pleasure, in visiting the hermits in the mountains of Spoleto,
insomuch that less than half of me has returned to Rome, seeing that
in truth there is no peace to be found save in the woods. I have
nothing more to tell you. I am glad that you are well and happy, and I
commend myself to you."
Michelagnolo used to work almost every day, as a pastime, at that
block with the four figures of which we have already spoken; which
block he broke into pieces at this time for these reasons, either
because it was hard and full of emery, and the chisel often struck
sparks from it, or it may have been that the judgment of the man was
so great that he was never content with anything that he did. A proof
that this is true is that there are few finished statues to be seen
out of all that he executed in the prime of his manhood, and that
those completely finished were executed by him in his youth, such as
the Bacchus, the Pietà in S. Maria della Febbre, the Giant of
Florence, and the Christ of the Minerva, which it would not be
possible to increase or diminish by as little as a grain of millet
without spoiling them; and the others, with the exception of the Dukes
Giuliano and Lorenzo, Night, Dawn, and Moses, with the other two, the
whole number of these statues not amounting in all to eleven, the
others, I say, were all left unfinished, and, moreover, they are many,
Michelagnolo having been wont to say that if he had had to satisfy
himself in what he did, he would have sent out few, nay, not one. For
he had gone so far with his art and judgment, that, when he had laid
bare a figure and had perceived in it the slightest degree of error,
he would set it aside and run to lay his hand on another block of
marble, trusting that the same would not happen to the new block; and
he often said that this was the reason that he gave for having
executed so few statues and pictures. This Pietà, when it was broken,
he presented to Francesco Bandini. Now at this time Tiberio Calcagni,
a Florentine sculptor, had become much the friend of Michelagnolo by
means of Francesco Bandini and Messer Donato Giannotti; and being one
day in Michelagnolo's house, where there was the Pietà, all broken,
after a long conversation he asked him for what reason he had broken
it up and destroyed labours so marvellous, and he answered that the
reason was the importunity of his servant Urbino, who kept urging him
every day to finish it, besides which, among other things, a piece of
one of the elbows of the Madonna had been broken off, and even before
that he had taken an aversion to it, and had had many misfortunes with
it by reason of a flaw that was in the marble, so that he lost his
patience and began to break it up; and he would have broken it
altogether into pieces if his servant Antonio had not besought him
that he should present it to him as it was. Whereupon Tiberio, having
heard this, spoke to Bandini, who desired to have something by the
hand of Michelagnolo, and Bandini contrived that Tiberio should
promise to Antonio two hundred crowns of gold, and prayed Michelagnolo
to consent that Tiberio should finish it for Bandini with the
assistance of models by his hand, urging that thus his labour would
not be thrown away. Michelagnolo was satisfied, and then made them a
present of it. The work was carried away immediately, and then put
together again and reconstructed with I know not what new pieces by
Tiberio; but it was left unfinished by reason of the death of Bandini,
Michelagnolo, and Tiberio. At the present day it is in the possession
of Pier Antonio Bandini, the son of Francesco, at his villa on Monte
Cavallo. But to return to Michelagnolo; it became necessary to find
some work in marble on which he might be able to pass some time every
day with the chisel, and another piece of marble was put before him,
from which another Pietà had been already blocked out, different from
the first and much smaller.
[Illustration: PIETÀ
(_After =Michelagnolo=. Rome: Palazzo Rondanini_)
_Alinari_]
There had entered into the service of Paul IV, and also into the
charge of the fabric of S. Pietro, the architect Pirro Ligorio, and he
was now once more harassing Michelagnolo, going about saying that he
had sunk into his second childhood. Wherefore, angered by such
treatment, he would willingly have returned to Florence, and, having
delayed to return, he was again urged in letters by Giorgio, but he
knew that he was too old, having now reached the age of eighty-one.
Writing at that time to Vasari by his courier, and sending him various
spiritual sonnets, he said that he was come to the end of his life,
that he must be careful where he directed his thoughts, that by
reading he would see that he was at his last hour, and that there
arose in his mind no thought upon which was not graved the image of
death; and in one letter he said:
"It is God's will, Vasari, that I should continue to live in misery
for some years. I know that you will tell me that I am an old fool to
wish to write sonnets, but since many say that I am in my second
childhood, I have sought to act accordingly. By your letter I see the
love that you bear me, and you may take it as certain that I would
be glad to lay these feeble bones of mine beside those of my father,
as you beg me to do; but by departing from here I would be the cause
of the utter ruin of the fabric of S. Pietro, which would be a great
disgrace and a very grievous sin. However, when it is so firmly
established that it can never be changed, I hope to do all that you
ask me, if it be not a sin to keep in anxious expectation certain
gluttons that await my immediate departure."
With this letter was the following sonnet, also written in his own
hand:
Giunto è già 'l corso della vita mia
Con tempestoso mar' per fragil barca
Al comun porto, ov'a render' si varca
Conto e ragion' d'ogni opra trista e pia.
Onde l'affetuosa fantasia,
Che l'arte mi fece idolo e monarca,
Conosco or' ben' quant'era d'error' carca,
E quel ch'a mal suo grado ognun' desia.
Gli amorosi pensier' già vani e lieti
Che sien'or', s'a due morti mi avvicino?
D'una so certo, e l'altra mi minaccia.
Nè pinger' nè scolpir' sia più che quieti
L'anima volta a quello Amor Divino
Ch'aperse a prender' noi in Croce le braccia.
Whereby it was evident that he was drawing towards God, abandoning the
cares of art on account of the persecution of his malignant
fellow-craftsmen, and also through the fault of certain overseers of
the fabric, who would have liked, as he used to say, to dip their
hands in the chest. By order of Duke Cosimo, a reply was written to
Michelagnolo by Vasari in a letter of few words, exhorting him to
repatriate himself, with a sonnet corresponding in the rhymes.
Michelagnolo would willingly have left Rome, but he was so weary and
aged, that although, as will be told below, he was determined to go
back, while the spirit was willing the flesh was weak, and that kept
him in Rome. It happened in June of the year 1557, he having made a
model for the vault that was to cover the apse, which was being built
of travertine in the Chapel of the King, that, from his not being
able to go there as he had been wont, an error arose, in that the
capomaestro took the measurements over the whole body of the vault
with one single centre, whereas there should have been a great number;
and Michelagnolo, as the friend and confidant of Vasari, sent him
designs by his own hand, with these words written at the foot of two
of them:
"The centre marked with red was used by the capomaestro over the body
of the whole vault; then, when he began to pass to the half-circle,
which is at the summit of the vault, he became aware of the error
which that centre was producing, as may be seen here in the design,
marked in black. With this error the vault has gone so far forward,
that we have to displace a great number of stones, for in that vault
there is being placed no brick-work, but all travertine, and the
diameter of the circle, without the cornice that borders it, is
twenty-two palms. This error, after I had made an exact model, as I do
of everything, has been caused by my not being able, on account of my
old age, to go there often; so that, whereas I believed that the vault
was now finished, it will not be finished all this winter, and, if it
were possible to die of shame and grief, I should not be alive now. I
pray you account to the Duke for my not being at this moment in
Florence."
[Illustration: S. PETER'S
(_After =Michelagnolo=. Rome_)
_Alinari_]
And continuing in the other design, where he had drawn the plan, he
said this:
"MESSER GIORGIO,
"To the end that it may be easier to understand the difficulty of the
vault by observing its rise from the level of the ground, let me
explain that I have been forced to divide it into three vaults,
corresponding to the windows below divided by pilasters; and you see
that they go pyramidally into the centre of the summit of the vault,
as also do the base and sides of the same. It was necessary to
regulate them with an infinite number of centres, and there are in
them so many changes in various directions, from point to point, that
no fixed rule can be maintained. And the circles and squares that come
in the middle of their deepest parts have to diminish and increase in
so many directions, and to go to so many points, that it is a
difficult thing to find the true method. Nevertheless, having the
model, such as I make for everything, they should never have committed
so great an error as to seek to regulate with one single centre all
those three shells; whence it has come about that we have been obliged
with shame and loss to pull down, as we are still doing, a great
number of stones. The vault, with its sections and hewn stone-work, is
all of travertine, like all the rest below; a thing not customary in
Rome."
Michelagnolo was excused by Duke Cosimo, hearing of these misfortunes,
from coming to Florence; the Duke saying to him that his contentment
and the continuation of S. Pietro were more dear to him than anything
in the world, and that he should rest in peace. Whereupon Michelagnolo
wrote to Vasari, on the same sheet in which he thanked the Duke to the
best of his power and knowledge for such kindness, saying, "God give
me grace that I may be able to serve him with this my poor person, for
my memory and my brain are gone to await him elsewhere." The date of
this letter was August in the year 1557. Thus, then, Michelagnolo
learned that the Duke esteemed his life and his honour more than he
did himself, who so revered him. All these things, and many more that
it is not necessary to mention, we have in our possession, written in
his hand.
Michelagnolo by this time was reduced to a feeble condition, and it
was evident that little was being done in S. Pietro, now that he had
carried on a great part of the frieze of the windows within, and of
the double columns without, which curve above the great round
cornice[4] where the cupola is to be placed, as will be related; and
he was exhorted and urged by his greatest friends, such as the
Cardinal of Carpi, Messer Donato Giannotti, Francesco Bandini, Tommaso
de' Cavalieri, and Lottino that, since he saw the delay in the raising
of the cupola, he should at least make a model of it. He stayed many
months without making up his mind to this, but in the end he made a
beginning, and then little by little constructed a small model in
clay, from which, as an exemplar, and from the plans and profiles
that he had drawn, it might be possible afterwards to make a larger
one of wood. This, having made a beginning with it, he caused to be
constructed in little more than a year by Maestro Giovanni Franzese,
with much study and pains; and he made it on such a scale that the
smaller proportions of the model, measured by the old Roman palm,
corresponded with complete exactness to those of the large work, he
having fashioned with diligence in that model all the members of
columns, bases, capitals, doors, windows, cornices, projections, and
likewise every least thing, knowing that in such a work no less should
be done, for in all Christendom, nay, in all the world, there is not
to be found or seen any fabric more ornate or more grand. And I cannot
but think that, if we have given up time to noting smaller things, it
is even more useful, and also our duty, to describe this manner of
design for building the structure of this tribune with the form,
order, and method that Michelagnolo thought to give it; wherefore with
such brevity as we may we will give a simple description of it, to the
end that, if it should ever be the fate of this work, which God
forbid, to be disturbed by the envy and malice of presumptuous persons
after the death of Michelagnolo, even as we have seen it disturbed up
to the present during his lifetime, these my writings, such as they
may be, may be able to assist the faithful who are to be the executors
of the mind of that rare man, and also to restrain the malignant
desires of those who may seek to alter it, and so at one and the same
time assist, delight, and open the minds of those beautiful intellects
that are the friends of this profession and regard it as their joy.
[Footnote 4: Drum.]
[Illustration: S. PETER'S
(_After =Michelagnolo=. Rome_)
_Anderson_]
I must begin by saying that according to this model, made under the
direction of Michelagnolo, I find that in the great work the whole
space within the tribune will be one hundred and eighty-six palms,
speaking of its width from wall to wall above the great cornice of
travertine that curves in a round in the interior, resting on the four
great double piers that rise from the ground with their capitals
carved in the Corinthian Order, accompanied by their architrave,
frieze, and cornice, likewise of travertine; which great cornice,
curving right round over the great niches, rests supported upon the
four great arches of the three niches and of the entrance, which
form the cross of the building. Then there begins to spring the first
part of the tribune, the rise of which commences in a basement of
travertine with a platform six palms broad, where one can walk; and
this basement curves in a round in the manner of a well, and its
thickness is thirty-three palms and eleven inches, the height to the
cornice eleven palms and ten inches, the cornice over it about eight
palms, and its projection six and a half palms. Into this basement you
enter, in order to ascend the tribune, by four entrances that are over
the arches of the niches, and the thickness of the basement is divided
into three parts; that on the inner side is fifteen palms, that on the
outer side is eleven palms, and that in the centre is seven palms and
eleven inches, which make up the thickness of thirty-three palms and
eleven inches. The space in the centre is hollow and serves as a
passage, which is two squares in height and curves in a continuous
round, with a barrel-shaped vault; and in line with the four entrances
are eight doors, each of which rises in four steps, one of them
leading to the level platform of the cornice of the first basement,
six palms and a half in breadth, and another leading to the inner
cornice that curves round the tribune, eight palms and three-quarters
broad, on which platforms, by each door, you can walk conveniently
both within and without the edifice, and from one entrance to another
in a curve of two hundred and one palms, so that, the sections being
four, the whole circuit comes to be eight hundred and four palms. We
now have to ascend from the level of this basement, upon which rest
the columns and pilasters, and which forms the frieze of the windows
within all the way round, being fourteen palms and one inch in height,
and around it, on the outer side, there is at the foot a short order
of cornice-work, and so also at the top, which does not project more
than ten inches, and all of travertine; and so in the thickness of the
third part, above that on the inner side, which we have described as
fifteen palms thick, there is made in every quarter-section a
staircase, one half of which ascends in one direction and the second
half in another, the width being four palms and a quarter; and this
staircase leads to the level of the columns. Above this level there
begin to rise, in line with the solid parts of the basement, eighteen
large piers all of travertine, each adorned with two columns on the
outer side and pilasters on the inner, as will be described below, and
between the piers are left the spaces where there are to be all the
windows that are to give light to the tribune. These piers, on the
sides pointing towards the central point of the tribune, are
thirty-six palms in extent, and on the front sides nineteen and a
half. Each of them, on the outer side, has two columns, the lowest
dado of which is eight palms and three-quarters broad and one palm and
a half high, the base five palms and eight inches broad and ... palms
and eleven inches high, the shaft of the column forty-three and a half
palms high, five palms and six inches thick at the foot and four palms
and nine inches at the top, the Corinthian capital six palms and a
half high, with the crown of mouldings nine palms. Of these columns
three quarters are to be seen, and the other quarter is merged into
the corner, with the accompaniment of the half of a pilaster that
makes a salient angle on the inner side, and this is accompanied in
the central inner space by the opening of an arched door, five palms
wide and thirteen palms and five inches high, from the summit of which
to the capitals of the pilasters and columns there is a filling of
solid masonry, serving as a connection with two other pilasters that
are similar to those that form a salient angle beside the columns.
These two pilasters correspond to the others, and adorn the sides of
sixteen windows that go right round the tribune, each with a light
twelve palms and a half wide and about twenty-two palms high. These
windows are to be adorned on the outer side with varied architraves
two palms and three-quarters high, and on the inner side they are to
be adorned with orders likewise varied, with pediments and
quarter-rounds; and they are wide without and more narrow within, and
so, also, they are sloped away at the foot of the inner side, so that
they may give light over the frieze and cornice. Each of them is
bordered by two flat pilasters that correspond in height to the
columns without, so that there come to be thirty-six columns without
and thirty-six pilasters within; over which pilasters is the
architrave, which is four palms and three-quarters in height, the
frieze four and a half, and the cornice four and two-thirds, with a
projection of five palms; and above this is to go a range of
balusters, so that one may be able to walk all the way round there
with safety. And in order that it may be possible to climb
conveniently from the level where the columns begin, another staircase
ascends in the same line within the thickness of the part that is
fifteen palms wide, in the same manner and of the same width, with two
branches or ascents, all the way up to the summit of the columns, with
their capitals, architraves, friezes, and cornices; insomuch that,
without obstructing the light of the windows, these stairs pass at the
top into a spiral staircase of the same breadth, which finally reaches
the level where the turning of the tribune is to begin.
All this order, distribution, and ornamentation is so well varied,
commodious, rich, durable, and strong, and serves so well to support
the two vaults of the cupola that is to be turned upon it, that it is
a very ingenious thing, and it is all so well considered and then
executed in masonry, that there is nothing to be seen by the eyes of
one who has knowledge and understanding that is more pleasing, more
beautiful, or wrought with greater mastery, both on account of the
binding together and mortising of the stones and because it has in it
in every part strength and eternal life, and also because of the great
judgment wherewith he contrived to carry away the rain-water by many
hidden channels, and, finally, because he brought it to such
perfection, that all other fabrics that have been built and seen up to
the present day appear as nothing in comparison with the grandeur of
this one. And it has been a very great loss that those whose duty it
was did not put all their power into the undertaking, for the reason
that, before death took away from us that rare man, we should have
seen that beautiful and terrible structure already raised.
Up to this point has Michelagnolo carried the masonry of the work; and
it only remains to make a beginning with the vaulting of the tribune,
of which, since the model has come down to us, we shall proceed to
describe the design that he has left to the end that it may be carried
out. He turned the curve of this vault on three points that make a
triangle, in this manner:
A B
C
The point C, which is the lowest, is the principal one, wherewith he
turned the first half-circle of the tribune, with which he gave the
form, height and breadth of this vault, which he ordered to be built
entirely of bricks well baked and fired, laid herring-bone fashion.
This shell he makes four palms and a half thick, and as thick at the
top as at the foot, and leaving beside it, in the centre, a space four
palms and a half wide at the foot, which is to serve for the ascent of
the stairs that are to lead to the lantern, rising from the platform
of the cornice where there are balusters. The arch of the interior of
the other shell, which is to be wider at the foot and narrower at the
top, is turned on the point marked B, and the thickness of the shell
at the foot is four palms and a half. And the last arch, which is to
be turned in order to make the exterior of the cupola, wider at the
foot and narrowing towards the top, is to be raised on the point
marked A, which arch turned, there remains at the top all the hollow
space of the interior for the ascent of the stairs, which are eight
palms high, so that one may climb them upright; and the thickness of
that shell comes to diminish little by little, insomuch that, being as
before four palms and a half at the foot, it decreases at the top to
three palms and a half. And the outer shell comes to be so well bound
to the inner shell with bonds and with the stairs, that the one
supports the other; while of the eight parts into which the fabric is
divided at the base, the four over the arches are left hollow, in
order to put less weight upon the arches, and the other four are bound
and chained together with bonds upon the piers, so that the structure
may have everlasting life.
The stairs in the centre between one shell and the other are
constructed in this form; from the level where the springing of the
vault begins they rise in each of the four sections, and each ascends
from two entrances, the stairs intersecting one another in the form of
an X, until they have covered the half of the arch marked C, on the
upper side of the shell, when, having ascended straight up the half of
that arch, the remaining space is then easily climbed circle after
circle and step after step in a direct line, until finally one arrives
at the eye of the cupola, where the rise of the lantern begins, around
which, in accord with the diminution of the compartments that spring
above the piers, there is a smaller range of double pilasters and
windows similar to those that are constructed in the interior, as
will be described below.