Translated by Robert Southey Esq.
(_From Mr. Duppa’s Life of Michael Angelo._)
Ill hath he chosen his part who seeks to please
The worthless world,--ill hath he chosen his part,
For often must he wear the look of ease
When grief is at his heart;
And often in his hours of happier feeling
With sorrow must his countenance be hung,
And ever his own better thoughts concealing
Must in stupid grandeur’s praise be loud,
And to the errors of the ignorant crowd
Assent with lying tongue.
Thus much would I conceal--that none should know
What secret cause I have for silent woe;
And taught by many a melancholy proof
That those whom fortune favours it pollutes
I from the blind and faithless world aloof,
Nor fear its envy nor desire its praise,
But choose my path through solitary ways.
* * * * *
It was one of Michael Angelo’s high qualities to bear about him an
atmosphere which the parasite dared not approach: no heart-eater could
live in it.
He justly estimated whatever was influential in society; and hence
though he seemed to look down upon rank as an accident of life, he was
not regardless of its use. To those whom distinctions had raised, he
paid the deference accorded to their dignities. Yet towards him who
touched his integrity, he bore a lofty carriage, and when he
condescended to resent the attack, hurled an impetuous defiance that
kindled as it flew, and consumed the insulting defamer, though he were
ensconced behind countless quarterings, or ermined and enthroned. To the
constant calumny of jealous rivalry, and the daily lie of envy and
enmity, he was utterly indifferent. When asked why he did not resent the
aspersions incessantly poured upon him by one of his assailants, he
answered--“He who contends with the worthless can gain nothing worth
possessing.”
* * * * *
Michael Angelo’s temper was “sudden and quick;” but his nature was kind
and benevolent. Inferior artists frequently experienced his friendly
disposition. He sometimes made drawings and modelled for them. To
Minigella, a very indifferent hand, he gave the model of a crucifix
beautifully executed, from which the poor fellow formed a mould and made
casts of _papier mache_ to sell to the country people. Friendship and
esteem for particular individuals oftener induced him to undertake works
than proffers of large sums. Yet he was not indifferent or insensible to
a just estimation of his talents when they were undervalued. For Angelo
Doni, a Florentine of taste, he painted a holy family, and sent it home
with a note requiring seventy ducats for it. Doni told the messenger he
thought forty were enough; Michael replied by demanding the picture or a
hundred; Doni said he was willing to pay the seventy; Michael demanded a
hundred and forty, and Doni paid the sum.
* * * * *
He honoured worthy men in every station. His purse was open to their
necessities; he condoled with them in their afflictions, and lightened
their oppressions by his sympathies and influence. To artists and men of
talent his liberality was munificent. He neither loved money nor
accumulated it. His gifts were the free-will offerings of his heart, and
hence its dispensations were unaccompanied by a notoriety which sullies
the purity of primary obligation, by exposing the nakedness of its
object.
* * * * *
Conversing one day with his old and faithful servant, he said, “What
will become of you, Urbine, if I should die?” “I must then seek another
master” was the reply. “Poor fellow,” said Michael, “thou shalt not
need another master,” and he gave him two thousand crowns. This was a
large sum in those days: Vasari says such a donation would only have
been expected from popes and great emperors. Michael afterwards procured
him an appointment in the Vatican to take care of the pictures, with a
monthly salary of six ducats; and preserving his regard for the old man,
Michael, though at that time eighty-two years of age, sat up with him by
night in his last illness. “His death has been a heavy loss to me,” he
wrote to Vasari, “and the cause of excessive grief, but it has also been
a most impressive lesson of the grace of God: for it has shown me, that
he, who in his lifetime comforted me in the enjoyment of life, dying has
taught me how to die; not with reluctance, but even with a desire of
death. He lived with me twenty-six years, grew rich in my service, and I
found him a most rare and faithful servant; and now that I calculated
upon his being the staff and repose of my old age he is taken away, and
has left me only the hope of seeing him again in paradise.”
* * * * *
Michael Angelo was never married. To one who lamented that he had no
children to inherit his property, Michael answered, “My works must
supply their place; and if they are good for any thing they will live
hereafter. It would have been unfortunate for Lorenzo Ghiberti, had he
not left the doors of S. Giovanni, for his sons and his nephews have
long since sold and dissipated his accumulated wealth; but his sculpture
remains, and will continue to record his name to future ages.” These
“doors” were of bronze. When Michael was asked his opinion of them, he
said they were fit to be the doors of paradise.
* * * * *
Throughout the poetry of Michael Angelo, of which there is much in
existence, love is a pervading sentiment, though, without reference to
any particular object. Condivi had often heard him discourse upon it as
a passion platonically; and Mr. Duppa gives the following sonnet,
translated from the Italian of Michael Angelo by Mr. Wordsworth, as
exemplifying Michael’s turn of thought: