XLIX. But now it must be understood that these accounts being settled Michael Angelo, to appear more indebted to the Duke of Urbino and to give Pope Clement less hope of sending him to Florence (where he did not by any means wish to go), secretly agreed with the counsel and agent of his Excellency that it should be said that he had received some thousand scudi more on this account than he really had. This was done not only by word of mouth, but without his knowledge and consent it was inserted in the written contract, not when it was sealed but when it was written out, at which he was much disturbed. Nevertheless, the counsel persuaded him that it would not prejudice his case, for it did not matter whether the contract specified twenty thousand or one thousand scudi, since they were agreed that the scheme of the Tomb should now be reduced in scale according to the amount of money actually received, adding that nobody but themselves would question the proceeding, and his interests were secured by the understanding that was between them. So with this Michael Angelo was pacified, because it appeared to him that he might put his trust in them, as also because he desired that this excuse should serve him with the Pope for the purpose mentioned above. And thus the matter ended for the time; but it was not nearly over yet, because after he had served the four months at Florence and returned to Rome, the Pope sought to use him in another way, by making him paint the end wall of the Sistine Chapel. And as one who had a good wit, he thought of one thing after another until finally he resolved to have the Day of the Last Judgment painted, considering that the variety and grandeur of the subject would give a wide field for this man to prove the power that was in him. Michael Angelo, knowing the obligation he was under to the Duke of Urbino, endeavoured to free himself from this new charge, but as he could not he put it off as much as possible; whilst pretending to busy himself with the cartoon, as he partly did, he was secretly working at the statues for the Tomb.



CHAPTER IX

THE LAST ACT OF THE TRAGEDY OF THE TOMB, AND THE DAY OF JUDGMENT

L. Meanwhile Pope Clement died and Paul III. was elected. He sent for Michael Angelo and requested him to serve him. Michael Angelo, fearing that he would be hindered in the work of the Tomb, replied that he could not, for he was engaged by contract to the Duke of Urbino until he had finished the work that he had in hand. The Pope was much annoyed, and said: "It is some thirty years that I have had this wish, shall I not satisfy it now I am Pope? Where is the contract that I may tear it up?" Michael Angelo, seeing it had come to this, was for leaving Rome and betaking himself to the country about Genoa, to an abbey of the Bishops of Aleria, to a follower of Julius, very much his friend, and there bring his work to an end. This place was conveniently near Carrara and good for carrying the marbles by sea. He thought also of going to Urbino, where he had formerly designed to live, as a quiet resting-place, and where, for the sake of Julius, he would be welcomed cordially. For this reason he had sent one of his men some months before to buy a house and some land; but fearing the greatness of the Pontiff, with good reason, he did not go, and hoped with soft words to satisfy the Pope.

LI. But the Pope continued firm in his proposals. One day he came to visit Michael Angelo in his house, bringing with him eight or ten Cardinals. He wished to see the cartoon for the wall of the Sistine Chapel made for Clement, and the statues already carved for the Tomb, and minutely examined everything. Then the Most Reverend Cardinal of Mantua, who was present, seeing the Moses, of which we have already written, and of which we will write more copiously by-and-bye, said: "This statue alone is enough to do honour to the Tomb of Pope Julius." When Pope Paul had seen everything he again asked Michael Angelo, in the presence of the Cardinals, including the before-mentioned Most Reverend and Illustrious of Mantua, to come and work for him, but finding Michael Angelo obdurate, he said: "I will arrange that the Duke of Urbino shall be satisfied with these statues by your hand, and that the three remaining ones shall be given to others to do." He obtained a new contract from the agents, confirmed by his Excellency the Duke, who did not wish to displease the Pope. Although Michael Angelo might have avoided paying for these three statues, this contract freeing him from the obligation, nevertheless he wished to bear the expense himself, and he deposited for these and the remaining works of the Tomb one thousand five hundred and eighty ducats. Thus the agents of the Duke allowed it, and the Tragedy of the Tomb and the Tomb itself had an end at last. To-day it may be seen in the Church of San Pietro ad Vincula, not according to the first design with four sides, but with one side, and that one of the lesser, not detached all round and isolated, but built up against a wall on account of the hindrances mentioned above. It is yet true that, although it is botched and patched up, it is the most worthy monument to be found in Rome, or, perhaps, anywhere else; if for nothing else, at least, for the three statues that are by the hand of the master: among them that most marvellous Moses, leader and captain of the Hebrews, who is seated in an attitude of thought and wisdom, holding under his right arm the tables of the law, and supporting his chin with his left hand, like one tired and full of cares. Between the fingers of that hand escape long waves of his beard—a very beautiful thing to see. And his face is full of life and thought, and capable of inspiring love and terror, which, perhaps, was the truth. It has, according to the usual descriptions, the two horns on his head a little way from the top of the forehead. He is robed and shod in the manner of the antique, with his arms bare. A work most marvellous and full of art, and much more so because all the form is apparent beneath the beautiful garments with which it is covered. The dress does not hide the shape and beauty of the body, as, in a word, may be seen in all Michael Angelo's clothed figures, whether in painting or sculpture. The statue is more than twice the size of life. At the right hand of this statue, under a niche, is one that represents Contemplative Life—a woman, larger than life and of rare beauty, with bent knee, not to the ground but on a plinth, with her face and both her hands raised to heaven, so that she seems to breathe love in every part. On the other side, that is to say on the left of Moses, is Active Life, with a mirror in her right hand, into which she gazes attentively, meaning by this that our actions should be governed by forethought; and in her left hand a garland of flowers. In this Michael Angelo followed Dante, of whom he was always a great student, for in his Purgatorio he feigns to have the Countess Matilda, whom he takes to represent Active Life, in a field full of flowers. The Tomb is altogether beautiful, especially the binding of the several parts together by the great cornice, to which no one could take exception.

LII. Now that is enough for this work; indeed, I fear it is only too much, and that instead of giving pleasure it will have been tedious to the reader. Nevertheless, it appeared to me necessary, in order to remove those unfortunate and false scandals, rooted in men's minds, that Michael Angelo had received sixteen thousand scudi, and then would not carry out the work he had undertaken. Neither the one nor the other was true, because he had from Julius for the Tomb only one thousand ducats, spent in those months of quarrying marble at Carrara. How then could Michael Angelo have received money for it from him, since he changed his purpose and would hear no more of the Tomb? As to the money Michael Angelo received, after the death of Pope Julius, from the two cardinals, his executors, Michael Angelo possesses a written public acknowledgment—by the hand of a notary, from Bernardo Bini, Florentine citizen, who was trustee, and payed out the money—that the payments amounted to about three thousand ducats. Never was man more anxious about his work than Michael Angelo in this, as much because he knew how great fame it would bring him as for the loving memory in which he always held the blessed spirit of Pope Julius, for that reason he has always honoured and loved the House della Rovere, and especially the Dukes of Urbino, for that reason he has contended with two Popes, as has been said, who wished to withdraw him from the undertaking. But what grieved Michael Angelo the most, is that instead of thanks all he got was odium and disgrace.

LIII. But returning to Pope Paul. I must tell you that after the last agreement made between his Excellency the Duke and Michael Angelo, the Pope took Michael Angelo into his service, and desired him to carry out what he had begun in the time of Clement, to paint the end wall of the Sistine Chapel, which he had already covered with rough-cast and screened off with boards from floor to ceiling. As this work was instigated by Pope Clement, and begun in his time, it does not bear the arms of Paul, although he desired it; but Pope Paul so loved and reverenced Michael Angelo that however much he desired it he would never have vexed him. In this work Michael Angelo expressed all that the human figure is capable of in the art of painting, not leaving out any pose or action whatsoever. The composition is careful and well thought out, but lengthy to describe; perhaps it is unnecessary, as so many engravings and such a variety of drawings of it have been dispersed everywhere. Nevertheless, for those who have not seen the real thing, and into whose hands the engravings have not come, let us say, briefly, that the whole is divided into parts, right and left, upper and lower, and central. In the central part, near to the earth, are seven angels, described by Saint John in the Apocalypse, with trumpets to their lips, calling the dead to judgment from the four corners of the earth. With them are two others having an open book in their hands, in which every one reads and recognises his past life, having almost to judge himself. At the sound of these trumpets the graves open and the human race issues from the earth, all with varied and marvellous gestures; while in some, according to the prophecy of Ezekiel, the bones only have come together, in some they are half clothed with flesh, and in others entirely covered; some naked, some clothed in the shrouds and grave-clothes in which they were wrapped when buried, and of which they seek to divest themselves. Among these are some who are not yet fully risen, and looking up to heaven in doubt as to whither Divine justice shall call them. It is a delightful thing to see them with labour and pains issue forth from the earth, and, with arms out-stretched to heaven, take flight; those who are already risen lifted up into the air, some higher and some lower, with different gestures and characters. Above the angels of the trumpets is the Son of God in majesty, in the form of a man, with arm and strong right hand uplifted. He wrathfully curses the wicked, and drives them from before his face into eternal fire. With His left hand stretched out to those on the right, He seems to draw the good gently to Himself. The angels are seen between heaven and earth as executors of the Divine commands. On the right they rush to aid the elect, whose flight is impeded by malignant spirits; and on the left to dash back to earth the damned, who in their audacity attempt to scale the heavens. Evil spirits drag down these wicked ones into the abyss, the proud by the hair of the head, and so also every sinner by the member through which he sinned. Beneath them is seen Charon with his black boat, just as Dante described him in the "Inferno," on muddy Acheron, raising his oar to strike some laggard soul. As the bark touches the bank, pushed on by Divine justice, all these souls strive to fling themselves ashore, so that fear, as the poet says, is changed into longing. Afterwards they receive from Minos their sentence, to be dragged by demons to the bottomless pit, where are marvellous contortions, grievous and desperate as the place demands. In the middle of the composition, on the clouds of heaven, the Blessed already arisen form a crown and circle around the Son of God. Apart, and beside the Son, appears His Mother, timorous and seeming hardly secure herself from the wrath and mystery of God; she draws as near as possible to the Son. Next to her the Baptist, the Twelve Apostles, and all the saints of God, each one showing to the tremendous Judge the symbol of the martyrdom by which he glorified God: St. Andrew the cross, St. Bartholomew his skin, St. Lawrence the gridiron, St. Sebastian the arrows, San Biagio the combs of iron, St. Catherine the wheel, and others other things whereby they are known. Above these on the right and left, on the upper part of the wall, are groups of angels, with actions gracious and rare, raising in heaven the Cross of the Son of God, the Sponge, the Crown of Thorns, the Nails, and the Column of the Flagellation, to reproach the wicked with the blessings of God of which they have been so heedless, and for which they have been so ungrateful, and to comfort and give confidence to the good. There are infinite details which I pass over in silence. It is enough that, besides the divine composition, all that the human figure is capable of in the art of painting is here to be seen.



CHAPTER X

THE CHAPEL OF POPE PAUL AND THE PIETA OF SANTA MARIA DEL FIORE

LIV. Finally, Pope Paul having built a chapel on the same floor as the before-mentioned Sistine, he desired to decorate it in his own memory, and he made Michael Angelo paint the frescoes on the side walls. In one is represented the crucifixion of St. Peter; in the other the story of St. Paul—how he was converted by the apparition of Jesus Christ—both stupendous in general composition as in the individual figures. And this is the last work of painting by Michael Angelo that has been seen to this day; he finished it in his seventy-fifth year. At present he has in hand a group in marble, which he works at for his pleasure, as one who full of ideas and powers must produce something every day. It is a group of four figures, larger than life—a Deposition. The dead Christ is held up by His Mother; she supports the body on her bosom with her arms and with her knees, a wonderfully beautiful gesture. She is aided by Nicodemus above, who is erect and stands firmly—he holds her under the arms and sustains her with manly strength—and on the left by one of the Marys, who, although exhibiting the deepest grief, does not omit to do those offices that the Mother, by the extremity of her sorrow, is unable to perform. The Christ is dead, all His limbs fall relaxed, but withall in a very different manner from the Christ Michael Angelo made for the Marchioness of Pescara or the Christ in the Madonna della Febbre. It is impossible to speak of its beauty and its sorrow, of the grieving and sad faces of them all, especially of the afflicted Mother. Let it suffice; I tell you it is a rare thing, and one of the most laborious works that he has yet done, principally because all the figures are distinct from each other, the folds of the draperies of one figure not confused with those of the others.

LV. Michael Angelo has done infinitely more things of which I have not spoken, such as the Christ that is in the Church of the Minerva, a St. Matthew in Florence; when he began it he designed to carve all the twelve Apostles to be placed near twelve pilasters in the Duomo. His cartoons for several works of paintings, and of designs for buildings, both public and private, are infinite in number; and, lastly, for a bridge to span the Grand Canal of Venice, of a new shape and style of which the like was never seen; and many other things never to be seen. It would be long to describe them, so I make an end. He intends to give the Deposition from the Cross to some church, and to be buried at the foot of the altar where it is placed. The Lord God in His goodness long preserve him to us, for without doubt the same day will end his life and his labours, as is written of Socrates. His active and vigorous old age gives me firm hope that he has many years to live, as also the long life of his father, who lived to ninety-two years without knowing what it was to have a fever, and then dying more for lack of resolution than for any illness; so that when he was dead, as Michael Angelo relates, his face retained the same colour that he had when living, appearing rather asleep than dead.

LVI. From a child Michael Angelo was a hard worker, and to the gifts of nature added study, not using the labours and industry of others, but, desiring to learn from nature herself, he set her up before him as the true example. There is no animal whose anatomy he did not desire to study, much more than that of man; so that those who have spent all their lives in that science, and who make a profession of it, hardly know so much of it as he. I speak of such knowledge as is necessary to the arts of painting and sculpture, not of other minutiae that anatomists observe. And thus it is that his figures show so much art and learning, so that they are inimitable by any painter whatever. I have always been of this opinion, that the forces and efforts of nature have a prescribed end, fixed and ordained by God, which it is impossible for ordinary powers to pass; and this is so not only in painting and sculpture, but universally in all arts and sciences; and that she gives power to one person that he may be a rule and example in a particular art, giving him the first place; so that afterwards, if any one desires to bring forth a great work in that art, worthy to be read or seen, he must work in the same way as the first great example, or, at least, similarly, and go by his road; for if he does not his work will be much inferior, the worse the more he diverges from the direct path. After Plato and Aristotle, how many philosophers have we seen who, not following them, have been worth anything? How many orators after Demosthenes and Cicero? How many mathematicians after Euclid and Archimedes? How many doctors after Hypocrates and Galen? Or poets after Homer and Virgil? And if there has been any one who has been able by his own abilities to arrive at the first place in any one of these sciences and finds it already occupied, he either acknowledges the first one to have arrived at perfection, and gives up the attempt, or if he has sense he follows him as the ideal of the perfect. This has been exemplified in our own day in Bembo, in Sanazzaro, in Caro, in Guidoccione, in the Marchioness of Pescara, and in other writers and lovers of the Tuscan rhyme, who, although gifted with the highest and most singular genius, none the less, not being able of themselves to do better than nature exemplifies in Petrarca, they set themselves to follow him, but so happily that they are judged worthy to be read and counted with the best.



CHAPTER XI

CONCLUSION OF THE LIFE BY CONDIVI

LVII. Now to consider my remarks. I say, that it seems to me, that nature has endowed Michael Angelo so largely with all her riches in these arts of painting and sculpture, that I am not to be reproached for saying that his figures are almost inimitable. Nor does it appear that I have allowed myself to be too much carried away, for until now he alone has worthily taken up both chisel and brush. Of the painting of the ancients there is no memorial, and to whom does he yield in their sculpture (of which, indeed, much remains)? In the judgment of men learned in the art, to no one, unless we stoop to the opinion of the vulgar, who admire the antique for the sole reason that they envy the genius and industry of their own times. All the same, I have not yet heard any one say the contrary; this man is so far above envy. Raffael da Urbino, although he desired to compete with Michael Angelo, was often constrained to say that he thanked God he was born in his time as he acquired from him a style very different from that which he learnt from his father, who was a painter, and from his master Perugino. But what greater and clearer sign can we ever have of the excellence of this man than the contention of the Princes of the world for him? From the four Pontiffs, Julius, Leo, Clement, and Paul, to the Grand Turk, father of him who to-day holds the Empire. As I have said above, the Sultan sent certain monks of the Order of Saint Francis with letters begging Michael Angelo to come and stay with him; arranging by letters of credit for the bank of the Gondi, in Florence, to advance the amount of money necessary for his journey, and also that from Cossa, near Ragusi, he should be accompanied to Constantinople most honourably by one of his grandees. Francesco(54) Valesio, King of France, tried every means to get him, crediting him with three thousand scudi for his journey whenever he should go. Il Bruciolo was sent to Rome by the Signoria of Venice to invite him to come and dwell in that city, and to offer him a provision of six hundred scudi a year, not binding him to anything, only that he should honour the Republic with his presence; with the condition also that if he did any work in her service he should be paid for it as if he received no pension from them at all. These are not ordinary doings that happen every day, but new and out of the common use, and would only happen to singular and most excellent worth, as was that of Homer, for whom many cities contested, each one appropriating him as her own.

LVIII. He is held of no less account, than by those already named, by the present Pontiff, Julius III., a Prince of supreme wisdom and a lover and patron of all the arts; but particularly inclined to painting, sculpture, and architecture, as may be clearly known by the works he has done in the Palazzo and the Belvedere, and now has ordered for his villa Giulia (a memorial and scheme worthy of a noble and generous soul like his). It is filled with so many statues, ancient and modern, so great variety of beautiful stones, precious columns, plaster work, paintings, and every other kind of ornament, of which I will write another time, as a unique work, not yet in its perfection, requires. He does not ask Michael Angelo to work for him. Having respect for his age, he understands well and appreciates his greatness; but wishes not to overburden him. This regard, in my judgment, brings Michael Angelo more honour than all his employment under the other Popes. It is, however, true, that in the paintings and architecture that his Holiness is continually having done, he almost always seeks Michael Angelo's advice and judgment, frequently sending the artists to seek him at his house. It grieves me, and it grieves also his Holiness, that by reason of a certain natural timidity, or let us say respect and reverence, which some call pride, Michael Angelo does not profit by the goodwill, kindness, and liberality of so great a Pontiff and so much his friend. As I first heard from the most Reverend Monsignor di Forli, his chamberlain, the Pope has often said that (if it were possible) he would willingly take from his own years and his own blood to add to the life of Michael Angelo, that the world might not so soon be deprived of such a man. I also, having access to his Holiness, heard it from his lips with my own ears, and more also, that if he survives him, as in the natural course of life is probable, he will have Michael Angelo's body embalmed and keep it near him, so that it should be as lasting as his works. He said this at the beginning of his Pontificate to Michael Angelo himself in the presence of many. I do not know what could be more honourable to Michael Angelo than these words, or a greater proof of the esteem in which the Pope holds him.

LIX. Again the Pope showed his esteem plainly when Pope Paul died and he was created Pontiff, in a consistory, all the Cardinals then in Rome being present. He defended Michael Angelo and protected him from the overseers of the fabric of St. Peter's, who, for no fault of his, as they said, but of his servants, wished to deprive him of, or at least to restrain, that authority given him by Pope Paul by a moto proprio, of which more will be said below. He defended him, and not only confirmed the moto proprio but honoured him by many kind words, not lending his ears to the quarrels of the overseers or anybody else. Michael Angelo knows (as many times he has told me) the love and kindness of his Holiness towards him, and how he respects him; and because he cannot requite the Pope with his services, and show his love, he will regret all the rest of his life that he seems useless and appears ungrateful to his Holiness. One thing comforts him somewhat (as he is accustomed to say); knowing the wisdom of his Holiness he hopes to be excused, and being unable to give more, that his good will may be accepted. Nor does he refuse, as far as he has the power, and for all he may be worth, to spend his life in his service; this I have from his own mouth. Nevertheless, at the request of his Holiness, Michael Angelo designed the facade of a palace that the Pope had a mind to build in Rome, a thing new and original to those who have seen it—not bound to any laws, ancient or modern, as in many other works of his in Florence and in Rome—proving that architecture has not been so arbitrarily handled in the past that there is not room for fresh invention no less delightful and beautiful.

LX. Now to return to anatomy. He gave up dissection because it turned his stomach so that he could neither eat nor drink with benefit. It is very true that he did not give up until he was so learned and rich in such knowledge that he often had in his mind the wish to write, for the sake of sculptors and painters, a treatise on the movements of the human body, its aspect, and concerning the bones, with an ingenious theory of his own, devised after long practice. He would have done it had he not mistrusted his powers, lest they should not suffice to treat with dignity and grace of such a subject, like one practised in the sciences and in rhetoric. I know well that when he reads Alberto Duro he finds him very weak, seeing in his own mind how much more beautiful and useful his own conception would be. To tell the truth, Alberto only treats of the proportions and diversities of the body, for which one cannot make fixed rules, making figures as regular as posts; and what matters more, says nothing of human movements and gestures. And because Michael Angelo has now reached a ripe old age, he thinks of putting his ideas in writing and giving them to the world. With great devotion he has explained everything minutely to me; he also conferred with Messer Realdo Colombo, an anatomist and most excellent surgeon, a great friend of Michael Angelo's and mine. He sent to Michael Angelo for study the body of a Moor, a very fine young man, and very suitable to the purpose; he was sent to Santa Agata, where I then lived and still live, as it is a quiet place. On this corpse Michael Angelo showed me many rare and recondite facts, perhaps never before understood, all of which I noted down, and hope one day, with the help of some learned man, to publish for the advantage and use of painters and sculptors; but enough of this.

LXI. He devoted himself to perspective and to architecture, his works show with what profit. Michael Angelo did not content himself with knowing only the main features of architecture, but wished also to know about everything that could be useful in any way in that profession, such as ties, platforms, scaffolding, and such like, he knew as much of these things as those who profess nothing else, which was exemplified in the time of Julius II. in this wise. When Michael Angelo had to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel the Pope ordered Bramante to erect the scaffolding. For all the architect he was he did not know how to do it, but pierced the vault in many places, letting down certain ropes through these holes to sling the platform. When Michael Angelo saw it he smiled, and asked Bramante what was to be done when he came to those holes? Bramante had no defence to make, only replied that it could not be done any other way. The matter came before the Pope, and Bramante replied again to the same effect. The Pope turned to Michael Angelo and said: "As it is not satisfactory go and do it yourself." Michael Angelo took down the platform, and took away so much rope from it, that having given it to a poor man that assisted him, it enabled him to dower and marry two daughters. Michael Angelo erected his scaffold without ropes, so well devised and arranged that the more weight it had to bear the firmer it became. This opened Bramante's eyes, and gave him a lesson in the building of a platform, which was very useful to him in the works of St. Peter's. For all that, Michael Angelo, although he had no equal in all these things, would not make a profession of architecture. On the contrary, when at last Antonio da San Gallo, the architect of St. Peter's, died, and Pope Paul wished to put Michael Angelo in his place, he refused the post, saying that architecture was not his art. He refused it so earnestly that the Pope had to command him to take it, and issue an ample moto proprio, which was afterwards confirmed by Pope Julius III., now, as I have said, by the grace of God, our Pontiff. For these, his services, Michael Angelo received no payment; so he wished it to be stated in the moto proprio. One day, when Pope Paul sent him a hundred scudi of gold by Messer Pier Giovanni, then Gentleman of the Wardrobe to his Holiness, now Bishop of Forli, as his month's salary on account of the building, Michael Angelo would not accept it, saying it was not in the agreement they had between them, and he sent them back. The Pope was very angry, as I have been told by Messer Alessandro Ruffini, a gentleman of Rome, then Groom to the Chambers and Carver before his Holiness; but this did not move Michael Angelo from his resolution. When he had accepted this charge he made a new model, both because certain parts of the old one did not please him in many respects, and, besides, if it was followed one would sooner expect to see the end of the world than St. Peter's finished. This model, praised and approved by the Pope, is now being followed to the great satisfaction of those who have judgment, although there be certain persons who do not approve of it.

LXII. Michael Angelo gave himself, then, whilst still young, not only to sculpture and painting, but to all the kindred arts, with such devotion that for a time he almost withdrew from the fellowship of men, only consorting with a few. So that by some he was held to be proud, and by others odd and eccentric, though he had none of these vices; but (like many excellent men) a love of knowledge and continued exercise in the learned arts made him solitary, and he was so satisfied and took such a delight in them that company not only did not please him but even annoyed him, as interrupting his meditations he was never less solitary than when alone (as the great Scipio used to say of himself).

LXIII. Nevertheless, he willingly kept the friendship of those from whose wise and learned conversation he could gather any fruit and in whom shone some ray of excellence, such as the Most Reverend and Illustrious Monsignor Polo,(55) for his rare learning and singular goodness; and similarly my Most Reverend patron the Cardinal Crispo, finding in him besides his many good qualities a rare and excellent judgment. He had also a great affection for the Most Reverend Cardinal Santa Croce, a man of great weight and most prudent, of whom I have heard him speak more than once with the highest esteem; and the Most Reverend Maffei, whose goodness and learning he always speaks of; and generally loves and honours all the House of the Farnese, for the lively memory he cherishes of Pope Paul, recalling him with the utmost reverence, speaking of him constantly as a good and holy old man. And so, too, the Most Reverend Patriarch of Jerusalem, formerly Bishop of Cesena, with whom he has often conversed familiarly, as one whose open and liberal nature much pleased him. He had also a close friendship with my Most Reverend patron, the Cardinal Ridolfi, of happy memory, the refuge of all men of talent. There are others whom I leave out, so as not to be tedious, as Monsignor Claudio Tolemei, Messer Lorenzo Ridolfi, Messer Donato Giannotti, Messer Lionardo Malaspini, Il Lottino, Messer Tomaso de' Cavalieri, and other honourable gentlemen, of whom I will not write at length. Finally, he has a great affection for Annibal Caro. He has told me that he is sorry not to have known him before, as he is so much to his taste. More particularly he loved greatly the Marchioness of Pescara, of whose divine spirit he was enamoured, being in return loved tenderly by her. He still possesses many letters of hers, full of an honest and most sweet love, such as issued from her heart. He has written to her also many and many sonnets, full of wit and sweet desire. She often returned to Rome from Viterbo and other places, where she had gone for her pastime and to spend the summer, for no other reason than to see Michael Angelo; and he bore her so much love that I remember to have heard him say: Nothing grieved him so much as that when he went to see her after she passed away from this life he did not kiss her on the brow or face, as he did kiss her hand. Recalling this, her death, he often remained dazed as one bereft of sense. He made at the wish of his lady a naked Christ, when He was taken down from the Cross, and His dead body would have fallen at the feet of His most holy Mother, if it were not supported by the arms of two angels; but she, seated under the Cross with a tearful and sorrowful face, raises to heaven both hands with her arms out-stretched, with this cry, which one reads inscribed on the stem of the cross:

NON VI SI PENSA QUANTO SANGUE COSTA!

The Cross is like that which was carried in procession by the Bianchi at the time of the plague of 1348, and afterwards placed in the Church of Santa Croce, at Florence. He also made for love of her a drawing of a Jesu Christ on the Cross, not as if dead, as is the common use, but with a Divine gesture. Raising His face to the Father He seems to say, "Eli, Eli." The body does not hang like a corpse but as if still living, and contorted by the bitter agony of His death.

LXIV. And as he greatly delighted in the conversation of the learned, so he took pleasure in the study of the writers of both prose and poetry. He had a special admiration for Dante, delighting in the admirable genius of that man, almost all of whose works he knew by heart; he held Petrarca in no less esteem. He not only delighted in reading, but occasionally in composing, too, as may be seen by some sonnets that are to be found of his. Concerning some of them, there have been published—"Lectures and Criticisms by Varchi." But he wrote these sonnets more for his pleasure than because he made a profession of it, always belittling them himself, accusing himself of ignorance in these matters.

LXV. Likewise, with deep study and attention, he read the Holy Scriptures, both the Old and the New Testaments, and searched them diligently, as also the writings of Savonarola, for whom he always had a great affection, keeping always in his mind the memory of his living voice. He has also loved the beauty of the human body, as one who best understands it; and in such wise that certain carnal-minded men, who do not comprehend the love of beauty, have taken occasion to think and speak evil of him, as if Alcibiades, a youth of perfect beauty, had not been purely loved by Socrates, from whose side he arose as from the side of his father. I have often heard Michael Angelo reason and discourse of Love, and learned afterwards from those who were present that he did not speak otherwise of Love than is to be found written in the works of Plato. For myself I do not know what Plato says of Love, but I know well that I, who have known Michael Angelo so long and so intimately, have never heard issue from his mouth any but the most honest of words, which had the power to extinguish in youth every ill-regulated and unbridled desire which might arise. By this we may know that no evil thoughts were born in him. He loved not only human beauty, but universally every beautiful thing—a beautiful horse, a beautiful dog, a beautiful country, a beautiful plant, a beautiful mountain, a beautiful forest, and every place and thing beautiful and rare after its kind, admiring them all with a marvellous love; thus choosing the beauty in nature as the bees gather honey from the flowers, using it afterwards in his works, as all those have done who have ever made a noise in painting. That old master who had to paint a Venus was not content to see one virgin only, but studied many, and taking from each her most beautiful and perfect feature gave them to his Venus; and, in truth, who ever expects to arrive at a true theory of art without this method of study is greatly mistaken.

LXVI. All through his life Michael Angelo has been very abstemious, taking food more from necessity than from pleasure, especially when at work, at which time, for the most part, he has been content with a piece of bread, which he munched whilst he laboured. But latterly he has lived more regularly, his advanced age requiring it. I have often heard him say: "Ascanio, rich man as I have made myself, I have always lived as a poor one." And as he took little food so he took little sleep, which, as he says, rarely did him any good, for sleeping almost always made his head ache, and too much sleep made his stomach bad. When he was more robust he often slept in his clothes and with his buskins on; this he made a habit of for fear of the cramp, from which he continually suffered, besides other reasons; and he has sometimes been so long without taking them off that when he did so the skin came off with them like the slough of a snake. He was never miserly with his money, nor did he hoard it, contented with enough to live honestly. Works from his hand were sought for more and more by the gentry and rich people with large promises, but he has rarely satisfied them; and when he has done so, it has been from friendship and goodwill rather than for hope of reward.

LXVII. He has given away many of his things, which, if he had wished to sell them, would have brought him in endless money; as, for example, were there no others, the two statues that he gave to Roberto Strozzi, his great friend.(56) He has not only been liberal with his works, but with his purse also he has often helped the talented and studious poor in their need, whether men of letters or painters; of this I am able to testify, having benefited by it myself. He was never jealous of the labours of others even in his own art, more by his goodness of nature than any opinion he had of himself. On the contrary, he has praised all universally, even Raphael of Urbino, between whom and himself there was formally some rivalry in painting, as I have written; only I have heard him say that Raphael had not his art by nature, but acquired it by long study. Nor is it true what many say of him, that he would not teach; on the contrary, he has done so willingly, as I know myself, for to me he has made known all the secrets of his art; but unfortunately he has met either with pupils little apt, or even if apt without perseverance, so after working under his discipline a few months they thought themselves masters. Now, although he would readily do kindly acts, he was unwilling to have them known, wishing more to do well than to appear to do so. It must also be known that he has always desired to cultivate the arts in persons of nobility, as was the manner of the ancients, and not in plebeians.

LXVIII. Michael Angelo had a most retentive memory, so that although he has painted so many thousand figures, as may be seen, he has never made one like to another, or in the same pose; indeed, I have heard him say that if ever he draws a line which he remembers to have drawn before, he rubs it out if it is to come before the public. He has also a most powerful imagination, from whence it comes, firstly, that he is little contented with his work, his hand not appearing to carry out the ideas he has conceived in his mind. And, secondly, from the same cause (as often happens to those who lead a peaceful and contemplative life), he has always been somewhat timid; saving only when a just indignation against some wrong or lapse of duty to himself or to others moves him, then he plucks up more spirit than those who are held to be courageous; otherwise he is of a most patient disposition. Of his modesty it is not possible to say as much as he deserves; and so also of his manners, and his ways, they are seasoned with pleasantries and sharp sayings: for instance, his conversation at Bologna with a certain gentleman, who, seeing the mere largeness and mass of the bronze statue Michael Angelo had made, marvelled and said: "Which do you suppose to be the larger, this statue or a pair of oxen?" To whom Michael Angelo replied: "It is according to the oxen you mean; if it be these of Bologna doubtless they are much larger; if ours of Florence they are much smaller."(57) So also when Il Francia, who was at that time thought to be an Apelles in Bologna, came to see that same statue and said: "This is a beautiful bronze," it seemed to Michael Angelo that he was praising the metal and not the form, so he laughingly replied: "If this be beautiful bronze, I must thank Pope Julius for it, who gave it to me, as you have to thank the apothecaries who provide your colours." And another day, seeing the child of Francia, who was a very beautiful boy: "My son," said he, "your father makes better living pictures than painted ones."

LXIX. Michael Angelo is of a good complexion; his figure rather sinuous and bony than fleshy and fat; healthy above all by nature, as well as by the use of exercise and his continence of life and moderation in taking food; nevertheless, as a child he was feeble and sickly, and as a man he had two illnesses. He has suffered much for several years in the passing of urine, which trouble would have turned into a stone if he had not been relieved by the care and diligence of the before-mentioned Messer Realdo. Michael Angelo has always had a good colour in his face; he is of middle height; he is broad shouldered, with the rest of the body in proportion, rather slight than not. The shape of his skull in front is round; the height above the ear is a sixth part of the circumference round the middle of the head, so that the temples project somewhat beyond the ears, and the ears beyond the cheek-bones, and the cheek-bones beyond the rest of the face; the skull in proportion to the face must be called large. The front view of the forehead is square, the nose a little flattened, not naturally, but because when he was a boy, one Torrigiano, a brutal and proud fellow, with a blow almost broke the cartilage, so that Michael Angelo was carried home as one dead; for this Torrigiano was banished from Florence, and he came to a bad end.(58) Michael Angelo's nose, such as it is, is in proportion to the forehead and the rest of the face. His lips are mobile, the lower one somewhat the thicker, so that seen in profile it sticks out a little. The chin goes well with the above-mentioned parts. The forehead in profile is almost in front of the nose, which is little less than broken, except for a small lump in the middle. The eyebrows have few hairs; the eyes are rather small than otherwise, the colour is that of horn, but changing, with sparkles of yellow and blue; the ears in proportion; the hair black, and beard also, but, in this his seventy-ninth year, plentifully sprinkled with grey; his beard is forked, four or five fingers long and not very thick, as may be seen in his portraits. Many other things remain to be said, but I have left them out because of the hurry in which I bring out these writings, hearing that others(59) wish to reap the reward of my labours, which I had confided to their hands; so, if it should ever happen that another should undertake this work again, I hereby offer to tell him all I know, or most lovingly to give it to him in writing. I hope before long to bring out some of Michael Angelo's sonnets and madrigals, which I have for a long time collected, both from himself and from others, that the world may know the worth of his imaginations, and how many beautiful conceits were born in his divine spirit, and with this I close.



PART II

THE WORKS OF MICHAEL ANGELO

"Non essendo homo in Italia apto ad expedire una opera di costesta qualita, e necessario che lui solo, e non altro."

Piero Soderini to the Marchese Alberigo Malaspina, GAYE ii. 107.



CHAPTER I

THE RAPE OF DEIANEIRA, OR THE BATTLE OF THE CENTAURS, AND THE ANGEL OF THE SHRINE OF SAINT DOMINIC

All accounts agree as to the precocity of the genius of Michael Angelo, and Piero Soderini vouches for its practical character in the words quoted above. It was not until he had suffered from the procrastination and uncertainty of the patronage of the Popes, that his work took him so long to finish that sometimes it had to be left incomplete. His early works were remarkable, not only for their high finish but also for the expedition with which they were carried out.



Condivi has given us the story of his early difficulties and of his first picture,(60) probably in Michael Angelo's own words; we may supplement this account by the following extract from Vasari, who gathered his information from the gossip of the workshops of Florence, and from Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, the son of his first master. "Michael Angelo grew in power and character so rapidly that Domenico(61) was astonished, seeing him do things quite extraordinary in a youth, for it seemed to him that he not only surpassed the other students, of whom Domenico had a large number, but that he often equalled the work done by him as master. Now, one of the lads who studied under Domenico made a pen-drawing of some women, draped, after Ghirlandaio. Michael Angelo took up the paper, and with a thicker pen went over the outline of one of the women with a new line, correcting it, and making it perfect, so that it is wonderful to see the difference between the two styles, and the ability and judgment of a boy, so spirited and bold that he had the courage to correct his master's handiwork. This drawing is to-day in my possession, valued as a relic. I had it from Granacci to put it in my book of drawings with others given to me by Michael Angelo. In the year 1550, being in Rome, I, Giorgio, showed it to Michael Angelo, who recognised it and was pleased to see it again, saying modestly that he knew more of art as a child than now as an old man.(62) It happened that Domenico was working in the great Chapel of Santa Maria Novella, and one day when he was out Michael Angelo set himself to draw from nature the scaffolding, the tables with all the materials of the art, and some of the young men at work. Presently Domenico returned, and saw Michael Angelo's drawing. He was astonished, saying this boy knows more than I do; and he was stupefied by this style and new realism: a gift from heaven to a child of such tender years."

The first art school of Michael Angelo was the beautiful Church of Santa Maria Novella, called by him affectionately "Mia Sposa." Here, day by day, he beheld the "Last Judgment" of Orcagna, the enthroned figures in the Spanish Chapel, and the solemn blue Madonna, now in the Capella Rucellai, with its little figures of prophets on the frame that are already almost Michael Angelesque. Here he transferred cartoons for Domenico and painted draperies and ornaments; here he mixed colours for fresco painting after the Florentine fashion; and here possibly he first painted on a vault. No certain trace of his handiwork can be identified upon the walls, but there is a nude figure seated upon the steps resting his chin upon his hand in the fresco of the Blessed Virgin going to the Temple, that has a sinister expression and a force of modelling that Domenico does not usually command.



Now Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent, desired to encourage the art of sculpture in Florence; he therefore established a museum of antiquities in his garden near San Marco, and made Bertoldo, the pupil of Donatello and the foreman of his workshop, keeper of the collection, with a special commission to aid and instruct the young men who studied there. Lorenzo requested Domenico Ghirlandaio to select from his pupils those he considered the most promising, and send them to work in the garden. Domenico sent Michael Angelo Buonarroti and Francesco Granacci; possibly he was rather glad to get these talented elements of insubordination out of his workshop. Thus it was that Michael Angelo came under the influence of a pupil and foreman of Donatello. Bertoldo must be considered the instructor of Michael Angelo in his beloved art of sculpture, and the most important influence in shaping his genius. Very little is known of the man upon whom this responsibility was placed, but he appears to have been worthy of it. Vasari tells us that Bertoldo "was old and could not work; that he was none the less an able and highly reputed artist, not only because he had most diligently chased and polished the casts in bronze for the pupils of Donatello his master, but also for the numerous casts in bronze of battle-pieces and other little things, which he had executed of his own; there was no one then in Florence more masterly in such work." We have no important work entirely by Bertoldo, but he must have been a considerable artist or he would not have been appointed to his important post by such a wise man as Lorenzo the Magnificent. His share of the work for the pulpits of San Lorenzo was probably much greater than we are accustomed to think. Vasari's word rinettato had a much wider meaning to him than it has to us, the chasing of a bronze was considered no small part of its quality by the Florentines. Lorenzo Ghiberti's supposed superiority over his competitors for the doors of San Giovanni was more in his superb finish than in anything else. The pulpits in San Lorenzo have something about them that is between the art of Donatello and the art of Michael Angelo; we may even owe a large part of the composition in some of the stories to Bertoldo. Donatello must have needed a man of judgment and ability to carry out the numerous and important commissions that issued from his workshops in his old age. That Michael Angelo studied the pulpits of San Lorenzo is proved by the numerous motives he took from them in after life; the general aspect of the figures strangely suggests the "terribilita" of his style, and the beginnings of several of his motives can be traced to them, such as the Centaurs, the Pieta, and, in the Sistine ceiling, the Adam; the monochrome putti used as Caryatides; the single putto placed at the springing of two arches; the athletes supporting garlands, similar in proportion to the cherubs supporting garlands used for the capitals of columns in the pulpits; two figures for the spaces over the windows. The man with the clean-shaven and bird-like face writing in a book and dressed in trousers tied in at the ankles, like the captive barbarians of Roman art, in one of the semi-circular spaces round the windows, is very like a man standing behind the Madonna who supports the dead Christ in the deposition of the pulpit. Perhaps it is a portrait of old Bertoldo himself. In this panel, too, are horsemen riding animals similar to the ones Michael Angelo drew in his last fresco, The Conversion of Saint Paul. The composition for the scourging of Christ, supplied by Michael Angelo to Sebastiano del Piombo for his wall painting in San Pietro in Montorio, follows the lines of the bas-relief of the same subject on the pulpit. What is more likely than that Bertoldo should have educated his great pupil by directing him to the glories of the last work of his master, Donatello, and that Michael Angelo should have studied them eagerly, particularly if Bertoldo himself was partly responsible for some of the panels, and may have been working upon them at this time.(63)

The pulpits of San Lorenzo were the second school of Michael Angelo, and Bertoldo was his master. No great style ever sprang complete from the brain of its great exponent, but grew and developed from master to pupil until its supreme exponent blazed it before the world full of the traditional fire of his predecessors, but distinctly marked by his own dominant personality. The root of the style of Michael Angelo may be seen in the works of Donatello and in the pulpits of San Lorenzo. His study of the antique,(64) modified by his love of grace, of high finish, and his own powerful character, only had to be added to complete the perfect flower of Florentine art, Michael Angelo, the topmost bloom of the lily.

[Image #2]

THE RAPE OF DEIANEIRA AND THE BATTLE OF THE CENTAURS

CASA BUONARROTI, FLORENCE (By permission of the Fratelli Alinari. Florence)

By good fortune, Michael Angelo attracted the notice of Lorenzo the Magnificent, as Condivi has related;(65) and thus at the age of fifteen years he entered the most cultured house in Italy and there acquired that distinction of style that he kept all through his life, both in his art and his manner. In these halcyon days at this hospitable table Michael Angelo met such men as Massilio Ficino, the interpreter of Plato; Pico della Mirandola, the phoenix of erudition; Luigi Pulci and Angelo Poliziano—the latter is supposed to have incited Michael Angelo to carve the bas-relief(66) now in the Casa Buonarroti, called by Condivi "The rape of Deianeira and the battle of the Centaurs." This is the earliest work that we know from the master's hand to which we can give a date; it already shows his double love for the Hellenistic and for the Tuscan styles. The degree of relief is alto-rilievo, like those on the Roman sarcophagi and the pulpits of the Pisani; in shape it is almost as high as it is long; this unusual proportion is similar to some of the divisions of the bronze reliefs in the Donatello pulpits at San Lorenzo. The struggling figures, Centaurs, and Lapithae, already exhibit Michael Angelo's power over rhythm of line in a crowded composition as in the later groups of "Moses raising the Serpent in the Wilderness," and "The Last Judgment," both in the Sistine Chapel. The method is extraordinarily free for so young a sculptor; he evidently thinks out his work as it proceeds; his delight in the beauty of the male human form is shown in every figure. Some critics have been unable to distinguish the figure of Deianeira, as her form has been so little differentiated or emphasised by the master. She is towards the left of the composition; a man holds her by the hair of her head. The centre figures and the two at the lower corners remind us forcibly of the pulpits of San Lorenzo.

[Image #3]

THE ANGEL AT THE SHRINE OF SAINT DOMINIC

BOLOGNA (By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)

Vasari mentions another bas-relief executed at this period, a seated Madonna with the Infant Jesus, in the manner of Donatello; the inferior bas-relief, now in the Casa Buonarroti, is said to be this work. If the club-shaped feet and thick hands of the Madonna are compared with the beautiful long feet and graceful hands of the angel holding a candlestick, at San Domenico, in Bologna, certainly by Michael Angelo, it cannot be supposed that these two works were either executed or even designed by the same artist. The pose of the Holy Child in the Madonna bas-relief has been arranged by some one who has seen "The Day" on the tomb of Giuliano at San Lorenzo; in the background are children on a stairway, somewhat in the style of Donatello, but they are more like imitations of the later works of Michael Angelo. The folds of the draperies are like the folds of some silken material, whereas the folds of the robe of the angel at San Domenico are large, like the folds of a blanket, a characteristic of all the draperies designed by the master. This bas-relief, now in the Casa Buonarroti, was presented to Cosimo de Medici, first Grand Duke of Tuscany, by Michael Angelo's nephew Leonardo,(67) as a work by his uncle, but we do not know that Leonardo was a good judge of his uncle's works, and this bas-relief was supposed to have been executed more than fifty years before its presentation; afterwards it came back into the possession of the Buonarroti family, and was presented by them to the city of Florence along with the house in Via Ghibellina.

Michael Angelo, like all young artists who have had the opportunity, drew and studied in the Brancacci Chapel of the Church of the Carmine, containing the frescoes of Masaccio and his followers; the result of these studies may be seen in some of the compositions, and especially in the draperies of the Sistine ceiling. There are two pen-drawings in Vienna that show us the sort of work Michael Angelo did at this time: one represents a kneeling figure, evidently from a picture by Pesellino; the other, two standing figures, that might be after Ghirlandaio. The draperies have been specially studied. Another pen-drawing, in the Louvre, is a careful study from Giotto's fresco of the Resurrection of St. John in the Cappella Peruzzi at Santa Croce.



A gloom was cast over all Italy by the death of Lorenzo de' Medici on April 8, 1492. Michael Angelo lost his best friend and returned to his father's house; here he worked upon a statue of Hercules that stood in the Strozzi Palace until the siege of Florence in 1530, when Giovanni Battista della Palla bought it and sent it into France as a present to the French King. It is lost.

In the year 1495, whilst living with Aldovrandi at Bologna, as Condivi tells us, Michael Angelo, for the sum of thirty ducats, completed the drapery of a San Petronio, begun by Nicolo di Bari on the arca or shrine of San Domenico, and carved the very beautiful and highly finished statuette of an angel holding a candlestick, still to be seen there.(68)

When Michael Angelo returned to Florence a government had been established by Savonarola. No doubt, like all the other citizens, the master listened to the voice of the preacher, but we have no evidence that he was particularly influenced by his teaching, though many of his biographers would have us believe that Savonarola made him Protestant, Lutheran, or what not, according to the sect of the biographer. Michael Angelo loved the sermons of the eloquent Frate as works of art; no doubt, if the prophets of the Sistine could speak, they would preach with the voice of Savonarola.



Michael Angelo set to work and carved a San Giovannino for Lorenzo di Pier Francesco, a cousin of the exiled Medici. The Berlin Museum acquired, in 1880, a marble statue of a young St. John, which had been placed in the palace of the Counts Gualandi Rosselmini, at Pisa, in 1817, and was rediscovered there in 1874. It is supposed to be this San Giovannino by Michael Angelo, though it has nothing of the large quality of Michael Angelo's work. Donatello has been suggested as the author, but it has still less of the square planes and ascetic character of the great Donato. It is a charming, almost a cloying statue. St. John seems to find his honeycomb distinctly sweet.



CHAPTER II

THE BACCHUS, AND THE MADONNA DELLA PIETA OF SAINT PETER'S

The story of a Cupid, carved and coloured in imitation of the antique, is given by Condivi.(69) It was the cause of Michael Angelo's first visit to Rome. As soon as he reached the Eternal City he set to work at his sculpture, as the purchase of a piece of marble mentioned in his letter to Pier Francesco de' Medici, sent to Florence under cover to Sandro Botticelli,(70) indicates. During the whole of this very important visit he worked in marble. We have, however, one record of a cartoon by him for a Saint Francis receiving the Stigmata, to be painted by a certain barber; but that is all. He studied the works of antique art and imitated the finish and softness of the Hellenic style: marbles of debased Greek workmanship abound to this day in the Roman collections. Messer Jacopo Gallo, a Roman gentleman and a banker, commissioned a Bacchus, now in the Bargello at Florence, and a Cupid, said to be the statue now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington. Condivi records these commissions.(71) This Bacchus is the least dignified work that Michael Angelo ever executed. Perhaps, like a young artist struggling to get on, he listened too much to the wishes and suggestions of his intelligent patron. The finish and the truth to nature of the unpleasant youth are exquisite. The folds of the skin and the softness of the flesh are perfectly rendered, but the work is repulsive, save for the mischievous little Satyr who steals the grapes; he seems to take us out into the open air, and away from the fumes of the wine shop. Condivi calls the second statue a Cupid,(72) but Springer points out(73) that Ulisse Aldovrandi, who saw the statue in Messer Gallo's house at Rome, talks of an Apollo quite naked, with a quiver at his side and an urn at his feet. The work, Cupid or Apollo, at Kensington, is not so finely finished as the other statues of this first Roman period; the head is like a copy of the head of the David, the division between the pectoral muscles is weak, and their attachments to the breast-bone are round, regular, and without distinction, very different from either the naturalism of the Bacchus, the delicate truth of the Pieta, or the dignified abstraction of the David, done very shortly afterwards. This work at Kensington was discovered some fifty years ago in the cellars of the Gualfonda (Rucellai) Gardens by Professor Miliarini and the sculptor Santarelli. The left arm was broken, the right hand damaged, and the hair unfinished, as may be seen to-day; Santarelli restored the arm. The statue is like the work of a poor imitator. A work by Michael Angelo may easily have been destroyed in troublous times, but can never have been lost and forgotten. He has always had lovers in every age; unlike the primitives and the quattrocentisti, he has never been out of fashion.

Whilst Michael Angelo was working away in Rome he was much troubled by family affairs in Florence. After the expulsion of the Medici in 1495, Lodovico lost his post at the Customs, and his three younger sons appear to have been put into trade. Buonarroto, who was the only sensible one left at home, and dearly loved by Michael Angelo, was born in 1477; he was sent to serve in the Strozzi cloth warehouse in the Porta Rossa. All the noble families of Florence practised some trade, in order that they might share in the Government. Giovan Simone, another brother, born in 1479, led a vagabond life until he joined Buonarroto in a cloth business that was bought for them by Michael Angelo. Sigismondo, born in 1481, was a soldier. At the age of forty he settled down on the small paternal farm at Settignano, and became a mere peasant, very much to the annoyance and chagrin of his famous brother, Michael Angelo, who spent his earnings for the advantage of his brothers, and the advancement of his family, with a kindness and generosity as beautiful as it is rare. Francesca, the mother of Michael Angelo and of the other sons of Lodovico Buonarroti, was married to him in 1472. When she died is not known, but Lodovico married his second wife Lucrezia in 1485. She died childless in 1497, and was buried upon July 9 in the Church of Santa Croce.



In the year 1497 Buonarroto visited Rome, and informed Michael Angelo, the only hope of the family, of their pecuniary troubles. Michael Angelo wrote kindly to his father:

"DOMINO LODOVICO BUONARROTI, in Florence.

"In the name of God, the 19th day of August, 1497.

"DEAREST FATHER, &c.—Bonarroto arrived on Friday; as soon as I knew of it I went to seek him at the inn, and he told me by word of mouth how you are doing, and informed me that Consiglio, the mercer, annoys you very much, and will not, by any means, come to an agreement, and that he wishes to have you arrested. I tell you that you must satisfy him and pay him some ducats on account; and whatever you agree to pay him for the balance, send and tell me, and I will send it to you, if you have it not; although I have but little myself, as I have told you, I will contrive to borrow it, so that you need not take money out of the Monte,(74) as Bonarroto says. Do not wonder that I have sometimes written irritably, for I often get very angry, owing to the many annoyances that happen to one away from his home.

"I had an order to do a work for Piero de' Medici and bought the marble; but I never began it because he did not do as he had promised, so I stayed at home and carved a figure for my pleasure. I bought a piece of marble for five ducats; it was not good; the money was thrown away. Afterwards I bought another piece, another five ducats, and worked at it for my pleasure; so you must believe that I also have expenses and troubles, and you must make allowances. I will send you the money, though I should have to sell myself into slavery.

"Buonarroto arrived in safety and has returned to his inn; he has a room; he is all right and lacks nothing for as long as he likes to stay. I have no accommodation for him to stay with me, because I am living in another's house. It suffices that I do not let him want for anything. Well, as I hope you are.

"MICHAEL ANGELO, in Rome."

(In the hand of Lodovico.)

"He says he will help me to pay Consiglio."(75)

Nevertheless, Milanesi tells us in a note, Lodovico settled with Consiglio, to whom he owed ninety gold florins, in the way Michael Angelo did not approve and after going to law about it. A letter of Lodovico's refers to the kindness of Michael Angelo in establishing his brothers in the cloth business. It is dated December 19, 1500. "... and more, I know that you have advanced money, and the love you have for your brothers; it is a great consolation to me. About this matter of the money with which you wish to set up Buonarroto and Giansimone in a shop, I have hunted and I am still hunting, but as yet I have not found anything to please me. True it is I have my hands on a good thing, but it is necessary to keep one's eyes open and to take care not to get into difficulties; I want to go slowly and with good counsel, and I will tell you all about it day by day. Buonarroto tells me how you live yonder, very economically, or rather penuriously; economy is good, but penuriousness is evil, for it is a vice displeasing to God and man, and, moreover, it is bad for the body and soul. Whilst you are young you will be able to bear these hardships for a time, but when the strength of youth fails you, disease and infirmities will develop, for they are engendered by hardship, mean living, and penurious habits. As I said, economy is good. But, above all, do not be penurious; live moderately and do not stint yourself; above all things avoid hardships, because in your art, if you fall ill (which God forbid), you are a lost man; above all things have a care of your head, keep it moderately warm, and never wash; have yourself rubbed down, but never wash. Buonarroto also tells me that you have a swelling on your side; it comes from hardship or fatigue, or from eating something bad and windy, or suffering the feet to be cold or damp. I have had one myself, and it still troubles me when I eat windy food, or when I endure cold or such like things. Our Francesco formerly had one, too, and also Gismondo similarly. Be careful about it because it is dangerous."

The name of Michael Angelo's good friend, Jacopo Gallo, appears in the agreement drawn up concerning the crowning work of this the first Roman period, the Pieta, called the Madonna della Febbre, first placed in the Chapel of Santa Petronilla, and now in the Chapel of Santa Maria della Febbre, on the right of the entrance to St. Peters, in Rome. The commission for this work was given by the Cardinal Jean de la Grostaye de Villiers Francois, Abbot of St. Denis, called in Italy Cardinal di San Dionigi. It is dated August 26, 1498.

[Image #4]

THE MADONNA BELLA PIETA

SAINT PETER'S, ROME (By permission, of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)

"Be it known and manifest to whoso shall read the ensuing document, how the Most Reverend Cardinal of San Dionigi has agreed with the master, Michael Angelo, sculptor of Florence, that the said master shall make a Pieta of marble at his own cost; that is, a Virgin Mary clothed, with the dead Christ in her arms, of the size of a proper man, for the price of four hundred and fifty golden Papal ducats, within the term of one year from the day of the beginning of the work" (the Cardinal agrees to pay certain sums in advance). The contract concludes: "And I, Jacopo Gallo, promise to his Most Reverend Monsignore that the said Michael Angelo will finish the said work within one year, and that it shall be the most beautiful work in marble which Rome to-day can show, and that no master of our days shall be able to produce a better. And similarly I promise the said Michael Angelo that the Most Reverend Cardinal will disburse the payments as written above; and in good faith, I, Jacopo Gallo, have made the present writing with my own hand, according to date of year, month, and day, as above."(76)



Jacopo's boast and promise were justified, for even now there is no finer complete work of sculpture in the whole of Rome than the Pieta at St. Peter's. It is said that Michael Angelo overheard certain Lombards ascribe the Pieta to their own sculptor, Cristoforo Solari, called "Il Gobbo." He therefore carved his name upon the belt of the Madonna's robe. He never signed any other work. Nothing closes the great period of the fifteenth century so fitly as the Pieta of Michael Angelo, prophesying at the same time the power of the art of the sixteenth.



CHAPTER III

THE DAVID AND THE CARTOON OF PISA

Family affairs recalled Michael Angelo to Florence in the spring of 1501. He returned full of honours gained in Rome, and took up his position as the first sculptor of the day. His next commission came from Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius III. A contract was signed on June 5, 1501, by which Michael Angelo agreed to complete some fifteen statues of male saints within the time of three years, for the Piccolomini Chapel, in the Duomo of Siena. A Saint Francis was begun by Piero Torrigiano, and may have been finished by Michael Angelo. The rest of the four works that were the outcome of this commission can have had nothing to do with the chisel of the sculptor of the Madonna della Febbre and the David. Michael Angelo must have merely contracted to supply them, as the master sculptor of a sculptor's yard, possibly furnishing the designs himself. There is a drawing at the British Museum of a bearded saint, cowled and holding a book in his left hand, which may be a design for one of these inferior works.

[Image #5]

DAVID

THE ACADEMY, FLORENCE (By permission of the Fratelli Alinari Florence)

[Image #6]

DAVID

IN THE PIAZZA (By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)

[Image #7]

SAINT MATTHEW

THE COURT OF THE ACADEMY, FLORENCE (By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)

In August of the same year, 1501, Michael Angelo began the colossal statue of David, that used to stand in the Piazza and is now in the Academy at Florence. The first contract for this work, signed between Michael Angelo, the Arte della Lana, and the Opera del Duomo, is dated August 16, 1501. It states "That the worthy master, Michael Angelo, son of Lodovico Bonarroti, citizen of Florence, has been chosen to fashion, complete, and perfectly finish the male statue, already rough hewn and called the giant, of nine cubits in height,(77) now existing in the workshop of the Cathedral, badly blocked out afore-time by Master Agostino,(78) of Florence. The work shall be completed within the term of the next ensuing two years, dating from September, at a salary of six golden florins(79) per month; and whatever is needful for the accomplishment of this task, as workmen, wood, &c., which he may require, shall be supplied him by the said Operai; and when the said statue is finished, the Consuls and Operai, who shall be in office, shall estimate whether he deserve a larger recompense, and this shall be left to their consciences." Michael Angelo began to work in a wooden shed, erected for that purpose near the Cathedral, on Monday morning, September 13, 1501, and the "David" is said to be almost entirely finished in a note, dated January 25, 1503,(80) when a solemn council of the most important artists, then resident in Florence, met at the Opera del Duomo to consider where the statue should be placed. What an original way of deciding aesthetic questions! They came to the admirable conclusion that the choice of the site should be left to Michael Angelo. Amongst those who spoke at the meeting were Francesco Monciatto, a wood carver, who suggested that the statue should be erected in front of the Duomo, where the block was originally meant to be set up; he was supported by the painters Cosimo Rosselli and Sandro Botticelli. Giuliano da San Gallo proposed to place it under the Loggia dei Lanzi, because "the imperfection of the marble, which is softened by exposure to the air, renders the durability of the statue doubtful." Messer Angelo de Lorenzo Manfidi (second herald) objected because it would break the order of certain ceremonies held in the Loggia. Leonardo da Vinci followed San Gallo; he did not think it would injure the ceremonies. Salvestro, a jeweller, and Filippino Lippi supported Piero di Cosimo, who proposed that the precise spot should be left to the sculptor who made it, "as he will know better how it should be." Michael Angelo elected to have his David set up on the steps of the Palazzo Vecchio, on the right side of the entrance. Its effect in that position may be well seen, appropriately enough, in a picture by the same Piero di Cosimo (No. 895), in the National Gallery, where the Piazza della Signoria forms the background to a portrait of a man in armour. Il Cronaca, Antonio da San Gallo, Baccio d'Agnolo, Bernardo della Cecca, and Michael Angelo were associated in the task of transporting the giant from the workshop near the Duomo to the Piazza della Signoria. It was encased in planks and suspended upright from great beams. "On May 14, 1504, the marble giant was dragged from the Opera. It came out at twenty-four o'clock, and they broke the wall above the door enough to let it pass. That night some stones were thrown at the Colossus with intent to injure it; a watch had to be set over it at night, and it made way very slowly, bound as it was upright, suspended so that the feet were off the ground by enormous beams with much ingenuity. It took four days to reach the Piazza, arriving on the 18th at the hour of twelve. More than forty men were employed to make it go, and there were fourteen logs to go beneath it, which were changed from hand to hand. Afterwards they worked until June 8, 1504, to place it on a pedestal where the Judith used to stand. The Judith was removed and set upon the ground within the palace. The said giant was the work of Michael Angelo Buonarroti."(81) The great marble David stood in the Piazza three hundred and sixty-nine years; it was removed to the hall of the Accademia delle Belle Arti in 1873 for its better preservation. It has suffered very little from its exposure in the fine air of Florence, but the left arm was broken by a huge stone thrown during the tumults of 1527. Giorgio Vasari and his friend Cecchino Salviati collected the broken pieces and brought them to the house of Michael Angelo Salviati, father of Cecchino. They were carefully put together and restored to the statue in 1543. The David was the first work by Michael Angelo that displayed the awe-inspiring quality known as his Terribilita; from the fierce frown of the brow to the sharp, strained forms of the feet and toes there is an expression of strenuous force struggling against an almost overwhelming power. The force of the David may succeed against Goliath; but in Michael Angelo's later works the struggle always appears to be a hopeless one, nobly as his Titans fight against fate and omnipotence. The face of the David is a development of the Saint George of Or San Michele, by Donatello, and the figure is of the same type, only this triumphant boy of Michael Angelo's shows a more exact study of the antique than the naturalistic work of his master. In Donatello the planes are given as flat, and their junctions are sharp and hard; in Michael Angelo they are carefully rounded and finished with the grace of the antique and of life. The details of the head, although so high up, are so absolutely perfect that the separate features have been, and are still, the models set before all students of art when they first begin to study the human figure, and they are known as the nose, the eye, the ear, and the mouth. We have noticed that the young student is more interested in his work when he is told that they are the features of the David. Michael Angelo carved his giant without modelling a full-size clay figure first, but with the guidance of drawings and small wax models about eighteen inches high only, carving the figure out of the block in the way that is so well seen in the unfinished Saint Matthew in the court of the Accademia delle Belle Arti, in Florence. There are two small wax models of the David in the Casa Buonarroti at Florence, said to be Michael Angelo's designs for this figure, but they are of very doubtful authority. Later in his life he is said to have worked from full-sized models, as Benvenuto Cellini tells us in his Trattati dell' Oreficeria, &c.(82) Vasari tells the story of how Michael Angelo contented the Gonfaloniere and silenced his criticism of the David: "While still surrounded by the scaffolding Pier Soderini inspected the statue, which pleased him immensely, and when Michael Angelo was re-touching it in parts, Soderini said to him that the nose appeared to him too big. Michael Angelo, knowing that the Gonfaloniere was close under the statue and that from this point of view the truth was not to be discerned, mounted the scaffolding, which was as high as the shoulder of the giant, and quickly took a chisel in his left hand with a little of the marble dust from the platform and began to let fall a little of it at each touch of the tool, but he did not alter the nose from what it was before; then he looked down to the Gonfaloniere, who stood watching below: 'Look at it now,' said Michael Angelo. 'I like it better. You have given it life,' said the Gonfaloniere," rubbing the dust out of his eyes.



On August 12, 1502, Michael Angelo undertook another commission for the Republic—another giant David. This time it was to be in bronze, two cubits and a quarter in height; in the casting he was to be assisted by Benedetto da Rovezzano. It has been suggested that the pen and ink drawing in the Louvre is a design for this second David, but the drawing of an arm on the same sheet is so like the right arm of the first David that it is more probably an early idea for the first David, in which we see that Michael Angelo's design needed more room than the cramped block of marble allowed; it makes us wonder the more at the marvellous freedom of action that he managed to get out of the cramped stone. The bronze David was intended for the French statesman, Pierre de Rohan, Marechal de Gie, as a present from the Florentine Republic, but before it was finished the Marechal fell into disgrace and could be of no further use to the Florentines. The Signory therefore determined to send the bronze to Florimond Robertet, Secretary of Finance to the French King. A minute of the Signory dated November 6, 1508, informs us that the bronze David, weighing about 800 pounds, had been "packed in the name of God," and sent to Signa on its way to Leghorn. Florimond Robertet placed it in the courtyard of his chateau of Bury, near Blois. It remained there for more than a hundred years, then it was removed to the chateau of Villeroy, and disappeared no one knows whither.



On April 24, 1503, the Consuls of the Arte della Lana and the Operai of the Duomo ordered Michael Angelo to carve out of Carrara marble twelve Apostles, each four and a quarter cubits high, to be placed inside the church. One was to be finished each year, the Operai paying all expenses, including the cost of living for the sculptor and his assistants, and paying him two golden florins a month. They built a house and workshops for him in the Borgo Pinti; it was designed by Il Cronaca. Michael Angelo lived there rent free until it was evident that the contract could not be carried out. He then hired it on a lease, but on June 15, 1508, the lease of the house was transferred to Sigismondo Martelli. The St. Matthew, now in the courtyard of the Accademia delle Belle Arti, in Florence, is the only work we know of resulting from this commission. The apostle is just emerging from the marble, and shows us Michael Angelo's method of work. Vasari says: "At this time he also began a statue in marble of San Matteo in the works of Santa Maria del Fiore, which, though but roughly hewn, shows his perfections, and teaches sculptors how to carve figures from the stone without maiming them, always gaining ground by cutting away the waste stone, and being able to draw back or alter in case of need." The deep chisel marks in the stone are sometimes as much as four inches long, and their directions indicate that Michael Angelo worked equally well with either hand, a fact confirmed by Raffaello de Montelupo in his "Autobiographie."(83) "Here I may mention that I am in the habit of drawing with my left hand, and that once, at Rome, while I was sketching the arch of Trajan from the Colosseum, Michael Angelo and Sebastiano del Piombo, both of whom were naturally left-handed (although they did not work with the left hand excepting when they wished to use great strength), stopped to see me, and expressed great wonder."

[Image #8]

THE MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH THE CHILD SAINT JOHN

THE BARGELLO, FLORENCE (By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence)

The Florentine love of bas-relief explains to some extent their extreme devotion to the tondo, or circular shape, in paintings and in sculptures. According to Vasari, it was at this time that Michael Angelo carved two tondi: one for Bartolommeo Pitti, now in the Bargello at Florence, and the other for Taddeo Taddei, now at Burlington House, in the Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy, London. It was acquired by Sir George Beaumont, and is the most valuable work the Academy possesses. If it were in an out-of-the-way palace in Florence many of us would see it more frequently than we do now, although we have only to climb a few steps to visit this glorious work any day we are in Piccadilly. Both of these reliefs represent the Madonna and Child, with the child St. John. The one in the Bargello appears to be the earlier; the composition is very beautiful and simple, and fills the circular space admirably. The Madonna is seated facing the spectator, and looks out full towards him with an enigmatical expression on her proud features; the Child stands beside her, His elbow on her knee, as in the Bruges Madonna. The St. John is only roughly cut, but the movement and forms are so well realised under the marble that one does not wish for any further finish. In the Royal Academy tondo the Madonna is seated more to the side of the circle, and is in profile; the Child reclines upon her knee, clinging to her arm, startled but interested by the little bird St. John has brought to show Him (a favourite motive with Italian artists). The head and shoulders of the Madonna and the torso of the Child Jesus are the only parts that are near completion, yet the whole group is so much there that we do not ask for another touch; in fact, the works of Michael Angelo were finished from the very first strokes. The rough charcoal drawing upon the block of marble, could we see it, would have been complete to us, only Michael Angelo could add anything to it; and so it is with every fragment of stone or other piece of work by his hand, from the lightest charcoal drawing to the great marble fragments in the grotto of the Boboli Gardens. They are complete to us; the thing he thought is there, and the art is there, and we are satisfied.

[Image #9]

THE HOLY FAMILY

THE UFFIZI, FLORENCE (Reproduced by permission from a photograph by Sig. D. Anderson, Rome)

Another tondo executed about this time is the painting now in the Uffizi, the only easel picture known with certainty to be by the hand of Michael Angelo. This Holy Family, with naked shepherds in the background, was painted for Angelo Doni, the same man whose portrait was painted by Raphael. Vasari says that Michael Angelo asked seventy ducats for the work, but that Doni only offered forty when the picture was delivered. Michael Angelo sent word that he must pay a hundred or send back the picture. Doni offered the original seventy; but Michael Angelo replied that if he was bent on bargaining, he should not pay less than one hundred and forty. In this composition the Madonna is seated upon the ground, forming a pyramid, of which the heads of Joseph and the Child form the apex; her lithe and strong form has a Greek loveliness as she turns quickly and receives the beautiful Child on to her shoulder from the arms of Joseph. Never in any painting have the drawing and modelling of the human figure been so perfectly executed as in the figure of this Child and the arms of the Madonna; the hands and feet are modelled with the delicacy of a Flemish miniature, and at the same time have a beauty and suavity of modelling and a magnificent choice of line altogether Italian. On either side of the central triangle the spaces between it and the circumference of the tondo are filled by the introduction of the infant St. John and some nude shepherds; the landscape background is austere as the mountain tops of some primeval world where such titanic beings as these of Michael Angelo's alone could dwell. The old painters loved to decorate their Madonna pictures with all the most beautiful things they could think of, or most loved. The Florentines with fair and pleasant gardens; the Umbrians with spacious colonnades, distant landscapes, and rare skies; the Venetians with fruits and garlands of foliage and fruit, and even vegetables, if they had a particular regard for them, as Crivelli had for the cucumber. One painter only before this time decorated his pictures with nude human figures, Luca Signorelli. Michael Angelo may have seen a Madonna of his, with two nude figures in the background, executed for Lorenzo de' Medici, and now hung in the Gallery of the Uffizi. Michael Angelo, who knew the beauty of the human form better than any one, would never be content to decorate his tondo with any less beautiful offering after seeing this picture by Signorelli. The tondo form was a favourite one with Signorelli. His two pictures of this shape in Florence perhaps helped Michael Angelo in the three compositions we have been considering; and this is the only debt Michael Angelo owes to the Umbrian painter. Their way of looking at the nude and their ideals of its beauty are so absolutely different, the one from the other, that possibly the Florentine could hardly bear to look at the work of the Umbrian.