that Fate again interposed to prevent its completion. Giuliano de'
Medici, the Pope's only brother, and Lorenzo, his nephew, having died
at this time, Leo X. ordered Michelangelo to interrupt the façade of
San Lorenzo and to build a new sacristy in which he proposed to erect
a monument to their memory. The document exonerating Michelangelo
from all duties and obligations in connection with the façade is
dated March 10th, 1520.
Michelangelo only now found time to carry out a commission which he
had received seven years previously from a Roman gentleman, Metello
Vari, namely a nude statue of Christ bearing the cross. It was
finished in the summer of 1521 and sent to Rome, the extremities
being left in rough to prevent their being broken during the journey.
Pietro Urbino accompanied the statue to Rome, with orders to complete
it, and very nearly spoiled it by his careless and inferior
workmanship. The _Risen Christ_, now in the church of the Minerva,
is one of the most noble and majestic of religious statues in
existence; the torso and arms are particularly fine, but the hands
and feet, which were spoiled by Urbino, are stumpy and defective.
Leo X.'s pontificate, which, although short, was one of the most
glorious and eventful in the history of art, came to an abrupt
conclusion on December 1st, 1521. By a strange irony of fate, the
magnificent patron of art and letters was succeeded by a pious and
simple-minded Dutch prelate, who regarded statues as pagan idols, and
said that the Sistine Chapel was "nothing but a room full of naked
people." There is little doubt that he secretly longed to have it
whitewashed. Fortunately for art and artists, his pontificate was of
brief duration, and in 1523 Cardinal Giulio de' Medici was elected in
his stead, under the name of Clement VII.
In the following year Michelangelo finished the new sacristy of San
Lorenzo, and immediately set to work on the Medicean tombs. But he
was constantly worried and interrupted by new commissions from the
Pope, who wanted him, among other things, to build a library in which
to place the famous collection of books and manuscripts begun by
Cosimo de' Medici: "I cannot work at one thing with my hands and at
another with my brain!" exclaimed the artist in despair.
Nevertheless he undertook to build the library, and carried on both
works at the same time, constantly urged on by Pope Clement, who
wrote to him in an autograph letter: "Thou knowest that Popes have no
long lives, and we cannot yearn more than we do to behold the chapel
with the tombs of our kinsmen, and so also the library."
These were troublous times for Italy. After the disastrous battle of
Pavia, in which he had lost everything "except honour," Francis I.
concluded with the Sforza of Milan, with Venice, Florence, and Pope
Clement VII. a league against Charles V., which proved fatal to all
who took part in it. In 1527, a rabble of German and Spanish
soldiers of fortune, led by the renegade Connétable de Bourbon, took
and pillaged Rome, and the Pope himself was besieged in the Castle of
Saint Angelo for nine months. The Florentines availed themselves of
this opportunity to shake off the despotic yoke of the Medici, but
two years later, Charles V. concluded the peace of Barcelona with
Clement VII., one of the conditions being that he should re-establish
the Medicean rule in Florence. But the citizens would not give up
their newly-acquired liberty without a struggle, and prepared for a
desperate resistance. Michelangelo was appointed Commissary-General
of defence, and showed himself worthy of the confidence placed in him
by his fellow-citizens.
It was in a great measure due to the skill with which he fortified
the town, and more especially the hill of San Miniato, that Florence
was enabled to withstand the attacks of the Imperial troops for
twelve months. But the treachery of Malatesta Baglioni, who
commanded the troops of the Republic, paralyzed the efforts of
Michelangelo and of its other brave defenders, and in August, 1530,
the city fell. Alessandro de' Medici returned in triumph to
Florence, and would certainly have beheaded Michelangelo, who only
saved himself by hiding in the bell-tower of San Nicolò beyond the
Arno, until the first fury of his enemies was over.
In spite of his important military duties, Michelangelo continued
working at the Medicean tombs during the siege, and also painted a
panel picture, representing _Leda and the Swan_, originally intended
for the Duke of Ferrara, but which he afterwards gave to his pupil
Antonio Mini, together with many cartoons and drawings, that he might
dower two sisters with the proceeds. It was sold to the King of
France and hung at Fontainebleau until the time of Louis XIII., one
of whose ministers ordered it to be destroyed as an improper picture.
According to another version, however, it was only hidden, and
afterwards brought to England. The _Leda and the Swan_ now in the
National Gallery is regarded by some as the damaged and much restored
original of Michelangelo's famous picture. Clement VII.'s anger soon
abated, and Michelangelo was able to return to his work, thanks
chiefly to the kind offices of Baccio Valori, the Papal envoy in
Florence, to whom the sculptor presented, out of gratitude, the fine
statue of _Apollo,_ now in the National Museum at Florence.
[Illustration: TOMB OF LORENZO DE' MEDICI.]
The Medicean tombs progressed but slowly, for all this time
Michelangelo was worried almost to death by the Duke of Urbino, a
nephew of Julius II., who insisted upon his finishing the famous
tomb, while Clement VII., on the other hand, threatened the artist
with excommunication if he neglected his work in the new sacristy for
anything else. Probably the first statue to be finished was the
beautiful Madonna suckling the Child Jesus, represented as a strong
boy straddling across her knee. It is one of Michelangelo's noblest
works, possessing all the majestic simplicity of his earlier Madonnas
enhanced by greater power.
To give an adequate description of the tombs of Giuliano and Lorenzo
de' Medici would be impossible within the narrow limits of this
little book. Suffice it to say that the princes are represented in
the garb of ancient warriors, each seated in a niche above a
sarcophagus, on which two allegorical figures recline. Lorenzo
appears to be plunged in sorrowful meditation; at his feet recline
the colossal statues of _Evening_, represented by a powerful male
figure, apparently on the point of falling asleep, and _Dawn_,
symbolized by a beautiful young woman in the act of awaking, not to
joy and hope, but to another day of sorrow. The beauty of this last
figure cannot be described; it is such as the imagination of the
ancient Greeks might have endowed a goddess with. The statue of
_Dawn_ was finished in 1531, soon after the fall of Florence and the
return of the Medici, and there is little doubt that Michelangelo
intended his mournful figures to express sorrow at the loss of
Florentine liberty, rather than at the death of the two young
princes. The same idea is evident in the tomb of Giuliano, with the
two figures of _Night_, symbolized by a sleeping woman of singular
beauty and power, and _Day_, a vigorous bearded giant just rising to
his work and looking over his shoulder as if dazzled by the glare of
the rising sun. Although the head of _Day_ is unfinished, it is a
striking example of how Michelangelo was able to give life and
expression to his work from the first stroke of his chisel.
THE LAST JUDGMENT
In 1534 Michelangelo left Florence for the last time. His proud and
independent spirit was unable to tolerate Alessandro's petty tyranny.
The unfinished bust of Brutus, now in the Bargello, a vigorous and
striking piece of work, is another proof of his intense longing for
liberty. On arriving in Rome he found that Clement VII. had died two
days previously, and that Paul III., Farnese, had been elected Pope.
Michelangelo had finally come to an understanding with the executors
of Julius II., the agreement being that he should make a tomb with
one façade only, using the marbles already carved for the
quadrangular tomb and supplying six statues from his own hand, the
rest of the work to be completed by other artists under his
supervision. He therefore hoped to finish the tomb which had
embittered thirty years of his life, but once more he was doomed to
disappointment, for Paul III. immediately appointed him chief
architect, sculptor and painter of the Vatican, with a pension of
1,200 golden crowns, and ordered him to carry out a commission which
Clement VII. had given him shortly before his death. It was no less
a task than to paint the end wall of the Sistine Chapel. Prayers and
remonstrance were alike unavailing, and the doors of the Sistine
closed once more upon the master, not to be opened again until the
Christmas of 1541, when his _Last Judgment_ was uncovered "to the
admiration of Rome and of the whole world."
Thirty years earlier Michelangelo had depicted the Creation on the
vault of this same chapel; he now took for his subject the final doom
of all things created. The colossal work which cost him eight years'
labour is a magnificent but almost terrifying pictorial rendering of
the _Dies Irae_, the Day of Wrath, when "even the just shall not feel
secure." Awe and terror are equally apparent among the spirits of
the blessed crowding round the dread Judge, and on the despairing
countenances of the condemned souls dragged down by hideous demons
towards the infernal river, where Charon in his boat "beckons to them
with eyes of fire and beats the delaying souls with uplifted oar."
The rendering of the subject is thoroughly Dantesque, and very
different from the conventional treatment of the same theme by all
preceding artists. The composition, however, and indeed several
individual groups and figures, remind us forcibly of the Campo Santo
at Pisa.
Although all true artists received this work with enthusiasm, as
Vasari says, and came from every part of Italy to study it,
Michelangelo's enemies, including Pietro Aretino, the most immoral
writer of his age, criticised it as a highly improper painting,
because most of the figures were nude. So incensed was Michelangelo
at this that he revenged himself by painting one of his critics,
Messer Biagio da Cesena, as Minos surrounded by a crowd of devils.
Some years later Paul IV. obtained Michelangelo's consent to partly
drape most of the figures, and the work was done with commendable
discretion by Daniele da Volterra, who thereby earned the nickname of
Il Braghettone, or the breeches-maker.
Unfortunately the smoke from the altar candles and censers, and the
dust of centuries have darkened and almost completely destroyed the
original colour of this fresco; ominous cracks have also appeared in
several places, but it is to be hoped that time will spare one of the
greatest masterpieces of modern art for many centuries to come.
No sooner had Michelangelo finished the _Last Judgment_, than Paul
III. set him to work on the side walls of the chapel which Antonio da
San Gallo had just completed, and which is now known as the Cappella
Paolina. Michelangelo was nearly seventy years old at this time, and
fresco painting over a large surface is a fatiguing task even for a
young man, but the veteran artist obeyed, and in 1549 he completed
what was to be his last pictorial work, the two frescoes representing
the _Conversion of St. Paul_ and the _Martyrdom of St. Peter_.
The composition of these pictures is as masterly as ever, and the
drawing, especially in the fore-shortened figures, faultless, but for
the first time we are aware of something cold and unnatural, very
different from the glorious life and power with which the frescoes of
the Sistine literally glow. Michelangelo was getting old, and even
his Titanic frame could not withstand the insidious attacks of time.
He was seventy-five years of age when he carried these frescoes to
completion, and he himself confessed to Vasari that he did so "with
great effort and fatigue." Nevertheless he found sufficient time and
strength to complete the famous monument of Pope Julius II. during
the intervals of his fresco painting, and in 1545 the tragedy of the
tomb finally came to an end.
It must have been with feelings of mingled relief and bitterness that
Michelangelo surveyed the much modified tomb in the church of San
Pietro in Vincoli. The mighty design which had fired his youthful
ambition forty years previously had dwindled down to a comparatively
unimposing monument, but everybody will agree with Condivi when he
says that "although botched and patched up, it is the most worthy
monument to be found in Rome, or perhaps in the world; if for nothing
else, at least for the three statues that are by the hand of the
master." Of the central figure, representing Moses, we shall have
occasion to speak later on; the remaining statues by Michelangelo to
which Condivi alludes are two female figures of rare beauty,
representing Active and Contemplative Life. The rest of the tomb was
finished by Raffaello da Montelupo and by other assistants under the
master's supervision.
Having, as best he could, fulfilled his sacred pledge to the memory
of Julius II., Michelangelo appeared to consider his artistic career
as practically at an end. He was always inclined to sadness, but a
cloud of deeper melancholy seemed to settle over him, and like
Titian, Tintoretto, and other artists who attained to great old age,
he turned his thoughts almost exclusively to religious speculation.
In one of his sonnets he beautifully expresses the yearning for peace
and rest which had taken possession of his storm-tossed soul:
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.[2]
[2] "The Sonnets of Michelangelo." By J. A. Symonds, No. lxv.
Henceforward he regarded his art as a devotional exercise more than
anything else. The unfinished marble group of the _Deposition_, now
in the Duomo at Florence, and which he intended should be placed over
his tomb, was carved by the master during these years of serene
preparation for his approaching end.
Throughout his long and laborious career, devoted to the threefold
worship of God, art and his country, Michelangelo had constantly
refused to think of other ties, remarking that he had "espoused the
affectionate fantasy which makes of art an idol." From some of his
sonnets, however, it would appear that while at the court of Lorenzo
the Magnificent he had secretly cherished a deep and hopeless passion
for the beautiful Luigia de' Medici, who died in 1494. Forty years
were to elapse ere in his heart, yet youthful at the approach of age,
another woman, and she the first of her era, Vittoria Colonna,
occupied the place left vacant by Luigia de' Medici. The friendship
between these two lofty spirits, based upon mutual admiration and
esteem, is one of the most beautiful romances in history, and
inspired Michelangelo with some of his finest poems. It was brought
to a close in 1547 by Vittoria Colonna's death, which left
Michelangelo "dazed as one bereft of sense." "Nothing," says
Condivi, "grieved him so much in after years as that when he went to
see her on her death-bed he did not kiss her on the brow or face, as
he did kiss her hand."
ST. PETER'S
It will be remembered that Pope Julius II. had ordered Bramante to
rebuild the church of St. Peter's on a more magnificent scale, in
order that his tomb should derive additional grandeur from its
stately surroundings. Bramante was succeeded by Raphael, Peruzzi and
Antonio da Sangallo, and when the latter died in October, 1546, Paul
III. conferred the post of architect-in-chief upon Michelangelo. But
the aged master at first refused, saying that architecture was not
his art, and it was only when the Pope issued a peremptory _motu
proprio_ that he set to work, on condition that he should receive no
payment for his services.
Michelangelo returned to Bramante's original design of the Greek
cross, which had undergone considerable alterations, his object being
to erect a perfectly symmetrical building in such a manner that its
dominant feature, both from within and without, should be the cupola.
He began by demolishing most of Sangallo's work, and severely putting
a stop to all jobbery, thereby creating a number of enemies who did
all in their power to have him removed from his post. But Julius
III., who succeeded Paul III. in 1549, had implicit faith in
Michelangelo, and the colossal work proceeded so rapidly, in spite of
intrigues and opposition, that in 1557 the great cupola was commenced.
The master was now unable, owing to his extreme old age, to
personally superintend the building, so that he constructed a wooden
model, still preserved at the Vatican, after which his assistants
carried on the work. From the window of his house Michelangelo used
to watch for hours together the huge cupola slowly rounding itself
against the sky, and wondered, perhaps, in how many years after his
death it would be finished. The evening of Michelangelo's long life
was saddened by the loss of nearly all who were near and dear to him.
His two remaining brothers (for Buonarroto had died of the plague in
1528) passed away in Florence, and the only representative of the
family, besides the aged artist, was his nephew Leonardo, only son of
his favourite brother, Buonarroto. Although a confirmed bachelor
himself, Michelangelo prevailed upon his nephew to marry, and
Leonardo became the head of the still existing branch of the
Buonarroti family. Another terrible loss to Michelangelo was the
death of his faithful servant Francesco Urbino, of whom he wrote to
Vasari: "While Urbino living kept me alive, in dying he has taught me
to die, not unwillingly, but rather with a desire for death. The
better part of me has gone with him, and nothing is left to me now
but endless sorrow."
In spite of old age, illness and afflictions, Michelangelo's last
years were perhaps the busiest of a life of uninterrupted work. To
this period must be attributed the plan for the improvements upon the
Capitol; the design for the church of San Giovanni del Fiorentini;
the drawing for the monument to Giangiacomo de' Medici which Leone
Leoni erected in the Milan Cathedral; the plans for the conversion of
the Baths of Diocletian into the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli,
and a number of other drawings and sketches for palaces, statues,
monuments, which other artists carried out. He found time for all
these things while actively superintending the construction of St.
Peter's, and yet his restless spirit was not satisfied. In a
beautiful sonnet, beginning with the words
Giunto è gia' il corso della vita mia,
he laments the loss of his former creative power, and says that he
has already felt the pangs of one death, while another is fast
approaching. Nothing could be more pathetic than the spectacle of
this strong creative spirit, already imprisoned in the iron embrace
of death, yet struggling, like a Laocoon, against inevitable
dissolution. Although nearly ninety years of age, Michelangelo would
still walk abroad in all weathers, taking no precaution whatever. On
February 14th, 1564, a friend of the master, Tiberio Calcagni, met
him in the street on foot. It was raining hard, and Calcagni
affectionately upbraided the old man for going about in such weather:
"Leave me alone," cried Michelangelo fiercely, "I am ill, and cannot
find rest anywhere."
He spent the next four days in an armchair near the fire, not
complaining of any particular suffering, "quite composed and fully
conscious," as Diomede Leoni wrote to Leonardo, "but oppressed with
continual drowsiness." In order to shake it off, the brave old man
tried to mount his horse and go for a ride, but he was too weak.
Without a word he sat down again in his armchair, and on the
afternoon of February 18th, 1564, a little before five o'clock,
Michelangelo peacefully breathed his last. "He made his will in
three words," says Vasari, "committing his soul into the hands of
God, his body to the earth, and his goods to his nearest relatives."
Leonardo arrived in Rome three days after his uncle's death. He had
some difficulty in fulfilling Michelangelo's wish to be buried in his
native town, as the Romans, who had conferred the citizenship on the
artist, would not allow his body to be removed. At last the remains
were smuggled out of Rome in a bale of merchandise and conveyed to
Florence, where they were buried with great pomp and solemnity in the
church of Santa Croce. For some unaccountable reason the group of
the Pietà which Michelangelo had intended for his monument, was not
placed over his tomb. The present very ugly monument was designed by
Vasari at Leonardo's request. It bears the following inscription:
D. O. M.
MICHAELI ANGELO BONAROTIO
VETUSTA . SIMONIORUM . FAMILIA
SCULPTORI . PICTORI . ET . ARCHITECTO
FAMA . OMNIBUS . NOTISSIMO
LEONARDUS . PATRUO . AMANTISS . ET . DE . SE . OPTIME . MERITO
TRANSLATIS . ROMA . EJUS . OSSIBUS . ATQUE . IN . HOC . TEMPLO
MAJORUM . SUORUM . SEPULCRO . CONDITIS
COHORTANTE. SEREN. COSMO. MED. MAGNO. ETRUR. DUCE. P. C.
ANN. SAL. M. D. LXX
VIXIT. ANN. LXXXVIII. M. XI. D. XV.
Other monuments to Michelangelo exist in the church of the Santissimi
Apostoli at Rome, and on the hill of San Miniato, overlooking
Florence, which he so bravely defended. But the noblest monument of
Michelangelo the artist are his undying works, and the highest praise
of Michelangelo the man and the Christian is contained in these
simple words of a contemporary, Scipione Ammirato, "During the ninety
years of his life, and in spite of numberless temptations,
Michelangelo never did or said anything that was not pure and great."
THE ART OF MICHELANGELO
In the history of Art, Michelangelo stands isolated, a colossal
figure looming terrible and majestic, a Titan towering far above the
sons of men. Yet his was an age of giants. When Michelangelo came
before the world the glorious tide of the Renaissance was still
rising; sculpture and architecture had been brought to an
unprecedented degree of excellence by such men as Lorenzo Ghiberti,
Donatello and Brunelleschi, and following in Masaccio's footsteps, a
host of great painters had successfully striven to renovate and
perfect their art until it culminated in a Raphael. Leonardo da
Vinci was already famous before Michelangelo had touched chisel or
brush, but neither Leonardo's encyclopaedic achievements nor
Raphael's meteorlike career can be regarded as the ultimate
expression, the high-water mark of the Italian Renaissance.
In Michelangelo we behold the giant embodiment of the true spirit of
that wonderful period, the synthesis of its various forms of beauty
and perfection, the final manifestation of its aesthetic
possibilities. When Art first shook off the trammels of
mediaevalism, she was content to worship at the shrine of Truth; with
Botticelli and Leonardo she passed into vague regions of poetry.
Raphael touched a more human note, often soaring to sublime
harmonies: with Michelangelo the Renaissance reached its fullest
development, attaining to a spiritual height, an almost superhuman
loftiness hitherto undreamt of. Other men had excelled in painting,
in sculpture, or in architecture before him, but Michelangelo was the
first to attain perfection in every branch of Art, and such was his
strong creative individuality that he left nothing to which he
applied himself at the same stage where he had found it, bringing
every manifestation of Art to the highest degree of perfection of
which it was capable, and crowning all with that glorious aureola of
spiritual grandeur which is the most awe-inspiring characteristic of
his works.