"Grateful is sleep, whilst wrong and shame survive
More grateful still in senseless stone to live;
Gladly both sight and hearing I forego;
Oh, then, awake me not. Hush--whisper low."
Of Day, Mrs. Oliphant says, in her "Makers of Florence," "Bursting
herculean from his strong prison, half heroic, nothing known of him but
the great brow and resolute eyes, and those vast limbs, which were not
yet free from the cohesion of the marble, though alive with such strain
of action."
Twilight is the strong figure of a man. Dawn, or Morning, Grimm
considers "the most beautiful of all. She is lying outstretched on the
gently sloping side of the lid of the sarcophagus. Not, however,
resting, but as if, still in sleep, she had moved towards us; so that,
while the upper part of the back is still reclining, the lower part is
turned to us. She is lying on her right side; the leg next us, only
feebly bent at the knee is stretching itself out; the other is half
drawn up, and with the knee bent out, as if it was stepping forward and
seeking for sure footing. An entire symphony of Beethoven lies in this
statue."
In 1534, the same year in which the Medici statues were finished,
Michael Angelo's father died, at the age of ninety. The artist gave him
a costly burial, and wrote a pathetic poem in his memory. The beloved
brother, Buonarotto, had died in Michael Angelo's arms. His young mother
had died years before when he went to Rome, scarcely more than a boy.
"Already had I wept and sighed so much,
I thought all grief forever at an end,
Exhaled in sighs, shed forth in bitter tears.
* * * * *
For thee, my brother, and for him who was
Of thee and me the parent, love inspires
A grief unspeakable to vex and sting.
* * * * *
Full ninety times the sun had bathed his face
In the wet ocean, ending his annual round
Ere thou attainedst to the Peace Divine.
* * * * *
There, where (to Him be thanks!) I think thee now,
And hope to see again if my cold heart
Be raised from earthly mire to where thou art.
* * * * *
And if 'twixt sire and son the noblest love
Still grows in Heaven, where every virtue grows,
While giving glory to my heavenly Lord,
I shall rejoice with thee in Heaven's bliss."
Clement was now dead, and Paul III. was in the papal chair. He, like the
others, desired that Michael Angelo should do some great work to
immortalize his reign. Clement had wished the artist to paint the "Last
Judgment" in the Sistine Chapel, and when Paul urged the carrying-out of
this plan, Michael Angelo excused himself on account of the contract
with the heirs of Julius II.
"It is now thirty years," cried Paul III., "that I have had this desire;
and, now that I am pope, shall I not be able to effect it? Where is the
contract, that I may tear it?"
One day he appeared in the studio of the painter, bringing with him
eight cardinals, all of whom wished to see the designs for the "Last
Judgment."
The artist was still at work on Moses. "This one statue is sufficient to
be a worthy monument to Pope Julius," said the cardinal of Mantua. Paul
III. refused to release Michael Angelo, and he began work on the Sistine
Chapel.
The painting was not completed until nearly eight years had passed.
There are three hundred figures and heads in this vast fresco. Says M.
F. Sweetser, in his concise and excellent life of Michael Angelo, "About
Christ are many renowned saints,--the Madonna, gazing mildly at the
blessed and redeemed souls; Adam and Eve, curiously regarding the
Judge; and a group of pleading apostles, bearing their emblems. These
are surrounded by a vast throng of saints and martyrs, safe in Heaven,
all of whom exemplify the saying that 'Michael Angelo nowhere admits,
either into heaven or hell, any but the physically powerful.' Below the
Judge are four angels blowing trumpets towards the four quarters of the
universe, and four others holding the books by which the dead are to be
judged. Under these the land and sea are giving up their dead.... As a
work of art, the Last Judgment was one of the grandest productions of
the famous art-century."
Biagio da Cesena, the pope's master of ceremonies, complained that so
many naked figures made the painting more appropriate for bath-rooms and
stables than for a chapel. What was the surprise of Biagio, when the
painting was thrown open to the public, to find that the infernal judge
Minos, with ass's ears, was his own portrait! He begged the pope to
punish the artist; but Paul replied, "If the painter had placed thee in
purgatory, I should have used every effort to help thee; but since he
has put thee in hell, it is useless to have recourse to me, because _ex
infernis nulla est redemptio_."
Paul IV. later complained that the figures were shamefully nude, and
desired to have them covered. "Tell his Holiness," said Michael Angelo,
"that this is a mere trifle, and can be easily done; let him mend the
world, paintings are easily mended." Paul finally had the nude figures
draped by Daniele da Volterra, who thereupon bore the nickname of "the
breeches-maker."
While painting this picture, the artist fell from the scaffold and
injured his leg seriously. He refused to allow anything to be done for
him, but his friend, the surgeon Rontini, forced his way into the house,
and cared for him until he recovered.
These eight years had been the happiest of Michael Angelo's life. Before
this time he had been cold in manner, often melancholy, and sometimes
overbearing; now he was gentle, cheerful, and affectionate. He had
written home in early life, "I have no friends; I need none, and wish to
have none." Now he had found, what every human being needs, a friend
whose tastes and aspirations were like his own. At sixty, he met and
loved Vittoria Colonna, a woman whose mind was henceforward to be his
inspiration, and whose sweet nature was to be his rest and satisfaction
forever. For such a mind as Michael Angelo's there are few kindred
spirits. Fortunate was he that the blessed gift came, even though late
in life.
Vittoria was the daughter of Fabrizio Colonna, and the widow of Marchese
di Pescara, the two highest nobles and generals of her time. Tenderly
reared and highly educated, she had married at nineteen, her husband
soon after engaging in the wars of the time. He was wounded at Pavia,
and died before his young wife could reach him. He was buried at Milan,
but the body was afterwards removed to Naples with great magnificence.
Vittoria, childless, well-nigh heart-broken, turned to literature as her
solace. She desired to enter a convent; but the bishop of Carpentros,
afterwards a cardinal, and an intimate friend of Vittoria, hastened to
Paul III., who forbade the abbess and nuns of San Silvestro, on pain of
excommunication, to permit her to take the veil. Vittoria must not be
lost to the world.
When her poems were published, says T. Adolphus Trollope, in his life of
this charming woman, "copies were as eagerly sought for as the novel of
the season at a nineteenth-century circulating library. Cardinals,
bishops, poets, wits, diplomatists, passed them from one to another,
made them the subject of their correspondence with each other and with
the fair mourner."
Hallam says, "The rare virtues and consummate talents of this lady were
the theme of all Italy in that brilliant age of her literature."
Vittoria Colonna is one of the best illustrations in history of what a
noble and intellectual woman can do for the upbuilding of society. Many
gifted men gave her a sincere affection, and she held that affection
while life lasted. She was well read in history, religious matters, and
classic literature. Her first visit to Rome was a continued ovation.
Even the Emperor Charles V. called upon her. Unselfish, sympathetic,
with a gentle and winsome manner that drew every one into confidence,
she proved herself a companion for the most highly educated, and a
helper for the lowly.
When she visited Ferrara, Duke Hercules II., who had married Renee of
France, the daughter of Louis XII., received her, says Trollope, "with
every possible distinction on the score of her poetical celebrity, and
deemed his city honored by her presence. He invited, we are told, the
most distinguished poets and men of letters of Venice and Lombardy to
meet her at Ferrara. And so much was her visit prized that when Cardinal
Giberto sent thither his secretary, Francesco della Torre, to persuade
her to visit his episcopal city, Verona, that ambassador wrote to his
friend Bembo, at Venice, that he had like to have been banished by the
Duke, and stoned by the people, for coming there with the intention of
robbing Ferrara of its most precious treasure, for the purpose of
enriching Verona."... The learned and elegant Bembo writes of her that
he considered her poetical judgment as sound and authoritative as that
of the greatest masters of the art of song.... Bernardo Tasso made her
the subject of several of his poems. Giovio dedicated to her his life of
Pescara, and Cardinal Pompeo Colonna his book on "The Praises of Women;"
and Contarini paid her the far more remarkable compliment of dedicating
to her his work "On Free Will."
"Paul III. was," as Muratori says, "by no means well disposed towards
the Colonna family. Yet Vittoria must have had influence with the
haughty and severe old Farnese. For both Bembo and Fregoso, the Bishop
of Naples, have taken occasion to acknowledge that they owed their
promotion to the purple in great measure to her."
It is probable that she first met Michael Angelo in the year 1536. He
was then sixty-one, and she forty-six. "A woman," says Grimm, "needs not
extreme youth to captivate the mind of a man who discovers in her the
highest intelligence.... She belonged to that class of women who,
apparently with no will of their own, never seek to extort anything by
force, and yet obtain everything which is placed before them.... How
tenderly she exercised her authority over Michael Angelo, who had never
before been approached; whom she now for the first time inspired with
the happiness of yielding to a woman, and for whom the years which she
passed at that time in Rome she made a period of happiness, which he had
never before known.... Whenever we contemplate the life of great men,
the most beautiful part of their existence is that, when meeting with a
power equal to their own, they find one worthy of measuring the depths
of their mind.... There is no deeper desire than that of meeting such a
mind; no greater happiness than having found it; no greater sorrow than
to resign this happiness, whether it be that it has never been enjoyed,
or that it has been lost."
Francesco d'Ollanda, a portrait-painter, has described one of the
Sundays which he spent in the company of Michael Angelo and Vittoria,
"the latter of whom he calls beautiful, pure in conduct, and acquainted
with the Latin tongue; in short, she is adorned with every grace which
can redound to a woman's praise."
When Michael Angelo arrived at her home on that Sunday, Vittoria, "who
could never speak without elevating those with whom she conversed and
even the place where she was, began to lead the conversation with the
greatest art upon all possible things, without, however, touching even
remotely upon painting. She wished to give Michael Angelo assurance."
She said to him, "I cannot but admire the manner in which you withdraw
yourself from the world, from useless conversation, and from all the
offers of princes who desire paintings from your hand,--how you avoid it
all, and how you have disposed the labor of your whole life as one
single, great work."
"Gracious lady," replied Michael Angelo, "these are undeserved praises;
but, as the conversation has taken this turn, I must here complain of
the public. A thousand silly reproaches are brought against artists of
importance. They say that they are strange people, that they are not to
be approached, that there is no bearing with them. No one, on the
contrary, can be so natural and human as great artists.... How should an
artist, absorbed in his work, take from it time and thought to drive
away other people's ennui?... An artist who, instead of satisfying the
highest demands of his art, tries to suit himself to the great public,
who has nothing strange or peculiar in his personal exterior, or rather
what the world calls so,--will never become an extraordinary mind. It is
true, as regards the ordinary race of artists, we need take no lantern
to look for them; they stand at the corner of every street throughout
the world, ready for all who seek them.... True art is made noble and
religious by the mind producing it. For, for those who feel it, nothing
makes the soul so religious and pure as the endeavor to create something
perfect, for God is perfection, and whoever strives after it is striving
after something divine. True painting is only an image of the perfection
of God, a shadow of the pencil with which he paints,--a melody, a
striving after harmony."
And then, says d'Ollanda, "Vittoria began a eulogium upon painting; she
spoke of its ennobling influence upon a people,--how it led them to
piety, to glory, to greatness, until the tears came into her eyes from
the emotion within."
For ten or twelve years, in the midst of long separations and many
sorrows, this affection of Vittoria and Michael Angelo shed its
transcendent light over two great lives. It was impossible not to love a
woman with such tenderness, sympathy, and sincerity. We may admire a
beautiful or a brilliant woman, but if she lacks tenderness and
sincerity the world soon loses its allegiance. When political changes
made it necessary for her to leave Rome and go to the Convent of St.
Catherine at Viterbo, Michael Angelo wrote her daily, while he painted
in the Pauline Chapel, after the "Last Judgment" was finished, the
"Crucifixion of Peter," and the "Conversion of Paul." In 1542 she wrote
him tenderly, "I have not answered your letter before, thinking that if
you and I continue to write according to my obligation and your
courtesy, it will be necessary that I leave St. Catherine's Chapel,
without finding myself with the sisters at the appointed hours, and that
you must abandon the Pauline Chapel, and not keep yourself all the day
long in sweet colloquy with your paintings ... so that I from the brides
of Christ, and you from his vicar, shall fall away."
However she may chide him for writing too frequently, his words and
works are most precious to her. When he paints for her a picture, she
writes, "I had the greatest faith in God, that he would give you a
supernatural grace to paint this Christ; then I saw it, so wonderful
that it surpassed in every way my expectations. Being emboldened by your
miracles, I desired that which I now see marvellously fulfilled, that
is, that it should stand in every part in the highest perfection, and
that one could not desire more nor reach forward to desire so much. And
I tell you that it gave me joy that the angel on the right hand is so
beautiful; for the Archangel Michael will place you, Michael Angelo, on
the right hand of the Lord at the judgment day. And meanwhile I know not
how to serve you otherwise than to pray to this sweet Christ, whom you
have so well and perfectly painted, and to entreat you to command me as
altogether yours in all and through all."
What delicate appreciation of the genius of the man she loved! How it
must have stimulated and blessed him! But more than all else she loved
Michael Angelo for the one thing women value most in men, the strength
and constancy of a nature that gives a single and lasting devotion.
She gave to Michael Angelo a vellum book, containing one hundred and
three of her sonnets, and sent him forty new ones which she composed at
the convent of Viterbo. These he had bound up in the same book which he
received from her; her for whom, he said, "I would have done more than
for any one else whom I could name in the world." He wrote back his
thanks with the sweet self-abnegation of love.
"And well I see how false it were to think
That any work, faded and frail, of mine,
Could emulate the perfect grace of thine.
Genius, and art, and daring, backward shrink.
A thousand works from mortals like to me
Can ne'er repay what Heaven has given thee."
She inspired him to write poetry. "The productions of our great artist's
pen," says John Edward Taylor, "rank unquestionably in the number of the
most perfect of his own or any subsequent age. Stamped by a flow of
eloquence, a purity of style, an habitual nobleness of sentiment, they
discover a depth of thought rarely equalled, and frequently approaching
to the sublimity of Dante."