proud
father was not displeased with the "penury." This self-denial the great
artist practised through life for his not always grateful or
appreciative family. He said in his old age, "Rich as I am, I have
always lived like a poor man."
Matters had greatly changed in Florence. Savonarola and his two
principal followers, excommunicated by Pope Alexander VI., because they
had preached against the corruptions of Rome, calling his court the
Romish Babylon, had been burned at the stake.
While the mob had assisted at the death of the great and good friar, the
people of Florence were sad at heart. Michael Angelo, who loved him and
deeply loved republican Florence, was sad also, and perhaps thereby
wrought all the more earnestly, never being frivolous either in thought
or work.
Upon his return to Florence, Cardinal Piccolomini, afterwards Pius III.,
made a contract with him for fifteen statues of Carrara marble to
embellish the family chapel in the cathedral of Siena. Three years were
allowed for this work. The artist finished but four statues, Peter,
Paul, Gregory, and Pius, because of other labors which were pressed upon
him.
The marble Madonna in the Church of Notre Dame at Bruges was carved
about this time. "This," says Grimm, "is one of Michael Angelo's finest
works. It is life-size. She sits there enveloped in the softest drapery;
the child stands between her knees, leaning on the left one, the foot of
which rests on a block of stone, so that it is raised a little higher
than the right. On this stone the child also stands, and seems about to
step down. His mother holds him back with her left hand, while the right
rests on her lap with a book. She is looking straight forward; a
handkerchief is placed across her hair, and falls softly, on both sides,
on her neck and shoulders. In her countenance, in her look, there is a
wonderful majesty, a queenly gravity, as if she felt the thousand pious
glances of the people who look up to her on the altar."
An opportunity now presented itself for the already famous sculptor to
distinguish himself in his own city. Years before a marble block,
eighteen feet high, had been brought from Carrara to Florence, from
which the wool-weavers' guild intended to have a prophet made for Santa
Maria del Fiore. One sculptor had attempted and failed. Others to whom
it was offered said nothing could be done with the one block, but more
pieces of marble should be added.
Michael Angelo was willing to undertake the making of a statue. He was
allowed two years in which to complete it, with a monthly salary of six
gold florins. His only preparation for the work was a little wax model
which he moulded, now in the Uffizi. He worked untiringly, so that he
often slept with his clothes on, to be ready for his beloved statue as
soon as the morning dawned. He had shut himself away from the public
gaze by planks and masonry, and worked alone, not intrusting a stroke
to other hands. He felt what Emerson preached years later, that "society
is fatal." The great essayist urged that while we may keep our hands in
society "we must keep our head in solitude." Great thoughts are not born
usually in the whirl of social life.
Finally, when the statue was finished in January, 1504, and the colossal
David stood unveiled before the people, they said: "It is as great a
miracle as if a dead body had been raised to life." Vasari says Michael
Angelo intended, by this work, to teach the Florentines that as David
"had defended his people and governed justly, so they who were then
ruling that city should defend it with courage and govern it uprightly."
The statue weighed eighteen thousand pounds, and required forty men four
days to drag it by ropes a quarter of a mile to the place where it was
to stand in the Piazza della Signoria. Notwithstanding that the praise
of the sculptor was on every lip, still there was so much jealousy among
the artists that some of their followers threw stones at the statue
during the nights when it was being carried to the Piazza, and eight
persons were arrested and put in prison.
Vasari tells a story which, whether true or false, illustrates the
character of those who profess much because they know little. "When the
statue was set up, it chanced that Soderini, whom it greatly pleased,
came to look at it while Michael Angelo was retouching it at certain
points, and told the artist that he thought the nose too short. Michael
Angelo perceived that Soderini was in such a position beneath the figure
that he could not see it conveniently; yet, to satisfy him, he mounted
the scaffold with his chisel and a little powder gathered from the floor
in his hand, when striking lightly with the chisel, but without altering
the nose, he suffered a little of the powder to fall, and then said to
the gonfaloniere, who stood below, 'Look at it now.'
"'I like it better now,' was the reply; 'you have given it life.'
Michael Angelo then descended, not without compassion for those who
desire to appear good judges of matters whereof they know nothing." But
the artist very wisely made no remarks, and thus retained the friendship
of Soderini. In 1873, after nearly four centuries, this famous statue
was removed to the Academy of Fine Arts in the old Monastery of St.
Mark, lest in the distant future it should be injured by exposure.
Work now poured in upon Michael Angelo. In three years he received
commissions to carve thirty-seven statues. For the cathedral of Florence
he promised colossal statues of the twelve apostles, but was able to
attempt only one, St. Matthew, now in the Florentine Academy. For Agnolo
Doni he painted a Madonna, now in the Tribune at Florence. The price was
sixty ducats, but the parsimonious Agnolo said he would give but forty,
though he knew it was worth more. Michael Angelo at once sent a
messenger demanding a hundred ducats or the picture, but, not inclined
to lose so valuable a work by a famous artist, Agnolo gladly offered the
sixty which he at first refused to pay. Offended by such penuriousness,
Michael Angelo demanded and received one hundred and forty ducats!
In 1504, Gonfaloniere Soderini desired to adorn the great Municipal Hall
with the paintings of two masters, Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo.
The latter was only twenty-nine, while Da Vinci was over fifty. He had
recently come from Milan, where he had been painting the "Last Supper,"
which, Grimm says, "in moments of admiration, forces from us the
assertion that it is the finest and sublimest composition ever produced
by an Italian master."
And now with this "first painter in Italy" the first sculptor, Michael
Angelo, was asked to compete, and he dared to accept the offer.
He chose for his subject an incident of the Pisan war. As the weather
was very warm, the Florentines had laid aside their armor and were
bathing in the Arno. Sir John Hawkwood, the commander of the opposing
forces, seized this moment to make the attack. The bathers rushed to the
shore, and Michael Angelo has depicted them climbing the bank, buckling
on their armor, and with all haste returning the assault.
"It is not possible," says Grimm, "to describe all the separate figures,
the fore-shortenings, the boldness with which the most difficult
attitude is ever chosen, or the art with which it is depicted. This
cartoon was the school for a whole generation of artists, who made their
first studies from it."
Da Vinci's painting represented a scene at the battle of Anghiari, where
the Florentines had defeated the Milanese in 1440. "While these cartoons
thus hung opposite to each other," says Benvenuto Cellini, "they formed
the school of the world." Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, and others made
studies from them. Da Vinci's faded, and Michael Angelo's was cut in
pieces by some enemy.
Before the artist had finished his painting he was summoned to Rome by
Pope Julius II., the great patron of art and literature, who desired a
monument for himself in St. Peter's. The mausoleum was to be three
stories high; with sixteen statues of the captive liberal arts, and ten
statues of Victory treading upon conquered provinces, for the first
story; the sarcophagus of the pope, with his statue and attendant
angels, for the second; and, above all, more cherubs and apostles.
"It will cost a hundred thousand crowns," said the artist.
"Let it cost twice that sum," said the pope.
At once Michael Angelo hastened to the marble quarries of Carrara, in
the most northern part of Tuscany, where he remained for eight months.
His task was a difficult one. He wrote to his father after he had gone
back to Rome, "I should be quite contented here if only my marble would
come. I am unhappy about it; for not for two days only, but as long as I
have been here, we have had good weather. A few days ago, a bark, which
has just arrived, was within a hair's-breadth of perishing. When from
bad weather the blocks were conveyed by land, the river overflowed, and
placed them under water; so that up to this day I have been able to do
nothing. I must endeavor to keep the pope in good humor by empty words,
so that his good temper may not fail. I hope all may soon be in order,
and that I may begin my work. God grant it!"
When the marble reached Rome, the people were astonished, for there
seemed enough to build a temple, instead of a tomb. The sculptor resided
in a house near the Vatican, a covered way being constructed by the pope
between the _atelier_ and the palace, that he might visit the artist
familiarly and see him at his work.
Meantime an envious artist was whispering in the ears of Julius that it
was an evil omen to build one's monument in one's lifetime, and that he
would be apt to die early. This was not agreeable news, and when Michael
Angelo returned from a second journey to Carrara the pope refused to
advance any money, and even gave orders that he should not be admitted
to the palace.
With commendable pride the artist left Rome at once, and hastened to
Florence, leaving a letter in which he said, "Most Holy Father,--If you
require me in the future, you can seek me elsewhere than in Rome."
The proud Julius at once perceived his mistake, and sent a messenger to
bid him return, on pain of his displeasure. But Michael Angelo paid no
attention to the mandate. Then Julius II. applied to Soderini the
Gonfaloniere, who said to the sculptor, "You have treated the pope in a
manner such as the King of France would not have done! There must be an
end of trifling with him now. We will not for your sake begin a war with
the pope, and risk the safety of the state."
The Sultan Bajazet II., who had heard of Michael Angelo's fame, now
urged him to come to Turkey and build a bridge between Constantinople
and Pera, across the Golden Horn. Soderini tried to persuade him that he
had better "die siding with the pope, than live passing over to the
Turk," and meantime wrote Julius that he could do nothing with him. The
pope saw that kindness alone would win back the self-reliant and
independent artist, and finally prevailed upon him to return to Rome.
When he arrived, Julius, half angry, said, "You have waited thus long,
it seems, till we should ourselves come to seek you."
An ecclesiastic standing near officiously begged his Holiness not to be
too severe with Michael Angelo, as he was a man of no education, and as
artists did not know how to behave except where their own art was
concerned.
The pope was now fully angry, and exclaimed, "Do you venture to say
things to this man which I would not have said to him myself? You are
yourself a man of no education, a miserable fellow, and this he is not.
Leave our presence." The man was borne out of the hall, nearly fainting.
Michael Angelo was at once commissioned to make a bronze statue of
Julius, fourteen feet high, to be placed before the Church of St.
Petronio, in Bologna. When the pope wished to know the cost, the artist
told him he thought it would be about three thousand ducats, but was not
sure whether the cast would succeed.
"You will mould it until it succeeds," said the pope, "and you shall be
paid as much as you require."
When the clay model was ready for the pope to look at, he was asked if
he would like to be represented holding a book in his left hand.
"Give me a sword!" he exclaimed; "I am no scholar. And what does the
raised right hand denote? Am I dispensing a curse, or a blessing?"
"You are advising the people of Bologna to be wise," replied Michael
Angelo.
The bronze statue was a difficult work. The first cast was unsuccessful.
The sculptor wrote home, "If I had a second time to undertake this
intense work, which gives me no rest night or day, I scarcely think I
should be able to accomplish it. I am convinced that no one else upon
whom this immense task might have been imposed would have persevered. My
belief is that your prayers have kept me sustained and well. For no one
in Bologna, not even after the successful issue of the cast, thought
that I should finish the statue satisfactorily; before that no one
thought that the cast would succeed."
After the statue was completed, Michael Angelo, at the earnest request
of the helpless Buonarotti family, went back to Florence, and carried
there what he had earned. Grimm naively remarks, "I could almost suppose
that it had been designed by Fate, as may be often observed in similar
cases, to compensate for Michael Angelo's extraordinary gifts by a
corresponding lack of them in the family." The case of Galileo,
struggling through life for helpless relatives, is similar to that of
Michael Angelo.
He was soon summoned again to Rome, not to complete the monument, as he
had hoped, but to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He hesitated
to undertake so important a work in painting, and begged that Raphael be
chosen; but the pope would not consent.
He therefore began to make designs, and sent for some of his boyhood
friends to aid him, Granacci and others. His method was to make the
first draught in red or black chalk on a very small scale. From this he
marked out the full-sized cartoons or working drawings, nailing these to
the wall, and cutting away the paper around the figures. He soon found
that his assistants were a hinderance rather than a help, and, unable to
wound their feelings by telling them, he shut up the chapel and went
away. They understood it, and, if some were hurt or offended, Granacci
was not, but always remained an earnest friend.
Michael Angelo now worked alone, seeing nobody except his color-grinder
and the pope. His eyes became so injured by holding his head back for
his work that for a long period afterwards he could read only by keeping
the page above his head. After he had painted for some time the walls
began to mould, and, discouraged, he hastened to the pope, saying, "I
told your Holiness, from the first, that painting was not my profession;
all that I have painted is destroyed. If you do not believe it, send and
let some one else see." It was soon found that he had made the plaster
too wet, but that no harm would result.
He worked now so constantly that he scarcely took time to eat or sleep,
and became ill from overexertion. In the midst of his labors and
illness, he writes his father, "Do not lose courage, and let not a trace
of inward sadness gain ground in you; for, if you have lost your
property, life is not lost, and I will do more for you than all you have
lost. Still, do not rely upon it; it is always a doubtful matter. Use,
rather, all possible precaution; and thank God that, as this
chastisement of heaven was to come, it came at a time when you could
better extricate yourself from it than you would perhaps have been
earlier able to do. Take care of your health, and rather part with all
your possessions than impose privations on yourself. For it is of
greater consequence to me that you should remain alive, although a poor
man, than that you should perish for the sake of all the money in the
world.