Michael Angelo Buonarroti Part 3

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 h.o.a.rd 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 friends.h.i.+p 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, wis.h.i.+ng 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 n.o.bility, 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 ma.s.s 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 pa.s.sing 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 circ.u.mference 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 h.o.m.o 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 surpa.s.sed 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 fas.h.i.+on; 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 compet.i.tors 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 s.p.a.ces 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 s.p.a.ces 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 hors.e.m.e.n 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 Ma.s.silio 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 h.e.l.lenistic 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