Michael Angelo Buonarroti Part 15

Messer Tomaso feared the drawings would be damaged in the workshop of the gem engraver. There are several of these drawings in existence in good condition, with no marks of the thumbs of workmen about them.

From the letters referring to the last contract about the Tomb of Julius, we learn that the frescoes in the Cappella Paolina were not begun in October 1542. Michael Angelo worked at them with slight interruptions for seven years; they represent the Conversion of Saint Paul and the Martyrdom of Saint Peter. They are very highly finished in execution and studied in grace of composition, but frigid, and too evidently the work of an old man. The skill of the drawing and foreshortening is masterly as ever, but he does not appear to have referred to nature for the forms; and even Michael Angelo without nature became stale. Vasari says, after describing the frescoes without his customary enthusiasm, "They were his last productions in painting. He was seventy-five years old when he carried them to completion; and, as he informed me, he did so with great effort and fatigue-painting, after a certain age, and especially fresco painting, not being in truth fit work for old men."

In the spring of 1546 Francis I. of France wrote to Michael Angelo asking for some fine monument by his hand, and copies of the Pieta della Febbre, now in St. Peter's, and of the Christ holding the Cross, in Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, for his chapel. A draft of Michael Angelo's reply runs:-

[Image #47]

THE CONVERSION OF SAINT PAUL

THE CHAPEL OF POPE PAUL (_By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence_)

_To the most Christian King of France._(157)

"SACRED MAJESTY,-I do not know which is the greater, the grace or the wonder at it, that your Majesty should have deigned to write to a man like me, and still more to ask him for things of his, unworthy even of the name of your Majesty; but, whatever they are, let your Majesty understand that for a long time I have desired to serve you in them; but, not having had the opportunity, because you have not been in Italy where my work is, I have not been able to do it. Now I am old, and have been occupied these many months with the work for Pope Paul. But if a little life is still left me after all these occupations, what I have desired is, as I have said, a little time to work for your Majesty at my art-one work to be in marble, one in bronze, and one in painting. And if death hinders me from carrying out my wish, and if it be possible to carve statues or to paint in the other life, I shall not fail to do so there, where there is no more growing old. And I pray G.o.d that He grant your Majesty a long and happy life.

"From Rome, the day XXVI. of April, MDXLVI."

In the letters and poems of this period we note the endeavour to attain to a style in literature full of rich conceits and elaborate compliment, which may be compared to the style, elaborate and ornamental, but somewhat cold and unattractive, of the frescoes in the Cappella Paolina. As he grew older he devoted himself more entirely to architecture and literature. The arts of sculpture and painting, as exercised by him, could not be carried on by a.s.sistants; he now perforce had to employ himself upon work in which the execution could be left to younger hands. He sought the help of scholars to overhaul and set to rights his poems, sonnets, and thoughts in words, as the masons and master-builders expressed his thoughts in architecture-the Dome of St. Peter's, and the cornice of the Farnese Palace. In the devotional drawings we have mentioned, and an unfinished group in sculpture, the Deposition from the Cross, now behind the High Altar of Santa Maria del Fiore at Florence, we have the only further manifestation of Michael Angelo's genius in his favourite arts. Many of these drawings appear to be designs for a great picture of the Crucifixion. He went on executing them long after the death of the Marchioness of Pescara, who first seems to have incited him to this work.

It almost appears to have become a religious exercise with him; they have the same meaning as these last lines of a Sonnet.

Ne pinger ne scolpir fia piu che quieti L' anima volta a quell' Amor divino Ch' aperse, a prender noi, in croce le braccia.

Painting nor sculpture now can lull to rest My soul, that turns to His great love on high, Whose arms to clasp us on the Cross were spread.(158)

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THE PIETa OF SANTA MARIA DEL FIORE

FLORENCE (_By permission of the Fratelli Alinari Florence_)

The marble group of the Deposition is so religious in character that it can be compared with no work of art executed since Michael Angelo's own early work the Pieta, in St. Peter's, the Madonna della Febbre. Both for its earnestness and its n.o.ble religious sentiment it is an act of worship to look at it, and the days and nights spent in its execution must have been periods of the heartiest religious devotion and sorrowing love. The old sculptor intended this work to have been his monument. The unfinished head of Nicodemus, who sustains the body of his dear Lord, is his own portrait, and, unfinished as it is, expresses the deepest devotion and sadness. Vasari saw this work in progress, and gives us a glimpse into the home-life of the aged worker, who was never content out of his workshop, and spent his sleepless nights working at this huge marble with a paper cap on his head, in which he stuck a lighted candle to see by. The solitary figure of the old man in the vast and dimly lighted studio, groping round the inchoate marble; the stillness of the night, broken only by the sharp click of the mallet and the grating of the chisel, is a picture of many of the bravest hours of his old age. Vasari, observing all this, and wishing to do the revered artist a kindness, sent him 40 lbs. of candles made of goat's fat, knowing that they gutter less than ordinary dips of tallow. His servant carried them politely to the house two hours after night-fall, and presented them to Michael Angelo. He refused, and said he did not want them. The man answered: "Sir, they have almost broken my back carrying them all this long way from the bridge, and I will not carry them home again. There is a heap of mud opposite your door, thick and firm enough to hold them upright. Here then will I set them all up, and light them." When Michael Angelo heard this he gave way: "Lay them down; I do not mean you to play pranks at my house door." Vasari tells another anecdote about the Deposition. Pope Julius III. sent him late one evening to Michael Angelo's house for a certain drawing. The aged master came down with a lantern, and, hearing what was wanted, told Urbino to look for the design. Meanwhile, Vasari turned his attention to one of the legs of the Christ, which Michael Angelo had been altering. In order to prevent his seeing it Michael Angelo let the light fall, and they remained in darkness. He then called for another light, and stepped forth from the screen of planks behind which he worked, saying: "I am so old that oftentimes Death plucks me by the cape to go with him, and one day this body of mine will fall like the lantern, and the light of life will be put out."

"If life gives us pleasure we ought not to expect displeasure from death, seeing it is made by the hand of the same master," was a favourite reflection of Michael Angelo's upon mortality. This Deposition was never completed, flaws appeared in the marble, and perhaps whilst working in the imperfect light Michael Angelo's impatient chisel cut too deep. He began to break up the work, but luckily his servant Antonio, successor to Urbino, begged the fragments from his master. Frances...o...b..ndini, a Florentine exile settled in Rome, wished for a work by the master, and, with Michael Angelo's consent, bought it from Antonio for two hundred crowns. It was patched up, but apparently not worked upon, and remained in the garden of Bandini's heir at Monte Cavallo. It was afterwards taken to Florence and was finally placed in the Duomo in 1722 by the Grand Duke Cosimo III., where it may now be seen behind the high altar, well-placed, so that the great cross of the altar looks like the tree from which the body has just been lowered. So well does the line of the cross behind cut the group that we cannot help imagining that the artist intended some such erection to have been placed behind his figures. Those who would see this group aright must visit the Duomo before seven o'clock on a summer morning, when the light of the sun falls, though the white robe of a bishop in one of the high eastern windows, upon the neighbouring pillars and the floor, and lights up that end of the church; at other times the darkness of the dome covers the group as the darkness covered the earth during the tragic hours at Golgotha.

The right arm of the Christ has become over polished and much worn because it is used as a bal.u.s.trade by the acolytes, who carelessly run up and down the steps between the group and the back of the high altar to light the candles during service. On the other side a rough metal handle has positively been let into the left side of the Joseph of Arimathea, so that a clumsy boy may climb the more easily; wooden steps also fit so closely to the marble that they injure the lines of the group. All the characteristics of Michael Angelo's impa.s.sioned period may be studied in this group; his favourite mannerisms are there also. Examine the hand of Joseph, with the middle finger touching the thumb, and compare it with the allegorical statues of the Medici Chapel. Vasari tells us that Michael Angelo began another Pieta on a smaller scale; this may be the beautiful group that has been spoiled by an alteration, now in the courtyard of the Palazzo Rondini, No. 418, the Corso, Rome. There is a cast of it in the Belle Arti at Florence. The hanging limbs of the Christ have a most pathetic effect, and so has the whole expression of the group. The effect is obtained by the length of the princ.i.p.al lines.

There is a medallion of the Madonna clasping her dead son at the Albergo dei Poveri, at Genoa, attributed to Michael Angelo; it may have been begun by him during this long period of old age, but it cannot be called his work. It has been entirely recarved by an imitator.

Michael Angelo made his famous report condemning the design of Antonio da Sangallo for the rebuilding of the Farnese palace upon the sh.o.r.es of the Tiber; it is a mysterious doc.u.ment, in Michael Angelo's own hand, and does not leave Sangallo a single merit. All the theories are proved by the precepts of Vitruvius. The adherents of Sangallo resented it very naturally, and the "Setta Sangallesca" became his bitter enemies. The Pope himself was dissatisfied with Sangallo, and the design for the cornice was thrown open to compet.i.tion. Perino del Vaga, Sebastiano del Piombo, Giorgio Vasari, and Michael Angelo all competed. Michael Angelo's design was eventually carried out after he had placed a wooden model of part of his cornice in position. Vasari, who is the best authority upon this period of the life of Michael Angelo, attributes to him also the exterior of the palace from the second story upwards, and the whole of the central courtyard above the first story, "making it the finest thing of its sort in Europe." Michael Angelo had also a serious disagreement with Sangallo before the military committee fortifying the Borgo for the Pope.

When Antonio da Sangallo died at Terni on October 3, 1546, Michael Angelo succeeded to his post in Rome, architect-in-general to the Pope, the princ.i.p.al work was, of course, the great Church of St. Peter's. Bramante, Raphael, and Peruzzi had all been architects-in-chief, and many were the alterations in the plans. Notwithstanding their differences during his early life, the design of Bramante was the one that commended itself to Michael Angelo; he abandoned Sangallo's design; the model for it still exists and we cannot wonder at Michael Angelo's decision. His criticisms are given in a letter supposed to be to Bartolomeo Amanati.(159) "It cannot be denied that Bramante was a brave architect, equal to any one from the times of the ancients until now. He laid the first plan of Saint Peter's, not confused, but clear and simple, full of light and detached from surrounding buildings, so as not to injure any part of the palace. It was considered a fine thing, and, indeed, it is still manifest that it was so; and all the architects who have departed from the plan of Bramante, as Sangallo has done, have departed from the truth. And so it is, and all who have not prejudiced eyes can see it in his model. He, with his outer circle of chapels, in the first place takes all the light from the plan of Bramante; and not only this, but he has not provided any other means of lighting, and there are so many lurking places, both above and below, all dark, which would be very convenient for innumerable knaveries, a secure hiding-place for bandits, false coiners, and all sorts of ribaldry, and when it was shut up at night twenty-five men would be needed to clear the building of those in hiding there, and it would be difficult enough to find them. There is yet another inconvenience: the circle of buildings with their adjuncts outside added to Bramante's plan would make it necessary to pull down to the ground the Capella Paolina, the offices of the Piombo and the Ruota, and more besides; nay, even the Sistine Chapel would, I believe, not escape." May it not have been that this malicious arrangement of Sangailo's to destroy Michael Angelo's masterpieces made the great artist so bitter against him.

Paul III. conferred the post of architect-in-chief at St. Peter's upon Michael Angelo on January 1, 1547, "commissary, prefect, surveyor of the works, and architect, with full authority to change the model, form, and structure of the church at pleasure, and to dismiss and remove the workmen and foremen employed upon the same." For all this work Michael Angelo refused payment, declaring that he meant to labour, without recompense, for the love of G.o.d and the reverence he felt for the Prince of the Apostles. Speaking broadly, the former architects had designed ground plans of St. Peter's on two lines, the Greek and the Latin crosses.

Bramante, and Balda.s.sare Peruzzi used the Greek cross; Raphael, the Basilica form, the addition of a long nave made the plan like a Latin cross; and Sangallo, by adding a huge portico to Peruzzi's design, made his ground plan a Latin cross. Michael Angelo followed the lines of Bramante, the Greek cross, designed so that the cupola should be the dominant note of the building and its princ.i.p.al feature, whether from within or without, and from whichever side the building was approached.

Michael Angelo's intention may be realised at the back of the present building, and his work best judged as one walks round the great ma.s.s of masonry to the old entrance to the Sculpture Galleries of the Vatican.

Those who approach Rome in the best way at present open to the newcomer, by the light railway line from Viterbo, get a magnificent view of the cupola, apparently rising out of a green hillside, just before they enter the Eternal City, and then, on their way to the Trastevere station, they pa.s.s behind the building and get their first impression of St. Peter's from Michael Angelo's own work.(160)

Michael Angelo began his work by pulling down much of Sangallo's construction, and by severely repressing all sorts of jobbery in connection with the supply of materials.

Michael Angelo states in a letter to Cardinal Ridolfo Pio of Carpi,(161) that the study of the nude human figure is necessary to an architect. If he had also stated that it was an essential to all art workers, many good judges would have agreed with him.

"MOST REVEREND MONSIGNOR,-When a plan has divers parts all those which are of one type in quality and quant.i.ty have to be decorated in the same fashion and in the same style, and similarly their counterparts. But when the plan changes form altogether it is not only allowable but necessary to change the said adornments and likewise their counterparts. The intermediate parts are always as free as you like, just as the nose, which stands in the middle of the face, is not obliged to correspond with either of the eyes; but one hand is obliged to be like the other, and one eye must be as its fellow, because they balance each other. Therefore it is very certain that the members of architecture depend upon the members of man. Who has not been, or is not a good master of the figure, and especially of anatomy, cannot understand it.

"MICHAEL ANGELO BUONARROTI."

Vasari tells us "that the Pope approved of Michael Angelo's model, which reduced the cathedral to smaller dimensions, but also to a more essential greatness. He discovered that four of the princ.i.p.al piers, erected by Bramante and left standing by Antonio da Sangallo, which had to bear the weight of the tribune, were feeble. These he fortified in part, constructing a winding staircase at the side with gently sloping steps, up which beasts of burden ascend with building material, and one can ride on horseback to the level above the arches. He carried the first cornice, made of travertine, round the arches-a wonderful piece of work, full of grace, and very different from the others. Nor could anything be better done in its kind. He began the two great apses of the transept; and whereas Bramante, Raffaello, and Peruzzi had designed eight tabernacles toward the Campo Santo, which arrangement Sangallo adhered to, he reduced them to three, with three chapels inside."

The sect of Sangallo, headed by Nanni di Baccio Bigio, continued to annoy and conspire against the aged architect, and though Michael Angelo brought their machinations to the notice of the Superintendent of the Fabric in 1547,(162) he could not get his chief enemy dismissed.

The master's good friend, Pope Paul III., died in 1549. Michael Angelo wrote of him to his nephew(163): "It is true that I have suffered great sorrow and not less loss by the Pope's death, because I have received benefits from his Holiness, and hoped for even more. G.o.d's will be done.

We must have patience. His death was beautiful, fully conscious to the last word. G.o.d have mercy on his soul." His successor, Julius III., was also friendly to Michael Angelo, who spoke of him in a letter to his old friend, Giovan Francesco Fattucci, at Florence.(164)

"_To_ MESSER GIOVAN FRANCESCO FATTUCCI, _priest of Santa Maria del Fiore, My most dear friend at Florence._

"MESSER GIOVAN FRANCESCO,-Dear friend, although for many months we have not written to each other, yet I have not forgotten our long and faithful friendship, and wish you well, as I have always done, and love you with all my heart and more, for the endless kindnesses I have received. As regards old age, which is upon us both alike, I should much like to know how yours treats you, for mine does not content me greatly, so I beg you will write something to me. You know how that we have a new Pope, and who he is. All Rome rejoices, thanks be to G.o.d, and expects nothing but the greatest benefit to all, especially to the poor, on account of his liberality...."

Efforts were made to dislodge Michael Angelo from his post of architect to St. Peter's. A memorial of grievances(165) was drawn up by the Superintendent and set before the Pope, stating that Michael Angelo was "carrying on with a high hand, and letting them know nothing of the work, so that they do not like his ways, especially in what he keeps pulling down. The demolition has been, and to-day is, so great that all who witness it are moved to pity." Michael Angelo evidently satisfied the Pope, for he was confirmed in his office with even greater powers than before.

Another plot ripened in 1557, and is excellently described by Vasari:-

"It was some little while before the beginning of 1551, when Vasari, on his return from Florence to Rome, found the sect of Sangallo plotting against Michael Angelo. They induced the Pope to hold a meeting in Saint Peter's, where all the overseers and workmen connected with the building should attend, and his Holiness should be persuaded by false insinuations that Michael Angelo had spoiled the fabric. He had already walled in the apse of the King where the three chapels are, and carried out the three upper windows. But it was not known what he meant to do with the vault. They then, misled by their shallow judgment, made Cardinal Salviati, the elder, and Marcello Cervini, who was afterwards Pope, believe that Saint Peter's would be badly lighted. When all were a.s.sembled the Pope told Michael Angelo that the deputies were of opinion the apse would have but little light. He answered, 'I should like to hear these deputies speak.' The Cardinal Marcello rejoined: 'We are here.' Michael Angelo then remarked: 'My lord, above these three windows there will be other three in the vault, which is to be built of travertine.' 'You never told us anything about this,' said the Cardinal. Michael Angelo responded: 'I am not, nor do I mean to be, obliged to tell your lordships, or anybody else, what I ought or wish to do. It is your business to provide the money, and to see that it is not stolen. As regards the plans of the building, you have to leave them to me.' Then he turned to the Pope and said: 'Holy Father, behold what gains are mine! Unless the hardships I endure are beneficial to my soul, I lose my time and my labour.' The Pope, who loved him, laid his hands upon his shoulders and said: 'You are gaining both for soul and body; have no fear!' Michael Angelo's self-defence increased the Pope's love, and he ordered him to repair next day with Vasari to the Vigna Giulia, where they held long discourses upon matters of art."

Vasari also tells us of the transfer of a piece of engineering work from Michael Angelo to his enemy-if such a small man deserves to be called the enemy of Michael Angelo-Nanni di Baccio Bigio. The old bridge of Santa Maria had long shown signs of giving way, and it had to be rebuilt. Paul III. entrusted the work to Michael Angelo. Nanni got it transferred to him by the influence of his friends with the new Pope. The man laid his foundations badly. Michael Angelo, riding over the new bridge one day with Vasari, cried out: "Giorgio, the bridge shakes beneath us; let us spur on before it gives way with us upon it." Ultimately the prophecy was fulfilled, and the bridge fell during a great inundation. Its ruins are known as the Ponte Rotto to this day.

Julius III. died in 1555, and Cardinal Marcello Cervini was elected in his stead, under the t.i.tle of Marcellus II. He had been Michael Angelo's adversary at the great conference, so the hopes of the Setti Sangalleschi revived, and Michael Angelo began to think of accepting the oft-repeated invitations of the Duke of Tuscany, who had long pressed him to come and reside again in Florence, and dignify his native city with his presence during his remaining years; but Marcellus died after a reign of only a few weeks, and Pius IV., the next Pope, persuaded Michael Angelo not to forsake his work at Saint Peter's. In a letter to Vasari, intended for the ears of the Duke, Michael Angelo states his mind.(166)

"_To_ MESSER GIORGIO, _Excellent Painter, in Florence._