LIFE OF MICHAEL ANGELO
Contrast of Michael Angelo and Cellini--Parentage and Boyhood of Michael
Angelo--Work with Ghirlandajo--Gardens of S. Marco--The Medicean
Circle--Early Essays in Sculpture--Visit to Bologna--First Visit to
Rome--The "Pietà" of S. Peter's--Michael Angelo as a Patriot and a Friend
of the Medici--Cartoon for the Battle of Pisa--Michael Angelo and Julius
II.--The Tragedy of the Tomb--Design for the Pope's Mausoleum--Visit to
Carrara--Flight from Rome--Michael Angelo at Bologna--Bronze Statue of
Julius--Return to Rome--Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel--Greek and Modern
Art--Raphael--Michael Angelo and Leo X.--S. Lorenzo--The new
Sacristy--Circumstances under which it was designed and partly
finished--Meaning of the Allegories--Incomplete state of Michael Angelo's
Marbles--Paul III.--The "Last Judgment"--Critiques of Contemporaries--The
Dome of S. Peter's--Vittoria Colonna--Tommaso Cavalieri--Personal Habits
of Michael Angelo--His Emotional Nature--Last Illness.
The life of Italian artists at the time of the Renaissance may be
illustrated by two biographies. Michael Angelo Buonarroti and Benvenuto
Cellini were almost opposite in all they thought and felt, experienced and
aimed at. The one impressed his own strong personality on art; the other
reflected the light and shadow of the age in the record of his manifold
existence. Cellini hovered, like some strong-winged creature, on the
surface of human activity, yielding himself to every impulse, seeking
every pleasure, and of beauty feeling only the rude animal compulsion.
Deep philosophic thoughts, ideas of death and judgment, the stern
struggles of the soul, encompassed Michael Angelo; the service of beauty
was with him religion. Cellini was the creature of the moment--the glass
and mirror of corrupt, enslaved, yet still resplendent Italy. In Michael
Angelo the genius of the Renaissance culminated; but his character was
rather that of an austere Republican, free and solitary amid the
multitudes of slaves and courtiers. Michael Angelo made art the vehicle of
lofty and soul-shaking thought. Cellini brought the fervour of an
inexhaustibly active nature to the service of sensuality, and taught his
art to be the handmaid of a soulless paganism. In these two men,
therefore, we study two aspects of their age. How far both were
exceptional, need not here be questioned; since their singularity consists
not so much in being different from other Italians of the sixteenth
century as in concentrating qualities elsewhere scattered and imperfect.
Michael Angelo was born in 1475 at Caprese, among the mountains of the
Casentino, where his father Lodovico held the office of Podestà. His
ancestry was honourable: the Buonarroti even claimed descent, but
apparently without due reason, from the princely house of Canossa.[289]
His mother gave him to be suckled by a stone-cutter's wife at Settignano,
so that in after days he used to say that he had drawn in the love of
chisels and mallets with his nurse's milk. As he grew, the boy developed
an invincible determination towards the arts. Lodovico from motives of
pride and prudence opposed his wishes, but without success. Michael Angelo
made friends with the lad Granacci, who was apprenticed to Domenico
Ghirlandajo, and at last induced his father to sign articles for him to
the same painter. In Ghirlandajo's workshop he learned the rudiments of
art, helping in the execution of the frescoes at S. Maria Novella, until
such time as the pupil proved his superiority as a draughtsman to his
teacher. The rupture between Michael Angelo and Ghirlandajo might be
compared with that between Beethoven and Haydn. In both cases a proud,
uncompromising, somewhat scornful student sought aid from a master great
in his own line but inferior in fire and originality of genius.[290] In
both cases the moment came when pupil and teacher perceived that the eagle
could no longer be confined within the hawk's nest, and that henceforth it
must sweep the skies alone. After leaving Ghirlandajo's _bottega_ at the
age of sixteen, Michael Angelo did in truth thenceforward through his life
pursue his art alone. Granacci procured him an introduction to the Medici,
and the two friends together frequented those gardens of S. Marco where
Lorenzo had placed his collection of antiquities. There the youth
discovered his vocation. Having begged a piece of marble and a chisel, he
struck out the Faun's mask that still is seen in the Bargello. It is worth
noticing that Michael Angelo seems to have done no merely prentice-work.
Not a fragment of his labour from the earliest to the latest was
insignificant, and only such thoughts as he committed to the perishable
materials of bronze or paper have been lost. There was nothing tentative
in his genius. Into art, as into a rich land, he came and conquered. In
like manner, the first sonnet composed by Dante is scarcely less precious
than the last lines of the "Paradiso." This is true of all the highest
artistic natures, who need no preparations and have no period of groping.
Lorenzo de' Medici discerned in Michael Angelo a youth of eminent genius,
and took the lad into his own household. The astonished father found
himself suddenly provided with a comfortable post and courted for the sake
of the young sculptor. In Lorenzo's palace the real education of Michael
Angelo began. He sat at the same table with Ficino, Pico, and Poliziano,
listening to dialogues on Plato and drinking in the golden poetry of
Greece. Greek literature and philosophy, expounded by the men who had
discovered them, and who were no less proud of their discovery than
Columbus of his passage to the Indies, first moulded his mind to those
lofty thoughts which it became the task of his life to express in form. At
the same time he heard the preaching of Savonarola. In the Duomo and the
cloister of S. Marco another portion of his soul was touched, and he
acquired that deep religious tone which gives its majesty and terror to
the Sistine. Much in the same way was Milton educated by the classics in
conjunction with the Scriptures. Both of these austere natures assimilated
from pagan art and Jewish prophecy the twofold elements they needed for
their own imaginative life. Both Michael Angelo and Milton, in spite of
their parade of classic style, were separated from the Greek world by a
gulf of Hebrew and of Christian feeling.
While Michael Angelo was thus engaged in studying antique sculpture and in
listening to Pico and Savonarola, he carved his first bas-relief--a
"Battle of Hercules with the Centaurs," suggested to him by
Poliziano.[291] Meantime Lorenzo died. His successor Piero set the young
man, it is said, to model a snow statue, and then melted like a shape of
snow himself down from his pedestal of power in Florence. Upon the
expulsion of the tyrant and the proclamation of the new republic, it was
dangerous for house-friends of the Casa Medici to be seen in the city.
Michael Angelo, therefore, made his way to Bologna, where he spent some
months in the palace of Gian Francesco Aldovrandini, studying Dante and
working at an angel for the shrine of S. Dominic. As soon, however, as it
seemed safe to do so, he returned to Florence; and to this period belongs
the statue of the "Sleeping Cupid," which was sold as an antique to the
Cardinal Raffaello Riario.
A dispute about the price of this "Cupid" took Michael Angelo in 1496 to
Rome, where it was destined that the greater portion of his life should he
spent, and his noblest works of art should be produced. Here, while the
Borgias were turning the Vatican into a den of thieves and harlots, he
executed the purest of all his statues--a "Pietà" in marble.[292] Christ
is lying dead upon his mother's knees. With her right arm she supports his
shoulders; her left hand is gently raised as though to say, "Behold and
see!" All that art can do to make death beautiful and grief sublime, is
achieved in this masterpiece, which was never surpassed by Michael Angelo
in later years. Already, at the age of four-and-twenty, he had matured his
"terrible manner." Already were invented in his brain that race of
superhuman beings, who became the hieroglyphs of his impassioned
utterance. Madonna has the small head and heroic torso used by this master
to symbolise force. We feel she has no difficulty in holding the dead
Christ upon her ample lap and in her powerful arms. Yet while the "Pietà"
is wholly Michael Angelesque, we find no lack of repose, none of those
contorted lines that are commonly urged against his manner. It is a sober
and harmonious composition, combining the profoundest religious feeling
with classical tranquillity of expression. Again, though the group is
forcibly original, this effect of originality is produced, as in all the
best work of the golden age, not by new and startling conception, but by
the handling of an old and well-worn motive with the grandeur of
consummate style. What the genius of Italian sculpture had for generations
been striving after, finds its perfect realisation here. It was precisely
by thus crowning the endeavours of antecedent artists--by bringing the
opening buds of painting and sculpture to full blossom, and exhausting the
resources of a long sustained and common inspiration, that the great
masters proved their supremacy and rendered an advance beyond their
vantage ground impossible. To those who saw and comprehended this "Pietà"
in 1500, it must have been evident that a new power of portraying the very
soul had been manifested in sculpture--a power unknown to the Greeks
because it lay outside the sphere of their spiritual experience, and
unknown to modern artists because it was beyond their faculties of
execution and conception. Yet who in Rome, among the courtiers of the
Borgias, had brain or heart to understand these things?
In 1501 Michael Angelo returned to Florence, where he stayed until the
year 1505. This period was fruitful of results on which his after fame
depended. The great statue of "David," the two unfinished medallions of
Madonna in relief, the "Holy Family of the Tribune" painted for Angelo
Doni, and the Cartoon of the "Battle of Pisa" were now produced; and no
man's name, not even Lionardo's, stood higher in esteem thenceforward. It
will be remembered that Savonarola was now dead, but that his constitution
still existed under the presidency of Pietro Soderini--the _non mai
abbastanza lodato Cavaliere_, as Pitti calls him, the _anima sciocca_ of
Machiavelli's epigram.[293] Since Michael Angelo at this time was employed
in the service of masters who had superseded his old friends and patrons,
it may be well to review here his attitude in general toward the house of
Medici. Throughout his lifetime there continued a conflict between the
artist and the citizen--the artist owing education and employment to
successive members of that house, the citizen resenting their despotism
and doing all that in him lay at times to keep them out of Florence. As a
patriot, as the student of Dante and the disciple of Savonarola, Michael
Angelo detested tyrants.[294] One of his earliest madrigals, conceived as
a dialogue between Florence and her exiles, expresses his mind so
decidedly that I have ventured to translate it;[295] the exiles first
address Florence, and she answers:--
"Lady, for joy of lovers numberless
Thou wast created fair as angels are.
Sure God hath fallen asleep in heaven afar,
When one man calls the boon of many his.
Give back to streaming eyes
The daylight of Thy face, that seems to shun
Those who must live defrauded of their bliss!"
"Vex not your pure desire with tears and sighs;
For he who robs you of my light, hath none.
Dwelling in fear, sin hath no happiness;
Since amid those who love, their joy is less
Whose great desire great plenty still curtails,
Than theirs who, poor, have hope that never fails."
As an artist, owing his advancement to Lorenzo, he had accepted favours
binding him by ties of gratitude to the Medici, and even involving him in
the downfall of their house. For Leo X. he undertook to build the façade
of S. Lorenzo and the Laurentian Library. For Clement VII. he began the
statues of the Dukes of Urbino and Nemours. Yet, while accepting these
commissions from Medicean Popes, he could not keep his tongue from
speaking openly against their despotism. After the sack of Prato it
appears from his correspondence that he had exposed himself to danger by
some expression of indignation.[296] This was in 1512, when Soderini fled
and left the gates of Florence open to the Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici.
During the siege of Florence in 1529 he fortified Samminiato, and allowed
himself to be named one of the Otto di Guerra chosen for the express
purpose of defending Florence against the Medici.[297] After the fall of
the city he made peace with Clement by consenting to finish the tombs of
S. Lorenzo. Yet, while doing all he could to save those insignificant
dukes from oblivion by the immortality of his art, Michael Angelo was
conscious of his own and his country's shame. The memorable lines placed
in the mouth of his "Night," sufficiently display his feeling after the
final return of the Medici in 1530:[298]--
Sweet is my sleep, but more to be mere stone,
So long as ruin and dishonour reign;
To hear nought, to feel nought, is my great gain:
Then wake me not, speak in an under-tone.
When Clement VII. died, the last real representative of Michael Angelo's
old patrons perished, and the sculptor was free to quit Florence for ever.
During the reign of Duke Cosimo he never set foot in his native city. It
is thus clear that the patriot, the artist, and the man of honour were at
odds in him. Loyalty obliged him to serve the family to whom he owed so
much; he was, moreover, dependent for opportunities of doing great work on
the very men whose public policy he execrated. Hence arose a compromise
and a confusion, hard to accommodate with our conception of his upright
and unyielding temper. Only by voluntary exile, and after age had made him
stubborn to resist seductive offers, could Michael Angelo act up to the
promptings of his heart and declare himself a citizen who held no truce
with tyrants. I have already in this work had occasion to compare Dante,
Michael Angelo, and Machiavelli.[299] In estimating the conduct of the two
last, it must not be forgotten that, by the action of inevitable causes,
republican freedom had become in Italy a thing of the past; and in judging
between Machiavelli and Michael Angelo, we have to remember that the
sculptor's work involved no sacrifice of principle or self-respect.
Carving statues for the tombs of Medicean dukes was a different matter
from dedicating the "Prince" to them.
This digression, though necessary for the right understanding of Michael
Angelo's relation to the Medici, has carried me beyond his Florentine
residence in 1501-1505. The great achievement of that period was not the
"David" but the Cartoon for the "Battle of Pisa."[300] The hall of the
Consiglio Grande had been opened, and one wall had been assigned to
Lionardo. Michael Angelo was now invited by the Signory to prepare a
design for another side of the state-chamber. When he displayed his
cartoon to the Florentines, they pronounced that Da Vinci, hitherto the
undisputed prince of painting, was surpassed. It is impossible for us to
form an opinion on this matter, since both cartoons are lost beyond
recovery.[301] We only know that, as Cellini says, "while they lasted,
they formed the school of the whole world,"[302] and made an epoch in the
history of art. When we inquire what was the subject of Michael Angelo's
famous picture, we find that he had aimed at representing nothing of more
moment than a group of soldiers suddenly surprised by a trumpet-call to
battle, while bathing in the Arno--a crowd of naked men in every posture
indicating haste, anxiety, and struggle. Not for its intellectual meaning,
not for its colour, not for its sentiment, was this design so highly
prized. Its science won the admiration of artists and the public. At this
period of the Renaissance the bold and perfect drawing of the body gave an
exquisite delight. Hence, perhaps, Vasari's vapid talk about "stravaganti
attitudini," "divine figure," "scorticamenti," and so forth--as if the
soul of figurative art were in such matters. The science of Michael
Angelo, which in his own mind was sternly subordinated to thought, had
already turned the weaker heads of his generation.[303] A false ideal took
possession of the fancy, and such criticism as that of Vasari and Pietro
Aretino became inevitable.
Meanwhile, a new Pope had been elected, and in 1505 Michael Angelo was
once more called to Rome. Throughout his artist's life he oscillated thus
between Rome and Florence--Florence the city of his ancestry, and Rome the
city of his soul; Florence where he learnt his art, and Rome where he
displayed what art can do of highest. Julius was a patron of different
stamp from Lorenzo the Magnificent. He was not learned in book-lore:
"Place a sword in my hand!" he said to the sculptor at Bologna: "of
letters I know nothing." Yet he was no less capable of discerning
excellence than the Medici himself, and his spirit strove incessantly
after the accomplishment of vast designs. Between Julius and Michael
Angelo there existed a strong bond of sympathy due to community of
temperament. Both aimed at colossal achievements in their respective
fields of action. The imagination of both was fired by large and simple,
rather than luxurious and subtle thoughts. Both were _uomini terribili_,
to use a phrase denoting vigour of character made formidable by an abrupt
uncompromising temper. Both worked _con furia_, with the impetuosity of
daemonic natures; and both left the impress of their individuality graven
indelibly upon their age.
Julius ordered the sculptor to prepare his mausoleum. Michael Angelo
asked, "Where am I to place it?" Julius replied, "In S. Peter's." But the
old basilica of Christendom was too small for this ambitious pontiff's
sepulchre, designed by the audacious artist. It was therefore decreed that
a new S. Peter's should be built to hold it. In this way the two great
labours of Buonarroti's life were mapped out for him in a moment. But, by
a strange contrariety of fate, to Bramante and San Gallo fell respectively
the planning and the spoiling of S. Peter's. It was only in extreme old
age that Michael Angelo crowned it with that world's miracle, the dome.
The mausoleum, to form a canopy for which the building was designed,
dwindled down at last to the statue of "Moses" thrust out of the way in
the church of S. Pietro in Vincoli. "La tragedia della Sepoltura," as
Condivi aptly terms the history of Giulio's monument, began thus in 1505
and dragged on till 1545.[304] Rarely did Michael Angelo undertake a work
commensurate with his creative power, but something came to interrupt its
execution; while tasks outside his sphere, for which he never
bargained--the painting of the Sistine Chapel, the façade of S. Lorenzo,
the fortification of Samminiato--were thrust upon him in the midst of
other more congenial labours. What we possess of his achievement, is a
_torso_ of his huge designs.
Giulio's tomb, as he conceived it, would have been the most stupendous
monument of sculpture in the world.[305] That mountain of marble covered
with figures wrought in stone and bronze, was meant to be the sculptured
poem of the thought of Death; no mere apotheosis of Pope Julius, but a
pageant of the soul triumphant over the limitations of mortality. All that
dignifies humanity--arts, sciences, and laws; the victory that crowns
heroic effort; the majesty of contemplation, and the energy of
action--was symbolised upon ascending tiers of the great pyramid; while
the genii of heaven and earth upheld the open tomb, where lay the dead man
waiting for the Resurrection. Of this gigantic scheme only one imperfect
drawing now remains.[306] The "Moses" and the "Bound Captives"[307] are
all that Michael Angelo accomplished. For forty years the "Moses" remained
in his workshop. For forty years he cherished a hope that his plan might
still in part be executed, complaining the while that it would have been
better for him to have made sulphur matches all his life than to have
taken up the desolating artist's trade. "Every day," he cries, "I am
stoned as though I had crucified Christ. My youth has been lost, bound
hand and foot to this tomb."[308] It was decreed apparently that Michael
Angelo should exist for after ages as a fragment; and such might Pheidias
among the Greeks have been, if he had worked for ephemeral Popes and
bankrupt princes instead of Pericles. Italy in the sixteenth century,
dislocated, distracted, and drained of her material resources, gave no
opportunity to artists for the creation of monuments colossal in their
unity.
Michael Angelo spent eight months at this period among the stone quarries
of Carrara, selecting marble for the Pope's tomb.[309] There his brain,
always teeming with gigantic conceptions, suggested to him a new fancy.
Could not the headland jutting out beyond Sarzana into the Tyrrhene Sea
be carved by his workmen into a Pharos? To transmute a mountain into a
statue, holding a city in either hand, had been the dream of a Greek
artist. Michael Angelo revived the bold thought; but to execute it would
have been almost beyond his power. Meanwhile, in November 1505, the marble
was shipped, and the quays of Rome were soon crowded with blocks destined
for the mausoleum. But when the sculptor arrived, he found that enemies
had been poisoning the Pope's mind against him, and that Julius had
abandoned the scheme of the mausoleum. On six successive days he was
denied entrance to the Vatican, and the last time with such rudeness that
he determined to quit Rome.[310] He hurried straightway to his house, sold
his effects, mounted, and rode without further ceremony toward Florence,
sending to the Pope a written message bidding him to seek for Michael
Angelo elsewhere in future than in Rome. It is related that Julius,
anxious to recover what had been so lightly lost, sent several couriers to
bring him back.[311] Michael Angelo announced that he intended to accept
the Sultan's commission for building a bridge at Pera, and refused to be
persuaded to return to Rome. This was at Poggibonsi. When he had reached
Florence, Julius addressed, himself to Soderini, who, unwilling to
displease the Pope, induced Michael Angelo to seek the pardon of the
master he had so abruptly quitted. By that time Julius had left the city
for the camp; and when Michael Angelo finally appeared before him,
fortified with letters from the Signory of Florence, it was at Bologna
that they met. "You have waited thus long, it seems," said the Pope, well
satisfied but surly, "till we should come ourselves to seek you." The
prelate who had introduced the sculptor now began to make excuses for him,
whereupon Julius turned in a fury upon the officious courtier, and had him
beaten from his presence. A few days after this encounter Michael Angelo
was ordered to cast a bronze statue of Julius for the frontispiece of S.
Petronio. The sculptor objected that brass-foundry was not his affair.
"Never mind," said Julius; "get to work, and we will cast your statue till
it comes out perfect."[312] Michael Angelo did as he was bid, and the
statue was set up in 1508 above the great door of the church. The Pope was
seated, with his right hand raised; in the other were the keys. When
Julius asked him whether he was meant to bless or curse the Bolognese with
that uplifted hand, Buonarroti found an answer worthy of a courtier: "Your
Holiness is threatening this people, if it be not wise." Less than four
years afterwards Julius lost his hold upon Bologna, the party of the
Bentivogli returned to power, and the statue was destroyed. A bronze
cannon, called the "Giulia," was made out of Michael Angelo's masterpiece
by the best gunsmith of his century, Alfonso Duke of Ferrara.
It seems that Michael Angelo's flight from Rome in 1506 was due not only
to his disappointment about the tomb, but also to his fear lest Julius
should give him uncongenial work to do. Bramante, if we may believe the
old story, had whispered that it was ill-omened for a man to build his own
sepulchre, and that it would be well to employ the sculptor's genius upon
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Accordingly, on his return to Rome in
1508, this new task was allotted him. In vain did Michael Angelo remind
his master of the months wasted in the quarries of Carrara; in vain he
pointed to his designs for the monument, and pleaded that he was not a
painter by profession.[313] Julius had made up his mind that he should
paint the Sistine. Was not the cartoon at Florence a sufficient proof that
he could do this if he chose, and had he not learned the art of fresco in
the _bottega_ of his master Ghirlandajo? Whatever his original reluctance
may have been, it was speedily overcome; and the cartoons for the ceiling,
projected with the unity belonging to a single great conception, were
ready by the summer of 1508.[314]
The difficulty of his new task aroused the artist's energy. If we could
accept the legend, whereby contemporaries expressed their admiration for
this Titanic labour, we should have to believe the impossible--that
Michael Angelo ground his own colours, prepared his own plaster, and
completed with his own hand the whole work, after having first conquered
the obstacles of scaffolding and vault-painting by machines of his own
invention,[315] and that only twenty months were devoted to the execution
of a series of paintings almost unequalled in their delicacy, and
surpassed by few single masterpieces in extent. What may be called the
mythus of the Sistine Chapel has at last been finally disproved, partly by
the personal observations of Mr. Heath Wilson, and partly by the
publication of Michael Angelo's correspondence.[316] Though some
uncertainty remains as to the exact dates of the commencement and
completion of the vault, we now know that Michael Angelo continued
painting it at intervals during four successive years; and though we are
not accurately informed about his helpers, we no longer can doubt that
able craftsmen yielded him assistance. On May 10, 1508, he signed a
receipt for five hundred ducats advanced by Julius for the necessary
expenses of the undertaking; and on the next day he paid ten ducats to a
mason for rough plastering and surface-finishing applied to the vault.
There is good reason to believe that he began his painting during the
autumn of 1508. On November 1, 1509, a certain portion was uncovered to
the public; and before the end of the year 1512 the whole was completed.
Thus, though the legend of Vasari and Condivi has been stripped of the
miraculous by careful observation and keen-sighted criticism, enough
remains to justify the sense of wonder that expressed itself in their
exaggerated statements. No one but Michael Angelo could have done what he
did in the Sistine Chapel. The conception was entirely his own. The
execution, except in subordinate details and in matters pertaining to the
mason's craft, was also his. The rapidity with which he laboured was
astounding. Mr. Heath Wilson infers from the condition of the plaster and
the joinings observable in different parts, that the figure of Adam,
highly finished as it is, was painted in three days. Nor need we strip
the romance from that time-honoured tale of the great master's solitude.
Lying on his back beneath the dreary vault, communing with Dante,
Savonarola, and the Hebrew prophets in the intervals of labour, locking up
the chapel-doors in order to elude the jealous curiosity of rivals, eating
but little and scarcely sleeping, he accomplished in sixteen months the
first part of his gigantic task.[317] From time to time Julius climbed the
scaffold and inspected the painter's progress. Dreading lest death should
come before the work were finished, he kept crying, "When will you make an
end?" "When I can," answered the painter. "You seem to want," rejoined the
petulant old man, "that I should have you thrown down from the scaffold."
Then Michael Angelo's brush stopped. The machinery was removed, and the
frescoes were uncovered in their incompleteness to the eyes of Rome.
Entering the Cappella Sistina, and raising our eyes to sweep the roof, we
have above us a long and somewhat narrow oblong space, vaulted with round
arches, and covered from end to end, from side to side, with a network of
human forms. The whole is coloured like the dusky, tawny, blueish clouds
of thunderstorms. There is no luxury of decorative art;--no gold, no
paint-box of vermilion or emerald green, has been lavished here. Sombre
and aërial, like shapes condensed from vapour, or dreams begotten by Ixion
upon mists of eve or dawn, the phantoms evoked by the sculptor throng that
space. Nine compositions, carrying down the sacred history from the
creation of light to the beginning of sin in Noah's household, fill the
central compartments of the roof. Beneath these, seated on the spandrils,
are alternate prophets and sibyls, twelve in all, attesting to the future
deliverance and judgment of the world by Christ. The intermediate spaces
between these larger masses, on the roof and in the lunettes of the
windows, swarm with figures, some naked and some draped--women and
children, boys and young men, grouped in tranquil attitudes, or adapting
themselves with freedom to their station on the curves and angles of the
architecture. In these subordinate creations Michael Angelo deigned to
drop the terrible style, in order that he might show how sweet and full of
charm his art could be. The grace of colouring, realised in some of those
youthful and athletic forms, is such as no copy can represent. Every
posture of beauty and of strength, simple or strained, that it is possible
for men to assume, has been depicted here. Yet the whole is governed by a
strict sense of sobriety. The restlessness of Correggio, the violent
attitudinising of Tintoretto, belong alike to another and less noble
spirit.
To speak adequately of these form-poems would be quite impossible.
Buonarroti seems to have intended to prove by them that the human body has
a language, inexhaustible in symbolism--every limb, every feature, and
every attitude being a word full of significance to those who comprehend,
just as music is a language whereof each note and chord and phrase has
correspondence with the spiritual world. It may be presumptuous after this
fashion to interpret the design of him who called into existence the
heroic population of the Sistine. Yet Michael Angelo has written lines
which in some measure justify the reading. This is how he closes one of
his finest sonnets to Vittoria Colonna:
Nor hath God deigned to show Himself elsewhere
More clearly than in human forms sublime;
Which, since they image Him, compel my love.
Therefore to him a well-shaped hand, or throat, or head, a neck superbly
poised on an athletic chest, the sway of the trunk above the hips, the
starting of the muscles on the flank, the tendons of the ankle, the
outline of the shoulder when the arm is raised, the backward bending of
the loins, the curves of a woman's breast, the contours of a body careless
in repose or strained for action, were all words pregnant with profoundest
meaning, whereby fit utterance might be given to the thoughts that raise
man near to God. But, it may be asked, what poems of action as well as
feeling are to be expressed in this form-language? The answer is simple.
Paint or carve the body of a man, and, as you do it nobly, you will give
the measure of both highest thought and most impassioned deed. This is the
key to Michael Angelo's art. He cared but little for inanimate nature. The
landscapes of Italy, so eloquent in their sublimity and beauty, were
apparently a blank to him. His world was the world of ideas, taking
visible form, incarnating themselves in man. One language the master had
to serve him in all need--the language of plastic human form; but it was
to him a tongue as rich in its variety of accent and of intonation as
Beethoven's harmonies.
In the Sistine Chapel, where plastic art is so supreme, we are bound to
ask the further question. What was the difference between Michael Angelo
and a Greek? The Parthenon with its processions of youths and maidens, its
gods and heroes, rejoicing in their strength, and robed with raiment that
revealed their living form, made up a symphony of meaning as full as this
of Michael Angelo, and far more radiant. The Greek sculptor embraced
humanity in his work no less comprehensively than the Italian; and what he
had to say was said more plainly in the speech they both could use. But
between Pheidias and Michael Angelo lay Christianity, the travail of the
world through twenty centuries. Clear as morning, and calm in the
unconsciousness of beauty, are those heroes of the youth of Hellas. All
is grace, repose, strength shown but not asserted. Michael Angelo's Sibyls
and Prophets are old and wrinkled, bowed with thought, consumed by vigils,
startled from tranquillity by visions, overburdened with the messages of
God. The loveliest among them, the Delphic, lifts dilated eyes, as though
to follow dreams that fly upon the paths of trance. Even the young men
strain their splendid limbs, and seem to shout or shriek, as if the life
in them contained some element of pain. "He maketh his angels spirits, and
his ministers a flame of fire:" this verse rises to our lips when we seek
to describe the genii that crowd the cornice of the Sistine Chapel. The
human form in the work of Pheidias wore a joyous and sedate serenity; in
that of Michael Angelo it is turbid with a strange and awful sense of
inbreathed agitation. Through the figure-language of the one was spoken
the pagan creed, bright, unperturbed, and superficial. The sculpture of
the Parthenon accomplished the transfiguration of the natural man. In the
other man awakes to a new life of contest, disillusionment, hope, dread,
and heavenward striving. It was impossible for the Greek and the Italian,
bearing so different a burden of prophecy, even though they used the same
speech, to tell the same tale; and this should be remembered by those
critics who cast exaggeration and contortion in the teeth of Michael
Angelo. Between the birth of the free spirit in Greece and its second
birth in Italy, there yawned a sepulchre wherein the old faiths of the
world lay buried and whence Christ had risen.[318]
The star of Raphael, meanwhile, had arisen over Rome. Between the two
greatest painters of their age the difference was striking. Michael Angelo
stood alone, his own master, fashioned in his own school. A band of
artists called themselves by Raphael's name; and in his style we trace the
influence of several predecessors. Michael Angelo rarely received visits,
frequented no society, formed no pupils, and boasted of no friends at
Court. Raphael was followed to the Vatican by crowds of students; his
levées were like those of a prince; he counted among his intimates the
best scholars and poets of the age; his hand was pledged in marriage to a
cardinal's niece. It does not appear that they engaged in petty rivalries,
or that they came much into personal contact with each other. While
Michael Angelo was so framed that he could learn from no man, Raphael
gladly learned of Michael Angelo; and after the uncovering of the Sistine
frescoes, his manner showed evident signs of alteration. Julius, who had
given Michael Angelo the Sistine, set Raphael to work upon the Stanze. For
Julius were painted the "Miracle of Bolsena" and the "Expulsion of
Heliodorus from the Temple," scenes containing courtly compliments for the
old Pope. No such compliments had been paid by Michael Angelo. Like his
great parallel in music, Beethoven, he displayed an almost arrogant
contempt for the conventionalities whereby an artist wins the favour of
his patrons and the world.
After the death of Julius, Leo X., in character the reverse of his fiery
predecessor, and by temperament unsympathetic to the austere Michael
Angelo, found nothing better for the sculptor's genius than to set him at
work upon the façade of S. Lorenzo at Florence. The better part of the
years between 1516 and 1520 was spent in quarrying marble at Carrara,
Pietra Santa, and Seravezza. This is the most arid and unfruitful period
of Michael Angelo's long life, a period of delays and thwarted schemes and
servile labours. What makes the sense of disappointment greater, is that
the façade of S. Lorenzo was not even finished.[319] We hurry over this
wilderness of wasted months, and arrive at another epoch of artistic
production.
Already in 1520 the Cardinal Giulio de' Medici had conceived the notion of
building a sacristy in S. Lorenzo to receive the monuments of Cosimo, the
founder of the house, Lorenzo the Magnificent, Giuliano Duke of Nemours,
Lorenzo Duke of Urbino, Leo X., and himself.[320] To Michael Angelo was
committed the design, and in 1521 he began to apply himself to the work.
Nine years had now elapsed since the roof of the Sistine chapel had been
finished, and during this time Michael Angelo had produced little except
the "Christ" of S. Maria sopra Minerva. This new undertaking occupied him
at intervals between 1521 and 1534, a space of time decisive for the
fortunes of the Medici in Florence. Leo died, and Giulio after a few years
succeeded him as Clement VII. The bastards of the house, Ippolito and
Alessandro, were expelled from Florence in 1527. Rome was sacked by the
Imperial troops; then Michael Angelo quitted the statues and helped to
defend his native city against the Prince of Orange. After the failure of
the Republicans, he was recalled to his labours by command of Clement.
Sullenly and sadly he quarried marbles for the sacristy. Sadly and
sullenly he used his chisel year by year, making the very stones cry that
shame and ruin were the doom of his country. At last in 1534 Clement died.
Then Michael Angelo flung down his mallet. The monuments remained
unfinished, and the sculptor set foot in Florence no more.[321]
The Sacristy of S. Lorenzo was built by Michael Angelo and panelled with
marbles to receive the sculpture he meant to place there.[322] Thus the
colossal statues of Giuliano and Lorenzo were studied with a view to their
light and shadow as much as to their form; and this is a fact to be
remembered by those who visit the chapel where Buonarroti laboured both as
architect and sculptor. Of the two Medici, it is not fanciful to say that
the "Duke of Urbino" is the most immovable of spectral shapes eternalised
in marble; while the "Duke of Nemours," more graceful and elegant, seems
intended to present a contrast to this terrible thought-burdened
form.[323] The allegorical figures, stretched on segments of ellipses
beneath the pedestals of the two dukes, indicate phases of darkness and of
light, of death and life. They are two women and two men; tradition names
them "Night" and "Day," "Twilight" and "Dawning." Thus in the statues
themselves and in their attendant genii we have a series of abstractions,
symbolising the sleep and waking of existence, action and thought, the
gloom of death, the lustre of life, and the intermediate states of sadness
and of hope that form the borderland of both. Life is a dream between two
slumbers; sleep is death's twin-brother; night is the shadow of death;
death is the gate of life:--such is the mysterious mythology wrought by
the sculptor of the modern world in marble. All these figures, by the
intensity of their expression, the vagueness of their symbolism, force us
to think and question. What, for example, occupies Lorenzo's brain?
Bending forward, leaning his chin upon his wrist, placing the other hand
upon his knee, on what does he for ever ponder? The sight, as Rogers said
well, "fascinates and is intolerable." Michael Angelo has shot the beaver
of the helmet forward on his forehead, and bowed his head, so as to clothe
the face in darkness. But behind the gloom there is no skull, as Rogers
fancied. The whole frame of the powerful man is instinct with some
imperious thought. Has he outlived his life and fallen upon everlasting
contemplation? Is he brooding, injured and indignant, over his own doom
and the extinction of his race? Is he condemned to witness in immortal
immobility the woes of Italy he helped to cause? Or has the sculptor
symbolised in him the burden of that personality we carry with us in this
life and bear for ever when we wake into another world? Beneath this
incarnation of oppressive thought there lie, full-length and naked, the
figures of Dawn and Twilight, Morn and Evening. So at least they are
commonly called: and these names are not inappropriate; for the breaking
of the day and the approach of night are metaphors for many transient
conditions of the soul. It is only as allegories in a large sense,
comprehending both the physical and intellectual order, and capable of
various interpretation, that any of these statues can be understood. Even
the Dukes do not pretend to be portraits: and hence in part perhaps the
uncertainty that has gathered round them. Very tranquil and noble is
Twilight: a giant in repose, he meditates, leaning upon his elbow, looking
down. But Dawn starts from her couch, as though some painful summons had
reached her sunk in dreamless sleep, and called her forth to suffer. Her
waking to consciousness is like that of one who has been drowned, and who
finds the return to life agony. Before her eyes, seen even through the
mists of slumber, are the ruin and the shame of Italy. Opposite lies
Night, so sorrowful, so utterly absorbed in darkness and the shade of
death, that to shake off that everlasting lethargy seems impossible. Yet
she is not dead. If we raise our voices, she too will stretch her limbs
and, like her sister, shudder into sensibility with sighs. Only we must
not wake her; for he who fashioned her, has told us that her sleep of
stone is great good fortune. Both of these women are large and brawny,
unlike the Fates of Pheidias in their muscular maturity. The burden of
Michael Angelo's thought was too tremendous to be borne by virginal or
graceful beings. He had to make women no less capable of suffering, no
less world-wearied, than his country.
Standing before these statues, we do not cry. How beautiful! We murmur,
How terrible, how grand! Yet, after long gazing, we find them gifted with
beauty beyond grace. In each of them there is a palpitating thought, torn
from the artist's soul and crystallised in marble. It has been said that
architecture is petrified music. In the sacristy of S. Lorenzo we feel
impelled to remember phrases of Beethoven. Each of these statues becomes
for us a passion, fit for musical expression, but turned like Niobe to
stone. They have the intellectual vagueness, the emotional certainty, that
belong to the motives of a symphony. In their allegories, left without a
key, sculpture has passed beyond her old domain of placid concrete form.
The anguish of intolerable emotion, the quickening of the consciousness to
a sense of suffering, the acceptance of the inevitable, the strife of the
soul with destiny, the burden and the passion of mankind:--that is what
they contain in their cold chisel-tortured marble. It is open to critics
of the school of Lessing to object that here is the suicide of sculpture.
It is easy to remark that those strained postures and writhen limbs may
have perverted the taste of lesser craftsmen. Yet if Michael Angelo was
called to carve Medicean statues after the sack of Rome and the fall of
Florence--if he was obliged in sober sadness to make sculpture a fit
language for his sorrow-laden heart--how could he have wrought more
truthfully than thus? To imitate him without sharing his emotions or
comprehending his thoughts, as the soulless artist of the decadence
attempted, was without any doubt a grievous error. Surely also we may
regret, not without reason, that in the evil days upon which he had
fallen, the fair antique "Heiterkeit" and "Allgemeinheit" were beyond his
reach.
Michael Angelo left the tombs of the Medici unfinished; nor, in spite of
Duke Cosimo's earnest entreaties, would he afterwards return to Florence
to complete them. Lorenzo's features are but rough-hewn; so is the face of
Night. Day seems struggling into shape beneath his mask of rock, and
Twilight shows everywhere the tooth-dint of the chisel. To leave
unfinished was the fate of Michael Angelo--partly too, perhaps, his
preference; for he was easily deterred from work. Many of his marbles are
only just begun. The two medallion "Madonnas," the "Madonna and Child" in
S. Lorenzo, the "Head of Brutus," the "Bound Captives," and the "Pietà" in
the Duomo of Florence, are instances of masterpieces in the rough. He
loved to fancy that the form dwelt within the stone, and that the chisel
disencumbered it of superfluity. Therefore, to his eye, foreseeing what
the shape would be when the rude envelope was chipped away, the marble
mask may have taken the appearance of a veil or mantle. He may have found
some fascination in the incompleteness that argued want of will but not of
art, and a rough-hewn Madonna may have been to him what a Dryad still
enclosed within a gnarled oak was to a Greek poet's fancy. We are not,
however, justified in therefore assuming, as a recent critic has
suggested, that Michael Angelo sought to realise a certain preconceived
effect by want of finish. There is enough in the distracted circumstances
of his life and in his temper, at once passionate and downcast, to account
for fragmentary and imperfect performance; nor must it be forgotten that
the manual labour of the sculptor in the sixteenth century was by no means
so light as it is now. A decisive argument against this theory is that
Buonarroti's three most celebrated statues--the "Pietà" in S. Peter's, the
"Moses" and the "Dawn"--are executed with the highest polish it is
possible for stone to take.[324] That he always aimed at this high finish,
but often fell below it through discontent and _ennui_ and the importunity
of patrons, we have the best reason to believe.
Michael Angelo had now reached his fifty-ninth year. Lionardo and Raphael
had already passed away, and were remembered as the giants of a bygone age
of gold. Correggio was in his last year. Andrea del Sarto was dead.
Nowhere except at Venice did Italian art still flourish; and the mundane
style of Titian was not to the sculptor's taste. He had overlived the
greatness of his country, and saw Italy in ruins. Yet he was destined to
survive another thirty years, another lifetime of Masaccio or Raphael, and
to witness still worse days. When we call Michael Angelo the interpreter
of the burden and the pain of the Renaissance, we must remember this long
weary old age, during which in solitude and silence he watched the
extinction of Florence, the institution of the Inquisition, and the
abasement of the Italian spirit beneath the tyranny of Spain. His sonnets,
written chiefly in this latter period of life, turn often on the thought
of death. His love of art yields to religious hope and fear, and he
bemoans a youth and manhood spent in vanity. Once when he injured his leg
by a fall from the scaffolding in the Sistine Chapel, he refused
assistance, shut himself up at home, and lay waiting for deliverance in
death. His life was only saved by the forcible interference of friends.
In 1534 a new Eurystheus arose for our Hercules. The Cardinal Alessandro
Farnese, a fox by nature and infamous through his indulgence for a vicious
bastard, was made Pope under the name of Paul III.[325] Michael Angelo had
shed lustre on the reigns of three Popes, his predecessors. For thirty
years the Farnese had watched him with greedy eyes. After Julius, Leo, and
Clement, the time was now come for the heroic craftsman to serve Paul. The
Pope found him at work in his _bottega_ on the tomb of Julius; for the
"tragedy of the mausoleum" still dragged on. The statue of Moses was
finished. "That," said Paul, "is enough for one Pope. Give me your
contract with the Duke of Urbino; I will tear it. Have I waited all these
years; and now that I am Pope at last, shall I not have you for myself? I
want you in the Sistine Chapel." Accordingly Michael Angelo, who had
already made cartoons for the "Last Judgment" in the life of Clement, once
more laid aside the chisel and took up the brush. For eight years, between
1534 and 1542, he laboured at the fresco above the high altar of the
chapel, devoting his terrible genius to a subject worthy of the times in
which he lived. Since he had first listened while a youth to the
prophecies of Savonarola, the woes announced in that apocalypse had all
come true. Italy had been scourged, Rome sacked, the Church chastised.
And yet the world had not grown wiser; vice was on the increase, virtue
grew more rare.[326] It was impossible after the experience of the
immediate past and within view of the present and the future, to conceive
of God as other than an angry judge, vindictive and implacable.
The "Last Judgment" has long been the most celebrated of Michael Angelo's
paintings; partly no doubt because it was executed in the plenitude of his
fame, with the eyes of all Italy upon him; partly because its size arouses
vulgar wonder, and its theme strikes terror into all who gaze on it. Yet
it is neither so strong nor so beautiful as the vault-paintings of the
Sistine. The freshness of the genius that created Eve and Adam, unrivalled
in their bloom of primal youth, has passed away. Austerity and gloom have
taken possession of the painter. His style has hardened into mannerism,
and the display of barren science in difficult posturing and strained
anatomy has become wilful. Still, whether we regard this fresco as closing
the long series of "Last Judgments" to be studied on Italian church-walls
from Giotto downwards; or whether we confine our attention, as
contemporaries seem to have done, to the skill of its foreshortenings and
groupings;[327] or whether we analyse the dramatic energy wherewith
tremendous passions are expressed, its triumph is in either case decided.
The whole wall swarms with ascending and descending, poised and hovering,
shapes--men and women rising from the grave before the judge, taking their
stations among the saved, or sinking with unutterable anguish to the place
of doom--a multitude that no man can number, surging to and fro in dim
tempestuous air. In the centre at the top, Christ is rising from His
throne with the gesture of an angry Hercules, hurling ruin on the guilty.
He is such as the sins of Italy have made Him. Squadrons of angels,
bearing the emblems of His passion, whirl around Him like grey
thunder-clouds, and all the saints lean forward from their vantage ground
to curse and threaten. At the very bottom bestial features take the place
of human lineaments, and the terror of judgment has become the torment of
damnation. Such is the general scope of this picture. Of all its merits,
none is greater than the delineation of uncertainty and gradual awakening
to life. The middle region between vigilance and slumber, reality and
dream, Michael Angelo ruled as his own realm; and a painting of the "Last
Judgment" enabled him to deal with this metaichmios skotos--this
darkness in the interval of crossing spears--under its most solemn aspect.
When the fresco was uncovered, there arose a general murmur of
disapprobation that the figures were all nude. As society became more
vicious, it grew nice. Messer Biagio, the Pope's master of the ceremonies,
remarked that such things were more fit for stews and taverns than a
chapel. The angry painter placed his portrait in Hell with a mark of
infamy that cast too lurid a light upon this prudish speech. When Biagio
complained, Paul wittily answered that, had it been Purgatory, he might
have helped him, but in Hell is no redemption. Even the foul-mouthed and
foul-hearted Aretino wrote from Venice to the same effect--a letter
astounding for its impudence.[328] Michael Angelo made no defence. Perhaps
he reflected that the souls of the Pope himself and Messer Biagio and
Messer Pietro Aretino would go forth one day naked to appear before the
judge, with the deformities of sin upon them, as in Plato's "Gorgias." He
refused, however, to give clothes to his men and women. Daniel da
Volterra, who was afterwards employed to do this, got the name of
breeches-maker.
We are hardly able to appreciate the "Last Judgment;" it has been so
smirched and blackened by the smoke and dust of centuries. And this is
true of the whole Sistine Chapel.[329] Yet it is here that the genius of
Michael Angelo in all its terribleness must still be studied. In order to
characterise the impression produced by even the less awful of these
frescoes on a sympathetic student, I lay my pen aside and beg the reader
to weigh what Henri Beyle, the versatile and brilliant critic, pencilled
in the gallery of the Sistine Chapel on January 13, 1807:[330] "Greek
sculpture was unwilling to reproduce the terrible in any shape; the
Greeks had enough real troubles of their own. Therefore, in the realm of
art, nothing can be compared with the figure of the Eternal drawing forth
the first man from nonentity. The pose, the drawing, the drapery, all is
striking: the soul is agitated by sensations that are not usually
communicated through the eyes. When in our disastrous retreat from Russia,
it chanced that we were suddenly awakened in the middle of the dark night
by an obstinate cannonading, which at each moment seemed to gain in
nearness, then all the forces of a man's nature gathered close around his
heart; he felt himself in the presence of fate, and, having no attention
left for things of vulgar interest, he made himself ready to dispute his
life with destiny. The sight of Michael Angelo's pictures has brought back
to my consciousness that almost forgotten sensation. Great souls enjoy
their own greatness: the rest of the world is seized with fear, and goes
mad."
After the painting of the "Last Judgment," one more great labour was
reserved for Michael Angelo.[331] By a brief of September, 1535, Paul III.
had made him the chief architect as well as sculptor and painter of the
Holy See. He was now called upon to superintend the building of S.
Peter's, and to this task, undertaken for the repose of his soul without
emolument, he devoted the last years of his life. The dome of S. Peter's,
as seen from Tivoli or the Alban hills, like a cloud upon the Campagna, is
Buonarroti's; but he has no share in the façade that screens it from the
piazza. It lies beyond the scope of this chapter to relate once more the
history of the vicissitudes through which S. Peter's went between the days
of Alberti and Bernini.[332] I can but refer to Michael Angelo's letter
addressed to Bartolommeo Ammanati, valuable both as setting forth his
views about the structure, and as rendering the fullest and most glorious
meed of praise to his old enemy Bramante.[333] All ancient jealousies,
even had they ever stirred the heart of Michael Angelo, had long been set
at rest by time and death. The one wish of his soul was to set a worthy
diadem upon the mother-church of Christianity, repairing by the majesty of
art what Rome had suffered at the hands of Germany and Spain, and
inaugurating by this visible sign of sovereignty the new age of
Catholicity renascent and triumphant.
To the last period of Buonarroti's life (a space of twenty-two years
between 1542 and 1564) we owe some of his most beautiful
drawings--sketches for pictures of the Crucifixion made for Vittoria
Colonna, and a few mythological designs, like the "Rape of Ganymede,"
composed for Tommaso Cavalieri. His thoughts meanwhile were turned more
and more, as time advanced, to piety; and many of his sonnets breathe an
almost ascetic spirit of religion.[334] We see in them the old man
regretting the years he had spent on art, deploring his enthusiasm for
earthly beauty, and seeking comfort in the cross alone.
Painting nor sculpture now can lull to rest
My soul, that turns to His great love on high,
Whose arms to clasp us on the cross were spread.
It is pleasant to know that these last years were also the happiest and
calmest. Though he had lost his faithful friend and servant Urbino; though
his father had died, an old man, and his brothers had passed away before
him one by one, his nephew Lionardo had married in Florence, and begotten
a son called Michael Angelo. Thus he had the satisfaction of hoping that
his name would endure and flourish, as indeed it has done almost to this
very day in Florence. What consolation this thought must have brought him,
is clear to those who have studied his correspondence and observed the
tender care and continual anxiety he had for his kinsmen.[335] Wealth now
belonged to him: but he had never cared for money; and he continued to
live like a poor man, dressing soberly and eating sparely, often taking
but one meal in the day, and that of bread and wine.[336] He slept little,
and rose by night to work upon his statues, wearing a cap with a candle
stuck in front of it, that he might see where to drive the chisel home.
During his whole life he had been solitary, partly by preference, partly
by devotion to his art, and partly because he kept men at a distance by
his manner.[337] Not that Michael Angelo was sour or haughty; but he
spoke his mind out very plainly, had no tolerance for fools, and was apt
to fly into passions.[338] Time had now softened his temper and removed
all causes of discouragement. He had survived every rival, and the world
was convinced of his supremacy. Princes courted him; the Count of Canossa
was proud to claim him for a kinsman; strangers, when they visited Rome,
were eager to behold in him its greatest living wonder.[339] His old age
was the serene and splendid evening of a toilsome day. But better than all
this, he now enjoyed both love and friendship.
If Michael Angelo could ever have been handsome is more than doubtful.
Early in his youth the quarrelsome and vain Torrigiani broke his nose with
a blow of the fist, when they were drawing from Masaccio's frescoes in the
Carmine together.[340] Thenceforth the artist's soul looked forth from a
sad face, with small grey eyes, flat nostrils, and rugged weight of
jutting brows. Good care was thus taken that light love should not trifle
with the man who was destined to be the prophet of his age in art. Like
Beethoven, he united a loving nature, sensitive to beauty and desirous of
affection, with a rude exterior. He seemed incapable of attaching himself
to any merely mortal object, and wedded the ideal. In that century of
intrigue and amour, we hear of nothing to imply that Michael Angelo was a
lover till he reached the age of sixty. How he may have loved in the
earlier periods of his life, whereof no record now remains, can only be
guessed from the tenderness and passion outpoured in the poems of his
latter years. That his morality was pure and his converse without stain,
is emphatically witnessed by both Vasari and Condivi.[341] But that his
emotion was intense, and that to beauty in all its human forms he was
throughout his life a slave, we have his own sonnets to prove.
In the year 1534 he first became acquainted with the noble lady Vittoria,
daughter of Fabrizio Colonna, and widow of the Marquis of Pescara. She was
then aged forty-four, and had nine years survived the loss of a husband
she never ceased to idolise.[342] Living in retirement in Rome, she
employed her leisure with philosophy and poetry. Artists and men of
letters were admitted to her society. Among the subjects she had most at
heart was the reform of the Church and the restoration of religion to its
evangelical purity. Between her and Michael Angelo a tender affection
sprang up based upon the sympathy of ardent and high-seeking natures. If
love be the right name for this exalted and yet fervid attachment, Michael
Angelo may be said to have loved her with all the pent-up forces of his
heart. None of his works display a predilection for girlish beauty, and it
is probable that her intellectual distinction and mature womanhood touched
him even more than if she had been younger. When they were together in
Rome they met frequently for conversation on the themes of art and piety
they both held dear. Of these discourses a charming record has been
preserved to us by the painter Francis of Holland.[343] When they were
separated they exchanged poems and wrote letters, some of which remain. On
the death of Vittoria, in 1547, the light of life seemed to be
extinguished for our sculptor. It is said that he waited by her bed-side,
and kissed her hand when she was dying. The sonnets he afterwards composed
show that his soul followed her to heaven.
Another friend whom Michael Angelo found in this last stage of life, and
whom he loved with only less warmth than Vittoria, was a young Roman of
perfect beauty and of winning manners. Tommaso Cavalieri must be mentioned
next to the Marchioness of Pescara as the being who bound this greatest
soul a captive.[344] Both Cavalieri and Vittoria are said to have been
painted by him, and these are the only two portraits he is reported to
have executed. It may here be remarked that nothing is more characteristic
of his genius than the determination to see through nature, to pass beyond
the actual to the abstract, and to use reality only as a stepping-stone to
the ideal. This artistic Platonism was the source both of his greatness
and his mannerism. As men choose to follow Blake or Ruskin, they may
praise or blame him; yet, blame and praise pronounced on such a matter
with regard to such a man are equally impertinent and insignificant. It is
enough for the critic to note with reverence that thus and thus the spirit
that was in him worked and moved.
When we read the sonnets addressed to Vittoria Colonna and Cavalieri, we
find something inexpressibly pathetic in this pure and fervent worship of
beauty, when the artist with a soul still young had reached the limit of
the years of man. Here and there we trace in them an echo of his youth.
The Platonic dialogues he heard while yet a young man at the suppers of
Lorenzo, reappear converted to the very substance of his thought and
style. At the same time Savonarola resumes ascendency over his mind; and
when he turns to Florence, it is of Dante that he speaks.
At last the moment came when this strong solitary spirit, much suffering
and much loving, had to render its account. It appears from a letter
written to Lionardo Buonarroti on February 15, 1564, that his old servant
Antonio del Francese, the successor of Urbino in his household, together
with Tommaso Cavalieri and Daniello Ricciarelli of Volterra, attended him
in his last illness. On the 18th of that month, having bequeathed his
soul to God, his body to the earth, and his worldly goods to his kinsfolk,
praying them on their death-bed to think upon Christ's passion, he
breathed his last. His corpse was transported to Florence, and buried in
the church of S. Croce, with great pomp and honour, by the Duke, the city,
and the Florentine Academy.
FOOTNOTES:
[289] See Vasari, vol. xii. p. 333, and Gotti's _Vita di Michelangelo
Buonarroti_, vol. i. p. 4, for a discussion of this claim, and for a
letter written by Alessandro Count of Canossa, in 1520, to the artist.
[290] That Michael Angelo was contemptuous to brother artists, is proved
by what Torrigiani said to Cellini: "Aveva per usanza di uccellare tutti
quelli che dissegnavano." He called Perugino _goffo_, told Francia's son
that his father made handsomer men by night than by day, and cast in
Lionardo's teeth that he could not finish the equestrian statue of the
Duke of Milan. It is therefore not improbable that when, according to the
legend, he corrected a drawing of Ghirlandajo's, he may have said things
unendurable to the elder painter.
[291] Engraved in outline in Harford's _Illustrations of the Genius of
Michael Angelo Buonarroti_, Colnaghi, 1857.
[292] This group, placed in S. Peter's, was made for the French Cardinal
de Saint Denys. It should be said that the first work of Michael Angelo
in Rome was the "Bacchus" now in the Florentine Bargello, executed for
Jacopo Gallo, a Roman gentleman.
[293] Pitti approved of the form of government represented by Soderini.
Machiavelli despised the want of decision that made him quit Florence,
and the euêtheia of the man. Hence their curiously conflicting
phrases.
[294] See the chapter entitled "Della Malitia e pessíme Conditioni del
Tyranno," in Savonarola's "Tractato circa el reggimento e governo della
Citta di Firenze composto ad instantia delli excelsi Signori al tempo di
Giuliano Salviati, Gonfaloniere di Justitia." A more terrible picture has
never been drawn by any analyst of human vice and cruelty and weakness.
[295] Guasti's edition of the _Rime_, p. 26.
[296] He defends himself thus in a letter to Lodovico Buonarroti: "Del
caso dei Medici io non ò mai parlato contra di loro cosa nessuna, se non
in quel modo che s' è parlato generalmente per ogn' uomo, come fu del
caso di Prato; che se le pietre avessin saputo parlare, n' avrebbono
parlato."
[297] It seems clear from the correspondence in the Archivio Buonarroti,
recently published, that when Michael Angelo fled from Florence to Venice
in 1529, he did so under the pressure of no ignoble panic, but because
his life was threatened by a traitor, acting possibly at the secret
instance of Malatesta Baglioni. See Heath Wilson, pp. 326-330.
[298] See Guasti, p. 4.
[299] Vol. I., _Age of the Despots_, p. 251.
[300] To these years we must also assign the two unfinished medallions of
"Madonna and the infant Christ," the circular oil picture of the "Holy
Family," painted for Angelo Doni, and the beautiful unfinished picture of
"Madonna with the boy Jesus and S. John" in the National Gallery. The
last of these works is one of the loveliest of Michael Angelo's
productions, whether we regard the symmetry of its composition or the
refinement of its types. The two groups of two boys standing behind the
central group on either hand of the Virgin, have incomparable beauty of
form. The supreme style of the Sistine is here revealed to us in embryo.
Whether the "Entombment," also unfinished, and also in the National
Gallery, belongs to this time, and whether it be Michael Angelo's at all,
is a matter for the experts to decide. To my perception, it is quite
unworthy of the painter of the Doni "Holy family;" nor can I think that
his want of practice in oil-painting will explain its want of charm and
vigour.
[301] It has long been believed that Baccio Bandinelli destroyed Michael
Angelo's; but Grimm, in his Life of the sculptor (vol. i. p. 376, Eng.
Tr.), adduces solid arguments against this legend. A few studies,
together with the engravings of portions by Marc Antonio and Agostino
Veneziano, enable us to form a notion of the composition. At Holkham
there is an old copy of the larger portion of the cartoon, which has been
engraved by Schiavonetti, and reproduced in Harford's _Illustrations_,
plate x.
[302] _Vita_, p. 23. Cellini, the impassioned admirer of Michael Angelo,
esteemed this cartoon so highly, that he writes: "Sebbene il divino
Michelagnolo fece la gran cappella di Papa Julio da poi, non arrivò mai a
questo segno alla meta: la sua virtù non aggiunse mai da poi alla forza
di quei primi studj."
[303] The cartoon was probably exhibited in 1505. See Gotti, vol. i. p.
35.
[304] Gotti, pp. 277-282.
[305] Springer, in his essay, _Michael Agnolo in Rome_, p. 21, makes out
that this large design was not conceived till after the death of Julius.
It is difficult to form a clear notion of the many changes in the plan of
the tomb, between 1505 and 1542, when Michael Angelo signed the last
contract with the heirs of Julius.
[306] In the Uffizzi at Florence. See Heath Wilson, plate vi.
[307] Boboli Gardens, Bargello, Louvre. These captives are unfinished.
The "Rachel" and "Leah" at S. Pietro in Vincoli were committed to pupils
by Michael Angelo.
[308] "Che mi fosso messo a fare zolfanelli.... Son ogni di lapidato,
come se havessi crucifisso Cristo.... io mi truovo avere perduta tutta la
mia giovinezza legato a questa sepoltura."
[309] Gotti, p. 42. Grimm makes two visits to Carrara in 1505 and 1506,
vol. i. pp. 239, 243.
[310] See his letter. Gotti, p. 44.
[311] Our authorities for this episode in Michael Angelo's biography are
mainly Vasari and Condivi. Though there may be exaggeration in the
legend, it is certain that a correspondence took place between the Pope
and the Gonfalonier of Florence, to bring about his return. See Heath
Wilson, pp. 79-87, and the letter to Giuliano di San Gallo in Milanesi's
Archivio Buonarroti, p. 377. Michael Angelo appears to have had some
reason to fear assassination in Rome.
[312] See Michael Angelo's letters to Giovan Francesco Fattucci, and his
family. Gotti, pp. 55-65.
[313] See the sonnet to Giovanni da Pistoja:--
La mia pittura morta
Difendi orma', Giovanni, e 'l mio onore,
Non sendo in loco bon, nè io pittore.
[314] According to the first plan, Michael Angelo bargained with the Pope
for twelve Apostles in the lunettes, and another part to be filled with
ornament in the usual manner--"dodici Apostoli nelle lunette, e 'l resto
un certo partimento ripieno d' adornamenti come si usa." Michael Angelo,
after making designs for this commission, told the Pope he thought the
roof would look poor, because the Apostles were poor folk--"perchè furon
poveri anche loro." He then began his cartoons for the vault as it now
exists. See the letter to Ser Giovan Francesco Fattucci, in the _Archivio
Buonarroti_, Milanesi, pp. 426-427. This seems to be the foundation for
an old story of the Pope's complaining that the Sistine roof looked poor
without gilding, and Michael Angelo's reply that the Biblical personages
depicted there were but poor people.
[315] Bramante, the Pope's architect, did in truth fail to construct the
proper scaffolding, whether through inability or jealousy. Michael Angelo
designed a superior system of his own, which became a model for future
architects in similar constructions.
[316] See chapters vi. vii. and viii. of Mr. Charles Heath Wilson's
admirable _Life of Michel Angelo_. Aurelio Gotti's _Vita di Michel
Agnolo_, and Anton Springer's _Michael Agnolo in Rome_, deserve to be
consulted on this passage in the painter's biography.
[317] The conditions under which Michael Angelo worked, without a trained
band of pupils, must have struck contemporaries, accustomed to Raphael's
crowds of assistants, with a wonder that justified Vasari's emphatic
language of exaggeration as to his single-handed labour.
[318] In speaking of the Sistine I have treated Michael Angelo as a
sculptor, and it was a sculptor who designed those frescoes. _Nè io
pittore_ is his own phrase. Compare an autotype of "Adam" in the Sistine
with one of "Twilight" in S. Lorenzo: it is clear that in the former
Michael Angelo painted what he would have been well pleased to carve. A
sculptor's genius was needed for the modelling of those many figures; it
was, moreover, not a painter's part to deal thus drily with colour.
[319] The Laurentian Library, however, was built in 1524.
[320] See Gotti, pp. 150, 155, 158, 159, for the correspondence which
passed upon the subject, and the various alterations in the plan. As in
the case of all Michael Angelo's works, except the Sistine, only a small
portion of the original project was executed.
[321] Cosimo de' Medici found it impossible to induce him to return to
Florence. See B. Cellini's Life, p. 436, for his way of receiving the
Duke's overtures.
[322] See above, Chapter II, Michael Angelo.
[323] Vasari names the gloomy statue, called by the Italians _Il
Penseroso_, "Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino," the sprightly one, "Giuliano, Duke
of Nemours;" and this contemporary tradition has been recently confirmed
by an inspection of the Penseroso's tomb (see a letter to the _Academy_,
March 13, 1875, by Mr. Charles Heath Wilson). Grimm, in his _Life of
Michael Angelo_, gave plausible aesthetic reasons why we should reverse
the nomenclature; but the discovery of two bodies beneath the Penseroso,
almost certainly those of Lorenzo and his supposed son Alessandro,
justifies Vasari. Neither of these statues can be accepted as a portrait.
[324] The "Bacchus" of the Bargello, the "David," the "Christ," of the
Minerva, the "Duke of Nemours," and the almost finished "Night," might
also be mentioned. His chalk drawings of the "Bersaglieri," the "Infant
Bacchanals," the "Fall of Phaëthon," and the "Punishment of Tityos," now
in the Royal Collection at Windsor, prove that even in old age Michael
Angelo carried delicacy of execution as a draughtsman to a point not
surpassed even by Lionardo. Few frescoes, again, were ever finished with
more conscientious elaboration than those of the Sistine vault.
[325] See Varchi, at the end of the _Storia Fiorentina_, for episodes in
the life of Pier Luigi Farnese, and Cellini for a popular estimate of the
Cardinal, his father.
[326] This extract from Cesare Balbo's _Pensieri sulla Storia d' Italia_,
Le Monnier, 1858, p. 57, may help to explain the situation: "E se
lasciando gli uomini e i nomi grandi de' governanti, noi venissimo a
quella storia, troppo sovente negletta, dei piccoli, dei più, dei
governati che sono in somma scopo d' ogni sorta di governo; se, coll'
aiuto delle tante memorie rimaste di quell' secolo, noi ci addestrassimo
a conoscere la condizione comune e privata degli Italiani di quell' età,
noi troveremmo trasmesse dai governanti a' governati, e ritornate da
questi a quelli, tali universali scostumatezze ed immoralità, tali
fiacchezze e perfidie, tali mollezze e libidini, tali ozi e tali vizi,
tali avvilimenti insomma e corruzioni, che sembrano appena credibili in
una età d' incivilmento cristiano."
[327] Vasari's description moves our laughter with its jargon about
"attitudini bellissime e scorti molto mirabili," when the man, in spite
of his honest and enthusiastic admiration, is so little capable of
penetrating the painter's thought. Mr. Ruskin leaves the same impression
as Vasari: he too makes much talk about attitudes and muscles in Michael
Angelo, and seems to be on Vasari's level as to comprehending him. The
difference is that Vasari praises, Ruskin blames; both miss the mark.
[328] "È possibile che voi, che _per essere divino non degnate il
consortio degli huomini_, haviate ciò fatto nel maggior tempio di
Dio?.... In un bagno delitioso, non in un choro supremo si conveniva il
far vostro." Those who are curious may consult Aretino's correspondence
with Michael Angelo in his published letters (Parigi, 1609), lib. i. p.
153; lib. ii. p. 9; lib. iii. pp. 45, 122; lib. iv. p. 37.
[329] Braun's autotypes of the vault frescoes show what ravage the lapse
of time has wrought in them, by the cracking of the plaster, the peeling
off in places of the upper surface, and the deposit of dirt and cobwebs.
Mr. Heath Wilson, after careful examination, pronounces that not only
time, but the wilful hand of man, re-painting and washing the delicate
tint-coats with corrosive acids, has contributed to their ruin.
[330] _Histoire de la Peinture en Italie_, p. 332.
[331] That is not counting the frescoes of the Cappella Paolina in the
Vatican, painted about 1544, which are now in a far worse state even than
the "Last Judgment," and which can never have done more than show his
style in decadence.
[332] See above, Chapter II, S. Peter's.
[333] See Gotti, p. 307, or _Archivio Buonarroti_, p. 535.
[334] I have reserved my translation of the sonnets that cast most light
upon Michael Angelo's thought and feeling for an Appendix, No. II.
[335] The majority of Michael Angelo's letters are written on domestic
matters--about the affairs of his brothers and his father. When they
vexed him, he would break out into expressions like the following: "Io
son ito, da dodici anni in qua, tapinando per tutta Italia; sopportato
ogni vergognia; patito ogni stento; lacerato il corpo mio in ogni fatica;
messa la vita propria a mille pericoli, solo per aiutar la casa mia."
They are generally full of good counsel and sound love. How he loved his
father may be seen in the _terza rima_ poem on his death in 1534.
[336] Notice this expression in a letter to his father, written from
Rome, about 1512, "Bastivi avere del pane, e vivete ben con Cristo e
poveramente; come fo io qua, che vivo meschinamente." It does not seem
that he ever altered this poor way of living. For his hiring at Bologna,
in 1507, a single room with one bed in it, for himself and his three
workmen, see Gotti, p. 58. His father in 1500 rebuked him for the
meanness of his establishment; _ibid_. p. 23. It appears that he was
always sending money home.
[337] "Io sto qua in grande afanno, e con grandissima fatica di corpo, e
non ò amici di nessuna sorte, e none voglio: e non ò tanto tempo che io
possa mangiare el bisognio mio." Letter to Gismondo, published by Grimm.
See, too, Sebastian del Piombo's letter to him of November 9, 1520: "Ma
fate paura a ognuno, insino a' papi." Compare, too, the letter of
Sebastian, Oct. 15, 1512, in which Julius is reported to have said, "È
terribile, come tu vedi, non se pol praticar con lui." Again, Michael
Angelo writes: "Sto sempesolo, vo poco attorno e non parlo a persona e
massino di fiorentini." Gotti, p. 255.
[338] When anything went wrong with him, he became moody and vehement:
"Non vi maravigliate che io vi abbi scritto alle volte cosi stizosamente,
che io ò alle volte di gran passione, per molte cagioni che avengono a
chi è fuor di casa." So he writes to his father in 1498. A letter to
Luigi del Riccio of 1545, is signed "Michelagnolo Buonarroti non pittore,
nè scultore, nè architettore, ma quel che voi volete, ma none briaco,
come vi dissi, in casa."
[339] See the letters of Cosimo de' Medici, Gotti, pp. 301-313, the
letter of Count Alessandro da Canossa, _ibid._ p. 4, and Pier Vettori's
letter to Borghini, about the visit of some German gentlemen, _ibid._ p.
315.
[340] See the story as told by Torrigiani himself in Cellini, ed. Le
Monnier, p. 23.
[341] After saying that he talked of love like Plato, Condivi continues:
"Non senti mai uscir di quella bocca se non parole onestissime, e che
avevan forza d' estinguere nella gioventù ogni incomposto e sfrenato
desiderio che in lei potesse cadere." Compare Scipione Ammirato, quoted
by Guasti, "Le Rime," p. xi.
[342] Her intense affection for the Marquis of Pescara, to whom she had
been betrothed by her father at the age of five, is sufficiently proved
by those many sonnets and _canzoni_ in which she speaks of him as her
Sun.
[343] See Grimm, vol. ii.
[344] See the Sonnets translated in my Appendix and in my _Sonnets of
Michael Angelo and Campanella_, London, Smith & Elder, 1878. See also the
letters to Cavalieri, quoted by Gotti, pp. 231, 232, 234. It is surely
strained criticism to conjecture, as Gotti has done, that these epistles
were meant for Vittoria, though written to Cavalieri. Taken together with
the sonnets and the letter of Bartolommeo Angiolini (Gotti, p. 233), they
seem to me to prove only Michael Angelo's warm love for this young man.